Day 3 - Engine swaps and toasters......
Ahh jeez what a day, between the crap weather, a broken bath, a crap engine crane, blowing the fuse for the whole house and a mad digging dog - its been a very very long day - but one thats overall gone very very well!After an early start at 8:15am i started to remove the hubs on the car and pop out the drive shafts. All was going fine, while the plumber came around to take a look at the damage i managed to do to the bath last night - i.e i split it :oops: its not like im fat and heavey i promise! anyway the plumber came around to sort that, and then my good mate Rich (spoon_civic on many of the forums) came over about 10am to give me a hand today.
So with the departure of the plumber - with much "ooohhh" and "tuting" about costs over this, that and the other (like i care i rent the place so i don't have to pick up the bill :P) we got back to the job at hand.
Our 1st job was to go and pick up a rather ancient 1950's engine crane, which ive used before to remove the ESi's engine with limited joy. So rich being a star drove me over and we fitting the stupidly big heavey structure into his boot (hes got a stripped out EK3 so it was an easy fit ;) )
Once back home, the fun and games began: hooking up the crane, unbolting the D13, all was going well - till the crane decided that it didnt want to lift any higher up and would never clear the slam pannel - so we had to come up with a new plan to get the engine free from its cage.
While alot of thinking and mulling it over happened, my parents decided to pop around to see how i was getting on - including bringing over my sisters Dog - joey!
To say hes hyperactive is an understatement - he proceeded to dig up most of the rear garden while we continued on with the car.
Meanwhile in the Gee cave...... We had dropped the engine onto a little "trolly" thing my dad brought over, and then proceeded to lift the front end of the car up with the crane about 3ft in the air (supported with axle stands), then "sliding" the engine out from underneath - dont it just sound so easy? While my mum was in the kitchen provinding plenty of cups of tea, slices of toast and finding out that i had tripped the breaker for the house earlier in the day when she found the toaster wouldnt work lol!
So with rich doing all the lifting ;)
The engine was out in about 3-4hrs fromt start to finish with the delay, and messing around trying to get the shift linkage pin out (we left it in, in the end).
4pm soon came, we had got much achived for the day, and rich needed to be heading home, as did my parents as they had to take joey to my sisters.
But it was still early and i didn't wanna loose the momentum of the day so i carried on. Removing the front hubs, and front brake pipework, then removing the steering rack and front cross member - but i didnt stop, i started working front to back removing all the bolts that hold the fuel/rear brake lines to the car, and unbolting every nut or bolt that needs to come free inorder for me to remove the fuel lines, rear brake lines, the fuel tank and even the rear hubs/suspension - Happy - oh you bet iam :D
Ready for a clean up now:
I also removed the front radiator/air con stands - as ive said before im fitting my full width teg rediator so they needed remvoing to make way for it - i also got to release some pent up anger lol! they just need sanding down with the dremel-a-tron!
At this point i feel im a fair bit ahead of schedule - but tomorrow i wont get much time to work on the car as ive gotta drop my wife at work for 8:30am, then take her LSi for its MOT - meaning i wont start on the project till 11:30am ish, and ill have to stop early (around 3:30-4pm) in order to clean up and pick her up from work.
But with all the bolts/nuts undone i hope to get the fuel tank, fuel/brake lines and maybe even the rear hubs/suspension off even in the short time i have!
If i can achive this, ill be a full day ahead and it means i can devote the whole of wednesday to cleaning up the engine bay and inside of the car, before i re-fit everything - if anyone has any good ideas for cleaning products to use to remove oil/gease and muck from engine bays and interirors - pls do get in touch!
Well thats all for now, as im very tired and its already 9:20pm - time for me and wifey to spend some time together :)
Thanks for reading!
Chris Gordon
posted by Chris_Gee @ 7:51 PM
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