Remove engine

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Discussion

fred bloggs

Original Poster:

1,354 posts

207 months

Monday 24th June
quotequote all
So after 140000 miles of abuse my LS1 is smoking, and yes it is rings.

It’s nearly out , does any one know if it can come off the t56 gearbox without moving the steering rack.
Reason I ask is I have proflow headers making removing the rack painful, and I’d ideally want to leave the box in the car as I’m doing it on my own.


Edited by fred bloggs on Monday 24th June 18:07

vxr2010

2,597 posts

166 months

Monday 24th June
quotequote all
Looking at just commoderes.com , engine removal says hardest part was getting the gearbox over the rack and pipes , so in theory if no box is coming out it should be good , what area are you in , in case we are nearish , for a hand , I am in herts

SturdyHSV

10,224 posts

174 months

Tuesday 25th June
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It's going to be awkward. If it's not come apart before, the bell housing will be really, really keen to stay attached to the two dowels in the block, I had a reasonable amount of fun getting mine apart (69,500 miles) and that was out of the car.

Are the headers that awkward? When I've taken mine out or done various other things, it's just undo the bolt on the column, tap that apart, 2 bolts for the rack and it drops back out of the way scratchchin

I've always just left the gearbox attached and pulled the whole lot out, it's not difficult getting it out over the subframe really, there's a decent amount of upward room, you'll need to be able to tilt it a lot though.

First time around I took the heads off as I'd never done anything of such magnitude before, gives you a lot of room and easy to see what's going on.

If you do leave the gearbox attached, it will wet itself when tilted, so bag the end up ahead of time and probably have some gearbox oil on the shelf hehe

Quote from my build thread first time pulling the lot out. I had given up trying to split bell housing off the block. If you want some more context, it's in the thread, date is November 2020, so it's Page 3 if you use big boy pages of 80 posts per page.

SturdyHSV said:
Pulled the loom out the way, disconnected the rear transmission mount and decided I didn't fancy disconnecting the box, so time to go bold and just pull the whole lot out at once, there looked to be loads of room so...

Once it was convinced to come off the engine mounts (having no rear trans mount meant obviously it tipped back and the mounts were tight against the mount bolts)

Up a bit



Naturally the handle came off the leveller and the screw fell in the engine hehe



Bit more tilt to get the back of the block over the steering rack...



Really quite scary at this point... Crane won't roll any further back because it's against the garage wall, but fortunately I came up with a plan...



Bit of levelling and it rotated round out of the way



I should mention I put the bell housing bolts back in before starting this... hehe

Car now lowered back down onto its wheels out of the way, it got dark and cold by this point so I shall leave it precariously hanging until some daylight lets me roll the car out of the garage, have got a skip coming for some house related bits so it may be swinging there for a worrying week, will be checking for droop regularly hehe



Once the car is out of the way I shall lay the engine and box down on some tyres / wooden blocks and disconnect bits without having to bench press anything. Pleased to have made what feels like proper progress smile
Edited by SturdyHSV on Tuesday 25th June 12:51

fred bloggs

Original Poster:

1,354 posts

207 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
The box has been out before, probably twice. It had an ls7 clutch in it when I put in the twin plate.

Looks like I’ll just drop the rack.
The drivers side is a pig with the headers though.

robbyd

613 posts

182 months

Tuesday 25th June
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I got the engine out of my vt2 leaving the gearbox in place and not touching the rack. Even the bonnet stayed on...

fred bloggs

Original Poster:

1,354 posts

207 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
robbyd said:
I got the engine out of my vt2 leaving the gearbox in place and not touching the rack. Even the bonnet stayed on...
And back in ? It doesn’t look like there is room between the back of the sump and the rack.
Anyhow, I’ve dropped the rack this evening. Probably the most hateful job on my car with those headers.
Crank sensor is easy though, LOL

fred bloggs

Original Poster:

1,354 posts

207 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
vxr2010 said:
Looking at just commoderes.com , engine removal says hardest part was getting the gearbox over the rack and pipes , so in theory if no box is coming out it should be good , what area are you in , in case we are nearish , for a hand , I am in herts
I’m in north east Kent . It’ll come out ok now .
I have got myself a full rebuild kit with oversize pistons, just have to see if the block is not too ovaled for them ,
Otherwise it’s a summit racing forged lm7 which should outlive me !

