Date:         Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:25:50 +0000
Reply-To:     Richard Golen <rgolen@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Richard Golen <rgolen@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Day 2 - Engine/Trans out. Making peace w/spring clamps and
              Walmart saves the day.
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

My son, Alex, and I returned to pulling the engine/trans on the 87 Westy this morning after two days off to deal with pre-planned weekend activities. 

After some sage advice from list members, I went to Sears and bought a cable spring clamp remover. The actual part which "opens" the clamp is attached to the "pliers" via a cable. This allows you to reach clamps no matter where the two "prongs" of the clamp happen to be situated. I successfully removed the remaining two clamps without even uttering a minor curse! I've made my peace with spring clamps. Once the Westy is back running, the spring clamp remover will become part of the emergency tool kit!

Next came the removal of the clutch slave cylinder, shift linkage, ground strap, wires from the starter. It was now time to get ready to drop the engine/transmission. Over the past couple of days I received lots of suggestions for dropping the engine from many list members, and have to first say "Thanks". Ultimately I decided to use two 2-ton floor jacks to drop the engine/trans. One on the engine and one on the transmission.

Having only one jack, I trotted off to Walmart. I picked up a floor jack, and while cutting through a couple of aisles to get to the registers, I stumbled upon a "Y" shaped caster unit presumably for moving stoves, refrigerators, etc. After taking a closer look, I figured these would work well to move the engine/trans from under the Westy. I bought three.

Got back from Walmart, and we put one jack on the "nose" of the transmission and the other under the center of the engine. I removed the 4 bolts holding the entire transmission mount assembly, and then the 4 bolts holding the engine support. The 4 engine support bolts did not want to come out, but with some WD40, we managed to get them out.

After carefully checking to make sure all hoses, wires, etc., were removed, it was time to drop the engine/trans. With Alex working the trans jack and me on the engine jack, slowly and deliberately the engine/trans came down. I lifted the trans off of the jack, slid out the jack, and put one of the "Y" casters under the transmission mount. Next I lifted up the engine, Alex slid out the jack, and we placed the other two "Y" casters on each end of the engine support bar.

We jacked up the Westy to clear the engine and slid the engine out. It slid out easily with the "Y" casters, which did not raise the height of the engine any further than 1" off the floor.

Once everything was out from under the Westy, we pulled the starter and transmission. 

Total time 3.5 hours.

Tomorrow we'll strip off stuff from the old engine, clean things up, and get ready to take the old engine back to Boston Bob and ship the old trans to Daryl at AA Transmission.

One of the suggestions I received to drop the engine was to put a saw horse in the luggage compartment and use a chain/pulley to drop the engine. I think I'll probably use this technique to raise the engine and transmission when its time to put it back together.

Ric (and Alex)




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