To Pull or not to Pull....

my vote is to pull it. it took me 2hrs to pull and 30mins to drop it back in. remove as much as you can before pulling and it'll go faster. i left on everything and it was a very tight fit coming out. heres a list of what to remove,
bellhousing
exhaust manifolds
A/C
altenator
oil cooler and lines
CIS
airbox
CV with half shafts

disconnect the appropraite hoses and electrical connections. you'll need a load leveler, the easist way is to tip the engine towards the trunk of the car rasing banks 5~8 to a near vertical position. this will allow the diff to clear the bay.

you've mentioned doing R&R's on engines before, nothing new here eithier just a little tricky getting things to clear. you'll be happy once you do as you can now clean the bay and the engine. even after all my work i still have a leak on the front bank, however since the engine is so clean now it's a simple wipe down after each drive and she looks great. flippen factory gaskets are not holding as they should, i'll need to redo that bank soon.

 

I have just gone through almost the same exact thing on this carbed 308. Replaced both headers, belts, valve adjust, timing, and cleaning as careful as possible. Ive swapped alternators, had the starter out, distributors, and all I have said all along is I should have pulled the freaking thing out. I have probably wasted three or four times the labor trying to deal with this motor in the car. I can also see why many shops just yank the motor for a 30K service. Its virtually impossible to have a spotless clean engine and clean compartment without taking it out. So you know my vote, im with Scott.

As far as pulling the motor, there is no tried and true way. Some have said to lean it forward as it comes up, others have gone back. With the headers off it will come out with the clutch housing. If you lean it slightly forward, it will come out with the front header, starter, and alternator attached. But you will probably have to pull the clutch housing. On my other car I was able to lift the motor out with it almost level, no headers or accesories, but with the clutch housing. If I were going to lift it tomorrow I would probably remove the clutch housing and pull it out with the front header in place. Last time I did this on the other car, from start to finish I could have had it out in 3 or 4 hours, but in actuality it was about 7. But I also pulled everything off that came off and I probably didnt need to, things like the carbs and distributors, mostly because of the risk of damage.

Its also a very heavy unit. I would estimate its well over 500 pounds. Use heavy equipment, chain, or heavy nylon straps and make sure nothing can slip. You should have someone available to watch the other side that you cant while your raising it, but if not be very very careful. Not only to protect the car, but your safety as well. Place a peice of 3/8 inch plywood or particle board (plywood is stronger) in the drip channel below the rear window, and tie it off towards the front in some way so you have solid protection of the rear glass. Its in very very close proximity to the motor coming out, and its very expensive. When undoing the axle bolts, remove the inner joint bolts first, then the outers, and use a screwdriver in the brake rotor vents againt the caliper to keep it from rotating.

If I were really going to do it up, once the motor was out I would pull the fuel tanks and make them look nice. Clean all the front firewall and shine up the front panel, etc,. But also, you can easily replace all the hoses running forward while everything is out. The heater hose and vacuum hose run through the left sill, and the AC hoses run through the right. But the tanks need to be out. Replace all fuel hose, including the filler neck hose, and all cooling hose. Once all of this is done you should have not only a pretty car with an awesome looking motor, but you will have a lot of confidence in the car. Good luck whichever way you go.

 

I also just completed the drill of r & r the enginge/trans and I agree with the above comments that if you want to do all that you have stated, pull the engine. It took me about 14 hrs to pull the engine from driving the car into the garage to having the engine on the floor. Since this was the first time I pulled an engine on the 308, I photographed each step and put each group of bolts into seperate ziploc bags and with labels. Obviously, I took my time, but I wanted to make sure I could put everything back correctly.

Several notes: I removed the alt, exhaust headers, half shafts and rear engine mounts. To remove the front header, I disconnected the engine mounts and shifter the engine aft. Also I removed everything above the heads just so that nothing would be broken. The engine came out front head up and almost vertical. Make sure your hoist has enough vertical lift for the engine to clear the car. Mine did not and it took about 3 hours to resolve the issue. Also you really need a lift leverer. I took me less than 2 hours to put then engine back into the car and bolt everything back on.

