Exactly How Hard Is It To Perform a Major Yourself?

By cherry picker I assume you mean a wheeled hoist tall enough to completely separate engine from car. That has to be available as a rental, and a heck of lot cheaper than buying a car lift.

Spacewise it would be doable, but I'd definitely have to use my whole garage.

At our old house, I had a block & tackle set-up for hoisting the hood off the 330 2+2.

That wouldn't be hard to re-install here, gets the hood out of the way in a cramped space.

 

The major itself is really not all that hard.. Just time consuming. Here are my recommendations...

Remove the rear decklid!!! Get someone to help. This makes life 20 times easier. The next biggest battle is the A/C compressor. Once those items are out of the way everything else is easy. Yes, a lift does help alot as always.

If you are just doing belts, the decklid stuff does not apply. And there are many 308/328 threads on belt/bearing changes. There are plenty of threads on all aspects of a major.

As for risk, yes, you do need to be careful setting your motor for TDC and moving it slightly as you remove the cams, etc if you are doing a full major.

Shops will quote 40+ hours for a major, and thats is probably accurate for everything involved, so plan on more than that if you are going to do it.

I did not read the whole thread but motor removal is not needed. If I did it again with a car new to me that had some miles, I may pull the motor and go over everything top to bottom. Cleaning, replacing, etc... It is no different than any other car, just that if you make any mistakes setting cam timing up, etc. it gets very expensive.

 

Hey! That's the precise length of a piece of string!

 

Also comparing playing Monk to a belt change, there's an important difference.

If I spend two weeks performing a major, looking up steps, checking them twice, the engine is going to sound just as nice afterwards as if I had a Ferrari mechanic (a good one) do it in a day.

If I play Monk looking up one note at a time, making sure each note is played just right, over two weeks .... no.

Time is on your side when performing mechanical work yourself.

And comparing an engine service to DIY appendectomy ... no. If I get stuck in the middle of engine work I can step away, relax, chat on Fchat and figure things out. Try that with someone (or yourself) opened up.