How I removed and reinstalled my 308gt4 Engine. For what it is worth here is how I went about removing my engine last year and reinstalling it last weekend after a high compression piston refit. I am not going to do a step by step as I am assuming most of the people here have a reasonable amount of engineering knowledge and will be capable of the basics. I will focus more on some of the lessons learned, gotchas and helpful techniques. This is a removal for those of us without a proper car ramp/ lift - but with a decent engine crane.... PLEASE excuse my terrible spelling in the photos . My typing is dyslectic .Im getting old!! Gotchas: Dont forget to disconnect the engine earth strap, usually near the speedometer sensor (which needs to be disconnected) on the gearbox, rear right if looking at car from behind). If you do forget you will lift the chassis and engine together. Dont forget to disconnect the oil temperature sensor. Front of engine to left of gear selector fork when looking at car from the rear Dont forget to disconnect the positive terminal from the starter motor and the alternator. Put the engine in 2nd or 4th gear to separate the cabin side gear selector from the gearbox. Ditto for reinstall, if you forget to do this it can be a real pain to try and get the gearbox into 2nd or 4th gear from underneath the car when the engine is reinstalled. If you are using my engine lift technique below/ in the pictures make sure to remove the exhaust manifold and heat shields from banks 5 8 when you are mid lift, and before the engine is out of the engine bay. Dont forget to put the 5- 8 header and heat shields back in place at a similar point when you are reinstalling the engine. It is easy to forget to do this and have to lift the engine up again .. dont ask how I know. You cant get the header in any other way once the engine is installed I have tried and failed. Others may have succeeded? The exhaust header for bank 1-4 should be removed before you lift the engine. I have only found it possible to remove the 1-4 header out through the top of the engine bay after some manipulation and with the cam cover for bank 1-4 removed. Others may have found a way to take it out through the bottom of the engine bay? Helpful techniques: Rear windows are expensive and difficult to come by, rear buttresses are expensive to repaint so make some pieces of 10 mm (just under ½ inch) into shapes to fit and protect likely hit areas You need 2 people to safely and easily remove the engine. One experienced at the use of a hydraulic crane and one person to move the car or engine during lifts. Use a crane that allows multidirectional movement (minimum of forward/ backward/left and right) If you have the car sitting on rollers and a level surface it can be easier to move the car than to make fine adjustments with the crane supporting the weight of the engine. Remove the rear wheel inner arches it just makes life so much easier for positioning and fine moving during the engine reinstall. You can remove the engine in full without taking off all of the carbs and fixtures on the top on the engine. My engine strap technique below allows this, I have done it previously. However, I always remove the distributor cap for fear of damaging it, they are expensive and difficult to find, and you need to ensure that the straps dont put pressure on any of the carb connections. I have not tried this with the air box in place, but suspect the removal technique wont work if it is still in place. I remove the rearmost 2 long studs on bank 1-4 that hold the engine anti torque bar mounting for install and removal I found on my car that engine clearance is too tight without doing this. Dont remove the engine mounts in full, split them, and remove the 2 studs on each mount only. This makes the set up of the gearbox and shift selector a lot less time consuming when you reinstall the engine. Leave the main mount location bolts fully torqued, unless of course you have a damaged engine mount which necessitates full mounting removal. You dont need to separate the oil cooler from the engine block to remove or reinstall the engine you do need to remove the 3 x 10 mm bolts that hold the oil cooler housing in place though. You dont have to fully remove the drive shafts to remove the engine. Of course you need to separate them at the gearbox end from the drive train. If you choose this approach, you will have to separate the 2 rear engine mounts from the engine block early in the lift in order to take the engine out of the engine bay. The front mounts can stay fully in place connected to the engine block for removal and reinstall. Use bungee cords around the drive shafts to lift them out of the way when removing and reinstalling the engine. Use plastic bags over the exposed CV joints to protect the grease from contamination with dirt and grime. To remove and reinstall the engine you only need 1 good, 1,300lb rated strap. If you fit it onto the 5-8 head, as per my photo the engine it will naturally hang itself at an angle that enables the engine to be fully removed with minimal adjustments. If you use my strap technique in the previous point, remove the bank 1-4 cam cover and the 2 long studs that are mounting points for the engine torque bar to enable you to easily pull and reinstall the engine. You can leave the exhaust box in place to remove and reinstall the engine but it makes engine reinstall a bit trickier. Clearly you need to remove all 6 bolts that hold the system together, and need to gently pry the connections apart. This may be different for US cars. The Clutch Bell housing can be left connected to the engine block for removal and reinstall. If you do this then to easily remove and reinstall the engine you need to remove the coil pack to the rear of the car, or you risk