Regarding oil leaks, after I completed everything and put the engine back in and started it up, I still had 2 leaks from the rear valve cover. It turned out, the leaks were from minute cracks in the cover next to the hold down stud holes. It took a long time to find these leaks - JW Weld solved the problem. BTW, without a completely clean engine, I would never have found them.

Good luck.

 

Just be aware that pulling a motor often causes the onset of "Shipwright's Disease". It's a common affliction that manifests itself with starting one simple project, seeing what else you can do 'while you're in there' and ends up with a complete frame off restoration. Your $1000 belt/water pump job (as a DIY) becomes a $20,000 restoration.

The best way to fight this is to have a beautiful blonde neighbor who keeps pestering you for a ride, but won't have anything to do with you until she gets it. This tends to get the car back together in a timely manner.

Ken

 

I have no beautiful blond neighbors. Would an angry wife threatening bodily harm do as well?

 

You haven't posted anything that strongly indicates a motor pull is necessary.

Worst case scenario is it turns out to be the timing drive bearings. Changing them with the engine in the car is a lot less work than pulling the engine (been there, both ways).

I don't know of any car that's it's easier to change the clutch on than a 308/328. Just pull the driver's fender liner & it's all right in front of you!

A 308 engine pull is warranted for transmission work, a complete rebuild, crank/piston work, & (some may quibble) pulling the front bank head for valve work.

Almost anything else can be done with the engine in the car for significantly less time.

Yes, an experienced shop *might* be able to pull an engine in 4 hours, but I don't believe I could do it in less than 8-12 with a 2nd person helping.

I also would strongly recommend having a 'spotter' on each side of the engine bay to watch for things getting snagged. When we did JWise's engine pull (It's in the tech Q&A section, look for 'timing drive'), there were 3 or us & there were times when we wished we had a 4th person. That engine is a very tight fit. Several times we had about 1/2" on 3 sides of the engine.

Nowhere in the Ferrari 308/328 service literature does it say that pulling the engine is 'the way to do it correctly'. The 348 & 355 are a different story, you can't do much more than changing the clutch w/o dropping the engine/rear sub-frame.

 

I agree with Verell, most anything can be done to the motor with it in the car. And if you round off to 10 hours each direction, your adding 20 hours labor to servicing the car. But after all the work I have done on this latest one of mine, I wish it had been out. Then I could have thouroghly cleaned up the frame and painted up spots, spit polished up the motor and gearbox, and generally restored the look and quality back to a very high standard. You just cant clean it up that good or that easy with the motor in the car.

In my case I swapped both headers, R&R'd the starter to deoil it and clean it up, swapped alternators, R&R'd the distributors, cams, timing belts, etc. I removed the front header from underneath because I had to remove the console anyway. But in doing so I also removed the engine mounts and tilted the motor back. If I had simply removed the drive axles and disconnected the clutch cable I could have just lifted the motor out, seeing I had just about removed everything else already. So I am kinda kicking myself that I didnt.

 

Gene,
Yes, you can start & run the engine as you describe. I've done it to give a thorough leak check. BTW, don't be surprised at the amount of sideways vibration in the long straight section of the cam belt between the cam drive gear & the cam gear. If you make sure that section is good & tight when you let the tensioner take up the slack in the belt, and it stayed tight while you locked the tensioner down (MUST DO before starting engine) then the belt will be properly tensioned.

Also, I like to let the engine sit overnight so the sealant is good & firm before I put coolant in & start it up.

Just make sure that the A/C compressor is solidly out of the way & can't slip into anything moving.

The coolant pipe & coolant isn't too bad to deal with, but agree it would be nice if it weren't in the way.

Artvonne,
I understand your call. Once you add changing out the front header & engine mounts, to everything else you had disconnected/removed, you're about at the point that an with an engine pull probably would add another day, day & a half. BUT then you'd have taken 3 or 4 more days to "thouroghly cleaned up the frame and painted up spots, spit polished up the motor and gearbox, and generally..."

