Day Four - 12/05/2012
Today is engine out day!
Engine crane came back yesterday and so today I cracked on with getting the M20 out. Before I could haul it out I needed to disconnect a couple of last bits, no big deal really. Exhaust needed disconnecting as did the prop shaft and obviously engine and gearbox mounts, also not forgetting the gear knob and gator.
I decided to do the exhaust first as, well, why not really, so space was required under the car (I'm a small bloke, but not small enough to just crawl under it without it on stands.
Nose air.
Mostly tidy.
I fired some spray grease (couldn't find the penetrating fluid, does basically the same anyway) onto the downpipe / manifold nuts to aid in releasing them as I didn't reallt fancy snapping or rounding any of them. As the car was garaged a lot of it's life the nuts were actually very good only minor surface rust. I've delt with newer cars that were much worse and resulted in much swearing, not today.
No photos of the downpipe undone but once I disconncted that I then dropped the exhaust at the gearbox, start at one end, work to the other.
Exhaust & gearbox.
Finally for the exhaust it was the rear box. I dislike the mounting system for this, not for any real reason other than I couldn't just unhook the mounts, I had to remove the straps on the box itself, drop it to the floor then I could unhook the mounts. Annoying and took me a while to work this out but it did the job. I also couldn't be bothered to jack the rear end in hindsight it may have been easier to bring it up remove the wheel and unhook the mounts from there.
Backbox dropped.
Full exhaust system off.
Getting some fresh air.
With that out of the way I then removed the gear knob and gaitor before I forgot about them, again, no pics I'm sure you can work out what went on there.
I then disconnected the prop shaft from the gearbox. To do this I needed to bring the rear end into the air because there are 3 bolts securing the prop onto the gearbox and you need to rotate the prop to get access, which obviously means the rear wheels need to turn. Having done this before on the E36 328i I knew that it wouldn't be a difficult task, I did however forget that space/access is a pain. On the E30 325i the securing three bolts are 17mm on the bolt head and nut. There are also three other 17mm nuts but these secure the donut to the prop and do not need removing, you also can't see the bolt heads on these because they are cast into the donut. To undo the nuts/bolts you need two 17mm open ended spanners and a fair bit of strength. One spanner needs to be slid up to the nut between the gearbox and gearbox mount, the other wants to be on the prop side of the mount. Once they are securely located on the bolt (and nut) you can then push them in opposite directions to crack them off. Once you've cracked off one nut, rotate the prop and then you can do the next one. I'd advise cracking them all off before you fully undo any of them, it makes things simpler if anything shifts about. Once undone the nuts will lilely drop out but the bolts won't, you'll need to pull them out from the donut.
All done, prop is disconnected (well, as far as is possible with the engine and gearbox still mounted).
The reason I've just explained how to remove the prop? None especially but I forgot to take pictures of the area/process so figured I'd treat you all to a big wordy section instead.
I also took the opportunity of being under the gearbox to remove the nuts on the rummber mounts, but
not the main mount bolts, this was to free up the gearbox for my next step (and to hopefully avoid having to remove the gearbox mounting frame.
I got the crane out and attached it to the engine, disconnected the engine mounts, main nuts onto the subframe followed by the mounting arm bolts on the block. This was a very silly idea. I had attached the crane, brought it up a bit to avoid the engine dropping onto the subframe or steering rack and ended up bending the front crane mount on the engine. I then had to carefully lower it back down onto the subframe and attach the levelling bar because it is spaced correctly for engines (well, a lot better than an A shaped pull) and allows for adjusting which end is higher which the E30 needs.
Correctly attached crane.
Engine starting to move.
Due to the design of the E30 you can't just hoist the engine a little and then pull it out, unlike the E36.
E36 front end.
E30 front end.
This means you need to hoist the engine at an angle so that the front of the engine is massivly higher than the gearbox. Once I'd securely attached the crane and raised it a little, I pulled the engine and gearbox forwards but couldn't go to far as the gearbox was hitting the gearbox mount frame. So I removed the gearbox mount frame (I'd also dropped the car back onto it's wheels prior to this so access to the frame was...interesting). Once I'd removed that the gearbox was able to drop down freely (did so whilst I was removing the frame, but as I'd raised the engine and gearbox I was unable to crush my hands, which was nice.
