Reinstalling Motor - Looks really unstable, ... any suggestions for one-man motor installation Options

[vesnyder]

I do not remeber it being this tenuous when removing? The motor is on a jackstand with a 2x8 sandwiched inbetween. It looks too unstable to attempt a one man installation, even though I was able to remove it by myself. I have two jacks, so I was thinking of lowering the car instead of raising the motor - would this be safer? Any ideas? Looked up one of those 911 motor jack adapters (see pic) Not sure it would fit the 914 motor and at that price I'll stick with the 2x8's.

[tdgray]

Had mine on an oversized furniture dolly.

Lowered the car onto it... easiest way to do it. One man operation.

Go for it.

[Gint]

Check the resources section. Chris Foley (I think it's chris) is making an jack mounted engine bracket for a 4 motor.

[Qarl]

My jack has a round jacking plate on top that is removable. I removed it and then bolted in a 12" x 12" piece of 1" marine grade plywood for alarge platform. It provided much better support and balance for the engine removal.

Then two if us lifted the motor onto a furnture dolly.

That was Phil, who helpmed me. Phil's the 914 guy that recently passed away. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

[jk76.914]

Make sure the two jacks are as far aft of the jack-post sockets as you can get them. I stupidly tried to raise my car with two Bilstein jacks, thinking only the rear would elevate, and thinking that I could then remove the jackstands that the back of the car had been on for almost a year.

Anyway, the car tried to balance itself on the two jacks only, and then began a slow pirouet counter-clockwise. Pretty scary. We down-jacked as fast as we could, keeping our bodies as far back from the chassis as we could. One wheel touched, and then it stabilized so we could regroup.

Anyway, I installed the engine (different day) by raising it into the car. I had it on an old skid with wheels on the bottom. I bolted the cross-bar mount to the engine, not the car, and raised the front edge of the skid with my floor jack. Once it was high enough, I put the two nuts on the tops of the long outboard mount bolts a couple of turns and removed the jack and moved it to the back. I repeated the process with the back. I didn't do it alone though, I admit.

You can get a sense of my paranoia when you look at those jackstands-four of them, each rated at 5000 pounds!!!

[nebreitling]

get a good floor jack and a rubber pad, and place it under the nub at the rear of the engine block (behind the oil-pickup plate/tuna can) it WILL balance there -- just keep one hand on a transmission ear for balance.

it's a bit nerve racking the 1st time, but you get used to it. one man.

[David_S]

I remember reading somewhere about using "all-thread" rods in each of the nounts. When the engine is raised high enough with the all-thread, you can remove one of them and install the correct bolt....then remove another all-thread and install another correct bolt ...so on !! Sounds pretty easy, but will be a bunch of wrench turning!

[scottb]

Check the resources section. Chris Foley (I think it's chris) is making an jack mounted engine bracket for a 4 motor.

i have one of the engine/trany plates from chris and it works great.

i had never removed my engine/trans before and did it alone using this tool on my floor jack. i like the idea of having the car up and lowering the engine. i was able to stop, move the FI parts, lower a little bit, rearrange some other stuff, lower a little bit, find a hang up, raise it again, fix the hang up....

you get the picture. lots of flexibility.

it is a little wierd with the whole thing out sitting on the jack. pretty stable with a bit of wobble. not really stable enough to wrench on, on the jack (i tried). i put the whole thing on the floor to swap out the trans. then with a little inginuity, put it all up on jack stands (yes, alone) and did some other stuff.

install was really easy. jack it up and get it in. lots of flexibility.

a very good $90 investment.

[Air_Cooled_Nut]

Having experience dropping the engine/drivetrain from a VW tail-dragger, dropping the 914 with a jack wasn't that big of an issue as I originally thought. I didn't have the garage space to do the other method (move chassis up/down) which is why I used the jack-only method. Less work but does take more attention.

A couple pictures of my first removal:
http://www.icbm.org/cmgallery/thumbnails.php?album=26

[Doug Leggins]

I remember reading somewhere about using "all-thread" rods in each of the nounts. When the engine is raised high enough with the all-thread, you can remove one of them and install the correct bolt....then remove another all-thread and install another correct bolt ...so on !! Sounds pretty easy, but will be a bunch of wrench turning!

I used the "all thread" method to install my engine. It worked great. I had never installed an engine before. I had removed 4 using the Pelican tech article. I wanted more control of the process of getting the engine and car to mate up than I saw possible from using the Pelican tech article method. I searched around and found the all thread article. I tried it and it worked well for me. The only help that I had was my son watching the install to make sure that I didn't scratch anything (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[mjl1147]

I'll second the motion of the guy who said lower the car. I've done this twice by myself, and I think the process amy be written up on Pelican Parts website. Put the motor on a furniture dolly, roll it under, and lower the car down to meet it, after you take off the rear wheels. Good Luck.

[ws91420]

I used a tranmission jack to raise the engine trans assembly up. It has fore and aft tilt adjustment and left to right.