damaging the coil pack. But dont forget to disconnect the clutch cable before lifting. For engine removal you can probably have the transfer gear casing cover in place (which saves you from having to drain the gearbox oil), for my reinstall I left the cover off and had emptied the gearbox. If you use my removal technique there are a couple of key reinstall points. You should place a series of sturdy wooden blocks to the rear of the engine bay to a height just above that of the engine mounts in the engine bay. Slowly drop the engine into the engine bay (after following the points above regarding the headers on 5-8 bank), until the weight of the engine is resting fully on the blocks and the engine is now resting parallel to the ground. At this point get another lifting strap and fix it identically around header 1-4, tying off at the same lifting point used for the 5-8 header, adjusting the strap so it is tight. This now allows you to lift the entire engine and it will be parallel to the ground at all times. You use this to allow you to reconnect the two rear engine mounts to the engine block. Once this is done, you can slowly drop the engine onto all 4 engine mounts. Next Steps I am planning on doing a video of the reconnection and set up of the gear selector fork mechanism/ positioning over the next month. This will eventually make its way onto You Tube. I will notify the group when I have this done. Sometime in May my QA1 suspension Kit should arrive I will do the same. For those of you that are interested in classic bikes pay a visit to www.classicmotorcycles.ie it appears in one of my photos. Hope this helps someone and have fun!!! 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EXCELLENT!!! Thank you so much for sharing. I'm going to print this off and place in my GT4 procedure manual!!! JIM
First I want to thank Tom for all his efforts in documenting this process for the rest of us. If you are going to use this technique with a standard engine hoist in the US, the kind you might buy from Big Red Lifts, Home Depot or AutoZone, there is one important additional step that you need to be aware of. If your GT-4 (mine is #10390 BTW) has stock US bumpers, you will not be able to get the lift hook close enough to the forward (5-8) bank/Head for this technique to work. If you attempt the lift in this configuration it will not work. You have to remove the rear bumper (If you have a US spec car w/stock bumpers) in order to gain the additional 5.5 inches of depth on the lift. Most US engine hoists are made for front, not mid, engine cars. It is very important that you place a block of 4"X4" wood between the frame and the engine hoist (see photos below) so that the hoist (which will be pulled in towards the car in the early part of the lift) does not grind into the body of your car. I also used a piece of cardboard to protect the paint. Thanks again to Tom!
I forgot to wait for the pics to upload.... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Note 1: It's a good idea to loosen the rear motor mounts slightly before the lift. This will make it much easier to remove them early in the lift. It would also be a good idea to lift the motor evenly with a second strap on the rear head, just for the first few inches. This will make it much easier to remove the rear motor mounts - make sure to do this very early in the lift - like within the first few inches. Note 2: On US spec cars, you will have two studs on the top frame rail at the rear of the engine compartment. They will be on the right side if you are looking at the car from the rear. These two studs are the mounting studs for the Activated Carbon Trap cylinder of the emission control system. The will prevent you from getting the motor out easily on US spec cars. They will get caught up in your rear timing belts and the stud threads will put slices in your belts. I removed the studs and gound them flush with the frame. You can drill and tap new mounting holes when you reinstall. Note 3: Both my front and rear exhaust manifolds have the aluminium factory-crimped heat shields on them. I was not able to remove the rear manifold before the lift. I used a floor jack to raise the rear of the motor about two inches. I was them able to work the exhaust manifold out. It was easy to remove the forward exhaust maifold in mid lift. However, I was not able to remove it from the engine bay until I had completely removed the engine Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
All Is it possible to remove the front head without engine removal??? i was brain dead today and dropped a nut and washer into the intake while installing a carb
Not sure . but I believe there are bolts not studs. did you try to go into the manifold with a magnet? maybe -maybe the valve was closed?/?? I hope
No bolts, they are head studs with 11mm thread size. It is impossible to remove the front bank head with engine in car. Sorry to hear about the dropped nut. This is the car designed and built back when ease of service is a non consideration.
Long shot. If carb is off and you can look down if intake was closed. If not so lucky then rotate until intake open and use shop vac sealed to the intake manifold, could swirl it out.
Head removal is hard enough with the engine out that doing it with the engine in is beyond impossible. I would buy an assortment of magnets on rods and try to fish the nut and washer out from the spark plug hole and valve area. A few hours of this may be successful and a lot less work than pulling the motor and removing the heads.
Sorry to revive this old thread, but I have a follow up that is on topic (also my first post!). What overhead clearance is needed to pull the engine on a US GT4 using the lift type pictured above in post 7? My shop has only 8'2" overhead. Thanks for any input.