L2VXR

994 posts

220 months

Wednesday 26th June
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After the few occasions I've removed/replaced my proflow headers this is the best solution I've found .
It's a 16mm injector socket from a set off ebay that I have ground out the center slot to accommodate the pipe diameter then with the aid of a couple of long extensions you can quite easily undo/tighten the pipes to the rack from the front of the car down by the AC compressor from the top side (may need to remove the battery but I can't recall) . Don't over tighten them though as they can crack and leak.




Edited by L2VXR on Wednesday 26th June 14:57

SturdyHSV

10,224 posts

174 months

Wednesday 26th June
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I made up braided AN lines for my PS when I moved it over to an electric pump. Made sure to put in a little slack so I could drop the rack without having worry about pulling on them too much.

Bit of an extreme solution though unless you also just want the lines to look nicer hehe

vxr2010

2,597 posts

166 months

Wednesday 26th June
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I'm surprised that it's actually worn , I thought a v8 would run for ages as less stress on the engine

robbyd

613 posts

182 months

Wednesday 26th June
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fred bloggs said:
And back in ? It doesn’t look like there is room between the back of the sump and the rack.
Anyhow, I’ve dropped the rack this evening. Probably the most hateful job on my car with those headers.
Crank sensor is easy though, LOL
Yes went back in the same - possibly took the bonnet off but think it stayed on... it was fiddly

fred bloggs

Original Poster:

1,354 posts

207 months

Sunday 30th June
quotequote all
vxr2010 said:
I'm surprised that it's actually worn , I thought a v8 would run for ages as less stress on the engine
140,000 miles, countless track days, open trumpets ect ect.
It’s due a refresh really.

Got it out ok with help from a mate, always good to have a spotter on hand. I did drop the rack as I’m going to put a Vband on the headers.






My twin plate is still in very good condition,considering it’s been in 5 years now !!
Not so good was two bell housing bolts missing at the top and two on the pass side loose, causing this



Guess that’s what happens when someone else works on your car . It was done way back when I had a standard intake manifold on there and probably the person couldn’t be bothered to get in there . It’ll be fine with new bolts.

Rear main seal leaking heavily.


Edited by fred bloggs on Sunday 30th June 18:56


Edited by fred bloggs on Sunday 30th June 18:57

SturdyHSV

10,224 posts

174 months

Monday 1st July
quotequote all
Guess that's a bit of a lucky find with the bellhousing bolts, as you say, when it's not you turning the spanners you never really know what's been done / or not!

Hope it all goes smoothly from here smile

fred bloggs

Original Poster:

1,354 posts

207 months

Thursday 4th July
quotequote all
2nd evening in a row and that basstard front pulley still isn’t off. I’ve broken two pullers now. It was almost glowing hot too.
I’ve had it off twice before and both times it was a pain.

I swear I’ll scrap the car or set it on fire if I have to remove it one more time .

fred bloggs

Original Poster:

1,354 posts

207 months

Monday 15th July
quotequote all
third puller broken now.





Anyone got any great ideas ? I think I’m going to have to cut it off

SturdyHSV

10,224 posts

174 months

Monday 15th July
quotequote all
It's not a very good idea, but... leave it on? Leave the front cover on the snout of the crank and carry on replacing bits as needed getmecoat

If you're 'just' doing rings, you could get away with leaving it in place really, obviously not ideal but...

fred bloggs

Original Poster:

1,354 posts

207 months

Monday 15th July
quotequote all
There’s no way to do what I want to do without removing it. Can’t remove oil pump without.
I have 0.020 thou over pistons and a full bearing set so need the crank out.
I have one other style puller to try and then the grinder comes out !!
I’d have to destroy the front cover as well, but they are available as well as a new dampener on rock auto .

stevieturbo

17,523 posts

254 months

Monday 15th July
quotequote all
Get or make a proper puller that pulls the pulley from behind.

Those ones that try and grip the belt grooves are no way the correct one for these pulleys.

vxr2010

2,597 posts

166 months

Tuesday 16th July
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The pulley I use is just a Halfords job , I have one here but I know you are not local , but euro car parts of Halfords or gsf should have a few in stock , mine grabs the outer pulley lip , with two arms , the grabbing arms are adjustable with a threaded bar , the just the standard big bolt in the middle

fred bloggs

Original Poster:

1,354 posts

207 months

Wednesday 17th July
quotequote all
stevieturbo said:
Get or make a proper puller that pulls the pulley from behind.

Those ones that try and grip the belt grooves are no way the correct one for these pulleys.
The pulley above is specifically for LS . I think the pulley or crank is galled up or something.