Today we pulled the gas engine out of the car.

As soon as I walked into work I got a call from my wife saying that my old man had some time in the shop today where we could get the motor pulled out. I was a bit worried I wouldn’t be able to make it to the shop since I was scheduled to work the entire afternoon/evening. Luckily, I work for a great company that allowed me to take a few hours off to go and get the work done.

The work actually moved along very smoothly. We started by removing the hood so we would be able to lift the engine. From there we disconnected all of the heater/coolant hoses from the engine. Once that was done, we disconnected all of the electrical connections to the engine. I was supervised how many different areas the main wiring harness connected to the engine. We then removed odds and ends that were still connected to the engine block.

Once everything that connected to the engine was disconnected, we worked on loosening the bolts that attach the motor to the transmission. Again, this went rather smoothly. There were 6 large bolts that actually held the engine to the transmission, and there were 3 smaller bolts that held a thin plate to the transmission. One more bolt was removed from a motor mount on the passenger side of the engine compartment.

We then moved the engine hoist into place and attached it to the engine. (Always be sure to check for brackets on the top of the engine block that are used to lift the motor, don’t just wrap the chains around the block.) The first, second, third and fourth attempts at lifting the engine were unsuccessful. There is very little space to maneuver the engine out. We had to remove the bolts from the bracket that supports the transmission so we could push the transmission far enough out of the way to lift the engine. Somewhere between the fifth and eighth attempt at lifting the motor it finally came out.

We removed the clutch so I could get to the clutch plate/pressure plate. I need to send this to Wilderness EV so they can fabricate a shaft coupler for me.

Next on the list is cleaning the engine compartment and doing some body work. There are a thousand things on the list but I think we’ll end up there next.