Getting an engine in or out safely and cheaply

[miniblob]

And i thought only smarties had the answer


Good job Brown!!!!!!!

[appletree]

is it not poible to lift the engine out with a engine hoist and tilt bar?? is this the above the best way to remove a for 4 pot aswell??

[gareth]

or in other words... S=F/A (or is that Sweet F*** All ?!!!)

if they're higher grade (say 8. then you're looking at nearer 900N/mm² (from memory...). i don't know what grade these things are made to as it's generally unspecified.

a general (safe) rule of thumb for a stress concentration factor on a thread is 2 so you're looking at a safety factor of about 5 on a mild steel stud. should be fine

assuming you're calculating on the basis of the load always being balanced on 2 of the studs rather than all 4, which would make sense.

[maxfield]

What on Earth's 3D trig?!

It's not called that but it involves triangles and 3D shapes i can't remember what it's called but it's complicated

c²= a²+b² - 2ab * COS C

thats an easy part of it

[stuartgallafant]

its probably the best/safest way to do it on your drive at home, but i lifted an M42 straight out with a crane

[maxfield]

Guess you never did 3D trig at school

i guess you did that at school today...

Yep got it 2mora and thursday

ANyway sorry for the off topicness

[Turbo-Brown]

In all seriousness guys, I should really have done the calcs before trying this (although a bit of intuition told me it'd be alright) but we're better off for having done them so it was worth it to prove to myself that the method is safe.

Appletree, I used a crane to get the engine out of Brown a couple of years ago but because the bit between the headlights doesn't come off the engine ended up way up in the air and on my wonky drive, that gave me something of a puckered sphincter. (also the crane didn't lift quite high enough so I had to physically lift the engine over the front of the car which did my back no good at all!)

The reason I like this method is that it lets you do everything in a controlled manor without the risk of something slipping and things / people being damaged. You can go to the bog without leaving things hanging dangerously too which is nice.

[stuartgallafant]

in all seriousness though, this is genius

[smooth]

Wow, so I don't know if this is the method I'm going to use in a couple weeks, but thank you very much for the write-up in case I DO need it.

[oze30]

Anyone else notice that the jacking points/sills dont look too happy?

[Jon_Bmw]

Yeah he stated that the car is a scrapper so it doesn't matter to him

[Dan318-is]

What on Earth's 3D trig?!

It's not called that but it involves triangles and 3D shapes i can't remember what it's called but it's complicated

c²= a²+b² - 2ab * COS C

thats an easy part of it

that trigonometry for non right hand triangles; the cos rule follows when the two given sides dont have an angle between them; the sin rule for when they do.

3d trig now that would be interesting!

[stuartgallafant]

te above is pythagoros theory, im sure...

[gareth]

that's only for 2D triangles with one right angle...

sooooooo

[Toby_Unna]

if the weather turns nasty you can just leave it for another day,

nah it's a very good idea alex

[Varden]

Thats Gold!

And here i was planning on using a hoist!

[jaistanley]

Is there a nice neat way of removing the front panel on an E30? Is it just a matter of removing a few spot welds? To do my S50 swap I fancy a bit more room to breathe.

I'm pretty much going to have to do it on my own over the next month or two's weekends and was going to do it the way you have above (lowering with a crane though, didn't think of using studding). I like the idea of removing the front panel to gain more access etc. My car is also an automatic so the gearbox is mahoosive!

Cheers Turbo-Brown

[TouringMatt]

in all seriousness though, this is genius

Too feckin right

Have been looking at how i'd change my engine working on my own safely with minimal expense, bloody good solution.

[noney82]

thats an amazing idea, im going to use this one at some point, has it been reversed yet?

[Turbo-Brown]

Will be in the not too distant future

[rossmc88]

Is there anymore pics to this genius way? As they don't seem to be working and i'd really like to see how to do it

[Baurluvva]

No pics working and need to get my v8 out of 530!! Some F%^£(r stole my engine hoist so need help!!

[Turbo-Brown]

Aah, will try and dig them out again!

[hoshy]

Does somebody want to Wiki this?

[Kedge]

Looked at this a couple of weeks ago actually, some pic would be great

[scootlife]

thinking of changing my engine and have just seen this thread..Would be good to get pics back up again if poss??
cheers

[ImysE30]

M30 Rob?

[Turbo-Brown]

There ya go, all done

If someone does wanna make it a wiki thing they're more than welcome!

[ShakeyC]

Just a thought even though the studded bar is strong enough to take the load which is fine. The risk of damaging the sub frame mount holes/threads is too greater to risk because if you damage any of those threads the whole car is scrap end of. Those subframe threads are not replaceable or repairable is a structual part of the chassis and i wouldn't risk it for sake of hiring a crane.

[Kedge]

Just a thought even though the studded bar is strong enough to take the load which is fine. The risk of damaging the sub frame mount holes/threads is too greater to risk because if you damage any of those threads the whole car is scrap end of. Those subframe threads are not replaceable or repairable is a structual part of the chassis and i wouldn't risk it for sake of hiring a crane.

Surely if something like that did happen you could just heli coil the holes?!?

[ShakeyC]

No you can't unfortunately and the safety risk for me is too high whilst on the road.

There is a reason why nobody does it this way for bloody good reason

[Turbo-Brown]

Not sure how the holes would become damaged really.

So long as the studs don't turn (and you can make sure of that by holding them with your hand) there's no potential for damage.

If someone were somehow to suffer a stripped threaded insert, it wouldn't make any structural difference to the chassis if you made a 20mm hole above the damaged insert and just used an M10 nut to secure the subframe.

You're quite right though, people need to exercise their personal judgement and, if they're uncomfortable using this method, they should use another.

Can't see any reason that the thread couldn't be helicoiled thinking about it. There's enough room to swing the tap, and the inserts probably aren't all that high grade a steel. I know when I cross threaded a bolt in one years and years ago, it was dead easy to correct with a tap.

[scootlife]

M30 Rob?

Prob just upgrade to B25, but if im going down the cahnge route then thats probaly better in the long run...

[Grrrmachine]

Engine cranes are damn hard to come by over here, so I'm grateful for this thread. Has anyone else made use of this method recently? How exactly do you get the front end up so high to pull the engine and gearbox out? Putting jack stands just in front of the rear wheels looks like a really precarious balancing act to me...

[ross_jsy]

seems safer than the method i used:



was a tight fit to say the least