So a 2-3 weekend project just became a 2-3 week project.

It'd have been a classic example of 'While I'm in there.." as we car buffs call "Shipwright's Disease".

I'm not saying it's wrong, but if all you started out to do was deal with a cam cover oil leak leak & do a major, it's would have gotten out of hand.
Been there...
;^)

 

I agree with basically all of these posts. Pull it out. It isnt that hard. The first time takes the longest. After that it is easy.

once it is out, get some degreaser spray and wipe off the block and anything else. Dont let that stuff near your cars paint. It will take it right off. Use armorAll or even windex works on the bay.

There is nothing better than a clean engine and engine bay.

I'm glad to see people on here turning their own wrenches. Honestly, these cars are quite easy to work on.

 

Hello,
My engine is out of the car at the moment. The time consuming thing is waiting for the parts to get here, not doing the work. Before this, I did the work in the car, including a timing drive outer bearing, and have to say it is definitely worth just pulling the engine out. It does take some time - 3-4hours seems really quick, I'd guess more like 15 hours. You want to take your time and not break anything - because it is too expensive. But you will easily save that time. If your valve covers have been "glued" on, you will spend a lot of time leaning over the car trying to carefully remove the remaining glued on gasket. It is much harder working on the front bank with it in, even getting it dialed-in is a pain. So you probably removed to intake to just have better access to the front bank. So a lot of the "stuff" is already removed, just a couple hours more to remove the remaining stuff. And then you can check everything out, check out your clutch, replace your rear seal and pilot bearing. You'll put the engine back in knowing everything is right.
I pulled the engine straight up. My first time, so I didn't want to get tricky, I didn't know how the engine was weighted. I took off the bell housing and the front header. I also removed one stud for the bell housing so I could move the engine towards the rear and bring it straight up - which was still a tight fit - less than an inch clearance to paint and expensive glass - very stressful.
Some things just can't be seen in the car. One of my problems was an air injection port on the front bank. No way to see it in the car, didn't even see it while taking it off - until it twisted my air inj manifold apart. Just so much easier to see and check everything with it out.
I did the other timing drive gear - only took an hour out of the car - compared to like 30 hours in the car (total time considering all the time running to stores trying to make different pullers. It is SO much easier whacking it out from the back.
I think the worst part in getting everything sealed up is the cam o-rings. To replace them you have to remove the cams. And they just don't seem to seat correctly or seal correctly. It seems easy to pinch them when putting the valve covers back on. You are tempted to fill the area up with rtv, but you have to be carefull with excess - you don't want it falling off - which will probably clog up the little drain hole in the area. I am not sure of the best method. I think lube them up with oil to prevent them from binding and pinching on install. Then apply rtv on the outer edge of the head - as an extra seal - incase oil gets past the o-ring and to help seal any nicks there are that the o-ring doesn't seal. But I am not sure.
Don't glue on the valve cover gasket. I did that and now it is a pain to scrap off. I did it because the previous (or factory) guy did it. I was told to apply rtv as a dressing on the cover side and white lithium grease on the head side. I did this and it worked very well - no leaks. And it came off easily. Why am I taking the covers off so much - well because of those stupid o-rings. Why couldn't it just be a bolt-on flange with a gasket and oil seal. Ahhh, I hate it with a passion.
Anyway, short story long, take the engine out.

 

Admittedly, the O-ring is finicky to get right. Here are some tips that will ensure success:

Use the end of a screwdriver or file to very slightly 'break' the sharp corners in the bottom of the head & cam cover o-ring grooves. Not much, you just want to dull the edge so it isn't so sharp. This is an old Ferrari mechanic's trick & makes a very big difference in eliminating the O-ring pinching problem. Haven't had a pinched O-ring since I started doing this.

If the gaskets didn't come with the clearance half-circle for the 0-ring groove, use a circle punch or X-acto knife to carefully cut the gasket so that there's about 1.5mm/1/16" clearance all the way around the groove.
If you don't do this, the gaskets will swell with oil & the ends will cut the o-ring in a few months.

