question from the peanut gallery

im planning on buying a engine soon , a rebuilt one, and i wonder if the engine and tranny can come out of the bay as a unit? if so i might tackle the job myself. anyone ever do a transplant before? im pretty sure my heads are cooked,and with 129000 on the clock i think a total engine might be in order...

theres someone on hearing selling a series 2 s/c on here. like 400. if your extremely knowledgable u could do a swap id imagine.

thanks for the reply xxs. im putting a rebuilt series 1 back in. the s 1 has enough power for me. my main point of interest is a balls out take no prisoners handling package. almost there. i was wondering if its not too difficult to remove the tranny and engine as a whole unit? besides a hoist and pry bars, has anyone done this ? it seems possible but im hoping that someone here can give me the heads up on particular problems they ran into so i can get prepared................

The package comes out the bottom of the car by removing the cradle that supports the engine and trans .

wow! thats something RW! and ill be doing this on my back. looks like ill need some taller jack stands.

Why not just remove your cyl heads and have them rebuilt.
The lower ends on these engines are good for a lot more than 129K.
Are you hearing any lower end noises like bearings rapping etc, or low oil pressure.?
Or do you plan on rebuilding the trans also.

You can approach this multiple ways. You can pull the engine and transmission together, not too hard as you just need to remove all the mounts and don't have to worry about the bellhousing and flywheel bolts, BUT: The bellhousing and flywheel are harder to take out when the package is out of the car in my opinion. The transmission is held in place quite nicely while bolted in the cradle.

The other approach is to hold the engine and transmission up with your engine hoist, take out all the cradle bolts (6 of them on my '98), and lower the whole thing out the bottom. Once it's on the ground you may have to lift the car higher to clear, depends how high your jack stands are. That method requires pulling the wheels, lower ball joints and CV shafts out though. If you are replacing the transmission anyway, then you'll need to pull the CV shafts etc so you might as well drop the cradle...

The cradle bolts can be difficult to get out. I broke a standard craftsman socket on one.

I would recommend taking them out the top. If you are just replacing the transmission I'd recommend taking it and the cradle out the bottom, hanging the engine in place.

RW wrote: Why not just remove your cyl heads and have them rebuilt . good question rw. my wp blew along the highway,a terrible clattering noise,i think the valves,she overheated and then the enigine just quit. i pulled over to the side of the road and then the wp just spilled her fluides all over the road. i managed to get her started again,filled her up with water and limped to work. there i had her towed to my cuzs shop where we replaced the wp. my gut sez just replace the heads because that might be the answer to her poor performance. but your right rw, the bottom end feels just as tourqey as im used to. what im afraid of is that the pistons are scorched and weakened,but i have no tell tale signs of that. no smoke out the tail pipes,no coolant in the oil. im leaning towards just the heads. you might be right in that the bottom end is good for alot more. i would just hate to do the heads and have the bottom end start talking to me. i found a good price on remaned heads $150 each. i could flow the heads do the exhaust openings,maybe even instal trick rockers. and still have $ left over. the bottom end does feel stout though......good tips deek! thanks for that!

I f your cuz has a shop, do a cylinder leakdown test to try and confirm that the lower end (rings) is still good.
I'd also hook up a master oil pressure gauge and see what your oil pressure is cold and warm, that info will also help make a decision about the lower end. (bearings)
That should make you feel better about just doing the heads and some top end mod's.

sounds good R.W i allready did a compression test on all six cylinders and they were all within spec. did not do a leak down test , probably tomorow ill swing by the shop and bug em to hook up the riv.