Another big day down at the workshop. First order of business buy a new trolley jack on the way there.
Then I jacked the front of the car as seen below. I also installed a pair of stands, one one each of the main bolts that hold the suspension together (they are 20mm think and run through the wishbones_ so really strong. I also then placed a pair of ramps under the front wheels, locked off this blocks so the car cant roll back. I also locked off the jack itself and put the hand brake on.
This may sound like overkill but it's a one man band at the workshop so safety first with lots of redundancy.
Next order of business to gain better access. So I cut away the exhaust at the point where they turn 90 degrees from almost vertical to run along under the car.
On to the growing pile of things I've pulled from the car.
The drive shaft took me hours to remove as all of the bolts were super tight and seized. After what seemed like an age I managed to remove the 5 bolts that connect the drive shaft, they also run through the large rubber mount between shaft and the gear box. Given the gear box is stuck in gear this was a real pain in the butt as one of the bolts was pretty much at top dead centre so almost impossible to get at.
I then dropped the shaft mounts that fix to the car near where the shat splits in two. This was the easy bits. The shat then required a lot of jiggling to get it to a point where it has clearance to swing clear of the back of the gear box. There was quite a bit of swearing and WD40 applied at this point. Both seemed to work well.
After that I disengaged the arm for the clutch plate - the locating clip was practically only rust so at least that was easy.
Now I had access to the 4 main nuts that hold the box to the back of the bell housing. I'd looked at trying to remove with the bell housing still attached but there's no way I can get access to the top to bolts without removing the head. I think
@Markos mentioned this last week. I also then dropped away the little supporting plate that mounts the box to the car.
After some jiggling the box started to move backwards, but then another hitch. As the box is stuck in second gear the lever is pointing toward the back of the car so there wasn't enough clearance for the box to come back far enough for the gear shaft to clear the bell housing. After stuffing around with this for an hour unable to find a solution I gave in and cut a notch in the tunnel to allow it to slide further back and down.
The shaft then just slid out of the bell housing and was lowered on a jack and onto the pile.
This picture gives you an idea of where to cut the exhaust to give you clearance. There was no way on earth the bolts were going to crack so the only option.
One big job down 5000 to go
Am I right in thinking that now there are only the 2 x engine mounts holding the motor in the car? I've a memory that there is some issue with the steering and engine removal?
Ideas?
Unlike the YouTube clip this took me all day but very satisfied with the result.