That's right, use a Q-tip to spread a thin film of oil around the grooves in the head, cam cove, & seal housing. A synthetic motor oil nW-50 with n as low as possible is best. Then work a couple of drops of oil onto the o-ring's surface & slip the O-ring onto the seal housing.

Slip the seal housing into the head, making sure that the o-ring is well seated in the groove in the head. You should be able to hold the housing still & rotate the o-ring. Doing this will ensure that the edge of the head isn't grabbing the O-ring & starting a pinch.

Once the cam is installed & torqued down & you're ready to put the cam cover on, put a match head sized dab of RTV on the gasket where it goes around the O-ring. Don't try to use any more than that, if you do, it will push the gasket end out of place & you'll have a leak.

Then slide the cam cover into place, rocking the cam cover & seal housing back & forth a bit as the cover goes down over the O-ring. This will let everything line up so the O-ring centers in the groove, & the cover goes on w/o pinching the O-Ring.

DO NOT put any sealant in the O-ring groove, if you do, the O-ring and/or the seal will leak(been there, see below). The O-ring has to be able to float into it's final position. This ensures the seal will be able to align the housing so that the seal is both perpendicular to, and centered on the cam. This final self alignment process will sometimes seems to take place over several days. So you don't want anything sets up in the o-ring groove, or the groove between the seal housing & head or cam cover.

My earliest cam cover sealing post in the old Fchat was wrong. It said to use sealant in the O-ring groove. After a few weeks the seal started leaking. When I pulled things apart, the seal was both off-center on the cam, and cocked at an angle. The housing was cocked & off by the same amount, so the problem was that the O-ring was out of position. My subsequent posts reported the problem.

BTW, The Ferrari engines subsequent to the QV engine also used this O-ring mounted ring type seal housing (eg: 288, 348, 355, F-40...). I'm pretty sure it's because Ferrari believed it ensured the best possible seal alignment to the cam.

 

Here are some photos showing this when Verell and I did my cam covers- not a drop of oil (at least from the cam covers!) in almost two years. The last highlighted (yellow) photo shows where the gasket is trimmed in a half-circle to go around the big o-ring and also where we slightly relieved the sharp edge with a file. We did the same thing on the corrosponding head surface.

The blue sealant is Hylomar for the rest of the cam cover gasket.

Hope this helps-
jwise
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

O-ring seal? Was this something Ferrari did "after" the carbed 2 valve cars? I am reading this and scratching my head, and I feel I am missing something. Neither of mine have any o-ring anywhere near the cam cover, just the gasket, and the seal.

I sometimes laugh at myself for remembering things I used to know. When I did the cam covers and seals on the other car, I swore I read somewhere of putting sealant on them before installation. So I put a thin film of Copper Permatex silicone sealer on the seals. All they did from then on was push out. So then I had to go back and pull the cam covers off, clean all that silicone crap off the seals, and clean up the head of all traces. Generally, you install seals dry. On some applications where a seal is "driven" in and its a tight fit, you might put a thin film of oil to help it, but in a case like these 308 cam seals, dry is the best. The rubber or neoprene wont slip on the dry aluminum, it will just stick right down nice and tight.

On gaskets, I generally apply a very thin coat of Copper Permatex to both sides of the gasket, and let it set a bit before installing it. This almost guarantees the gasket will come off later without any scraping.

 

Yes- o-rings behind the cam seals came later.
I've attached photos of how it looked during removal as sealed by a local Ferrari repair shop (Boston Sports Car). There sealing system was very similar to ours.

On the cam seal housing, we used an anaerobic (sp.?) sealant (Permatex 518 IIFC) and slightly dimpled the sides of the seal housing with a punch in a couple of places to keep that seal in there. So far, so good.

jwise
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

you can run with out belt covers. the hard one is the A/C as it is attached to the cover not the engine.

 

Yep- no problem. We did the same thing and just clamped down the fiberglass shields with a bolt and large socket so it would not flap around. See photo.
Obviously, this was taken before I put the damper back on, and water pump belt and alt.
Image Unavailable, Please Login