I was then able to raise the engine hight more and being properly pulling it out of the engine bay. I needed to do a fair amount of adjusting on the leveller to get the right angle though.
Engine getting free.
I found out that due to the garage door, I was unable to raise the crane to the full height that I wanted to get the engine to clear the chassis. This wasn't the most helpful of discoveries mid removal of the engine. I managed to move the engine about though and use the leveller to overcome the lack of ceiling height.
Further out.
High angle.
Sump clear.
Little close!
Free!
Right, well, that was the engine up and level, getting it out of the engine bay and onto the floor without damaging the car was another task altogether! Due to the amount of space I had above the crane and due to the design of the crane I had a huge amount of fun (not fun!) manouvering the crane and engine about until it was free and clear of the car. In an much longer garage I'd have been able to just walk backwards from the car with the engine, but I didn't have the space. Still, did it without damaging anything.
And relax!
Empty!
http://finaldecap.co.uk/images/E30Resto/DayFour/DSCN0342.jpg[/img
Gearbox mounts.
[img]http://finaldecap.co.uk/images/E30Resto/DayFour/DSCN0343.jpg
Gunky mounts!
It was a bit grim around the gearbox mounting area, I'm thinking some oil has gone down there over time, hopefully not from the gearbox as I'm thinking I'll be using it again. It is looking like the gunk was spread there from the engine though as on the driver side of the subframe it looks like this:
Grimey frame.
But on the passenger side it looks like this:
Clean frame.
Which does suggest that oil leaked out at some stage in the the engine's life. Also noticed that the engine had been reaching some high temps (or just the car's general age showing) as the sound deadening/fire proofing just before the gearbox/prop tunnel is falling away.
Gear tunnel.
Next thing to do was to split the engine & gearbox because the 'box should be fine even though the engine isn't. Simple case of 14T and 12T bolts on the bell housing then grab, wiggle, pull and they come apart.
Split engine & 'box.
Gearbox & clutch.
Got stilts?!
Engine & Clutch.
Gearbox is now in the storage area with the rest of the parts I've removed as I'm likely to use that again or sell it on.
Time for the head to come off. Popped the rocker cover off, undid the head bolts, started to pull the head off the block and burst out laughing and nearly dropped the head, you'll see why in a bit.
Head. Valves on No.4, No.5 & No.6.
Head. Valves on No.3, No.4, No.5 & No.6.
Head. Valves on No.1, No.2, No.3 & No.4.
Head. Valves on No.1 & No.2.
Ok, it doesn't take a genius to work out that No.2 isn't right (especially combined with the fact it was the rocker on No.2 that snapped, but this isn't what made me laugh.
Here is what made me laugh.
Block.
Ok you can't fully see what is wrong here really, have some close up shots.
Block. No.6, No.5 & No.4.
Block. No.5, No.4, No.3 & No.2.
Ok, No.2 doens't look right...
Block. No.2 & No.1.
Holey (see the pun) hell that is not right. This is what made me laugh, the amount of damage done to No.2, this engine is toast.
Block. No.4, No.3, No.2 & No.1.
Block. No.3, No.2 & No.1.
Block. No.3 & No.2.
And that is basically all that I've done today. not much I know. Still, I did it all single handed, usually I have someone about to help with engine removals but not today, did it all on my own.
The engine is certainly toast and I will not be putting it back into the car. Rebuilding it would cost more than buying a known good/decent engine. This now fully gives me freedom to research engine options. Before I was partly thinking about options but mostly thinking of rebuilding it as it may have been a small problem, it isn't and so won't be used. I'll probably strip down the engine fully though to see if there is more damage and any salvegable parts.
I'm swaying towards just getting another M20 and sticking it in as the amount of hassle involved is next to none and would have the car running again very quickly. I also then have loads of spares should I need to do anything on the replacement or should anything be missing.
