289 Kaput - Next Steps Advice From This Great Forum

you can pull it with or without the transmission. It will separate at the bellhousing at the rear of the block. I prefer to pull the engine with the transmission, although you might have to lift the car up on jack stands to get the clearance to angle the transmission out.

I pulled my 390 with the transmission in an afternoon. I removed the starter, alternator, fan and a few other misc. items. Remove the carb and use a lift plate. Once you get it hooked up take a little weight off of it and remove the transmission support. Just unhook the clutch fork from the pedal and you are all set. lift it little by little to make sure nothing is still hooked up. I did need to put the car on stands to get it high enough to get the transmission out.

you might also want to consider cutting out a piece of thin plywood to go between your radiator and water pump to help prevent damage in case your engine swings forward a bit too far.

68conv5sp said:

Does pulling the trans with the motor give an advantage? Maybe it balances the process? Seems like it would be easier to pull just the motor, but all replies here suggest doing them together. Interesting, and a little intimidating.

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I think the major advantage is minimizing the amount of work you have to do laying on your back while under the car and working in tight spaces. You then also don't need to have a transmission jack available. With or without the transmission it balances pretty well if you locate your chains / straps properly.

On a manual, I like to pull the transmission itself (leaving the bellhousing still attached to the engine). A manual gearbox is relatively light and easy to detach since you're not working up against the firewall. It's only 4 more bolts and sliding it away from the bellhousing to detach it entirely than to pull it with the engine.

On an automatic, I like to entirely detach the transmission from the engine and pull just the engine. To me that minimizes work because I don't have to pull much of the exhaust or the crossmember / driveshaft or to get fluid everywhere. On an automatic you can easily re-connect to a transmission that's sitting in the car -- you can't really do that with a manual (a manual transmission either comes out with the engine or before you pull the engine but it's coming out due to the difficulty of seating the input shaft while maneuvering the engine -- and while I'm sure it could be done doing so without destroying your clutch components would be pretty tough).

If you're planning to do motor and transmission together, you'll definitely want one of those balancer-bars to allow you to easily change the angle as you move up, and jack / ramp the car as mentioned above because the tailshift will have a harder time clearing. Which also means you'll need some headroom and make sure your hoist can extend high enough for everything to clear. And a 2nd set of hands will be needed to avoid sending an errant tailshaft through your windshield.

I hear you on the intimidating part -- I hate getting the whole assembly near-vertical, it just makes me uneasy (that and I don't have a balancer-bar and I usually work without a 2nd set of hands). But when you see guys doing it with a big-block using just a carb-plate on an aluminum intake then it might make you feel better pulling your 289. Still, you might find the right balance between "easy" and "un-intimidating" by pulling just the transmission (not the bell or clutch components). Which will minimize the amount of time you're spending under the car and also minimize the angle you'll need to get the engine out.

Don't be intimidated. Just take your time to make sure everything is out of the way. Get the balance bar, they aren't that expensive and they are totally worth it.

i wish i would have known about this about a month ago. I would have taken pics of removing my engine. I went ahead and pulled engine and trans because i going to do the t5 swap. The one thing you have to worry about if you just pull the engine is supporting the trans in you car somehow. I also pulled the radiator and fan out when i pulled the engine and trans so that i didnt damage the rad.

Do you have any specs on the previous build? Have you heard the engine run at all? Does it start, but not run? Seems like a couple of things going on here....
If you end up pulling the engine, bring the trans out as well. There are bushings you will want to replace, in the shifter, as well as the outside of the trans..

Could be not enough power due to bad or misgapped plugs or the wires could be bad or the dist cap could be bad for #3 & #8 - sometimes they need to filed down.

Good Compression & Spark - all you have left is fuel - are the spark plugs wet? What color are they?

A vacuum leak that affects the suspect cylinders can cause a similar issue, as will weak valve springs. Either will give good static compression on a tester but poor cylinder firing when running.

Those old Sun machines can give an experienced operator a wealth of information on cylinder firing. Unfortunately finding an operator who still knows what they are doing with them will be a challenge.