hmmmmm....

Saturday the sixth

Friday - I hate this driveshaft

Thursday 4th - day 2

The wetest morning I have seen for ages... straight to gazeebo and roof on! as soon as that happened the sun came out and no more rain till 11 hours later, after I had packed up and left, one 20 min break in all that time and the realisation I had taken too much on.... :O

All I had to do today was : rear exhaust flange, fuel lines, the *****dy driveshaft! , and then to haul the motor out...then transfer most of it to the new motor and do a cambelt change.... easy?

3 bad luck items today.... engine mount, wasted time on exhaust, and the driveshaft :)

1 hour after my arrival 'on site'

Some pipework for the autobox, the destination engine was a manual, so this pic handy for tomorrow when the auto box moves to it..

The manual said to remove the 'front-bank' exhaust pipe, easy, so I assumed I would remove the rear bank one too.. this threaded bar gave me the expansion to get the heavily sprung collar out of the way.. the manual did not say that removing both pipes was pointless and the two long bolts in the main flange needed to be removed instead :O ! they are a pain on any Pug/Cit, but on this nigh on impossible! cost of this bad instruction, about 2 hours and many cuts..

Crane at full height, bonnet held back by a couple of bungees back to seat belt upper anchor, and now driveshafts back in, wheels back on, lower car to give me some more clearance...

Bad luck #3 - it tore as the engine cam upwards.. the threaded rod wouldn't slide through the hole :(

Gearbox end

Engine on its way out.. by this point bad luck #2 was the driveshaft, I had no option but to break the inner tri-ax joint to get the motor out and stay almost on schedule..

Gearbox end


Engine bay

note the autobox , and the @@@@@dy driveshaft still in!

Hours of hammering and cuts and curses and the intermediate bearing was never the issue, the driveshaft is stuck solid into the diff..


2 v6's (foreground new 50K and background 100K broken)

about 7pm on day one, temperature is down to -2 and my breath seems to be caught by the flash.... enough is enough.. reached point 36 in the 42 steps of engine removal.. The driveshaft stubbornly stays put from earlier, some work on exhausts, mountings and fuel pipes should be all that remains :)

6pm, Darkness and cold set in, old laptop runs happily feeding page after page of manual

16 30 on day one and not much looks different really.. :( Offside driveshaft intermediate bearing is not budging and I am stuck with it.... the engine won't come out if the shaft is still in...

powdered aluminium.. a river has gone through this section of intake...

Looking in the nearside wheelarch it becomes obvious why these cars hate rain.. I dont even know how/where the air inlet attaches, but it's sunk down here near the road... the pipework has completely rotted through, second hand one needed.

Work begins.... Today seemed the best day, a maximum of 2C and no wind or rain :[
( I did get the engine moved nearer to the work area yesterday, and got the coupe on stands and wheels off - noticed gallons of water in the spare tyre area whilst hunting the keyed wheel nut socket)


I lost my printed sections from the factory manual (left on a plane from Venice to Gatwick Tuesday), then after downloading the manual to my home PC I managed to pick up 'intervalhehehe!!!' virus after downloading Winrar from a supposed rated site. A 30 minute trip to retreive my old doorstep laptop meant I had the much needed manual and could begin..

First job, 6 sections of plastic - 3 for each wheel arch...