Taking engine out bay?

Guero

Active Member
Oct 11, 2005
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Were should I lift my engine from to pull it out if the intake and everything else is still on the block???? All accesories are on 2. I dont want to take the apart till the engine is out. It would be 10x easier to just have both engines next to next and just transfer everything. MAinly for the Vortec, it looks confusing if I tear it all apart 1stPlus Ive seen pictures of people throwing in complete engines with everything on. Just dont know how they do it.
 
take out cooling system,
engine grounds,
exhaust (shorties you can leave on)
Intake pipe.
disconnect wiring to the engine.
starter.
i might be missing a few.

pull slowly and quadruple check to see if anything is connected still when it pulls out...
 
i made a nice 1/2 think aluminum plate with holes drilled accordingly to mount to the lower intake. we just just take off the upper and bolt that guy on and out it comes.

what kind of hoist do you have access to? do you have a leveling bar?
 
I just bolted the chains from the leveler to the header bolts so that the leveler was pointing front to back. I was able to tilt the motor way back to pull it with the tranny attached that way. Obviously the headers were off by then sitting down in the engine bay.

I pulled a 5.0 from a Lincoln in autoshop in highschool using the lower intake manifold bolts. The engine was almost out of the car when the bolts holding the chains tore through the holes and dropped the motor into the car while it was on the lift. The whole car tilted up and slid off the lift. I was standing on the fender adjusting the leveler when it happened. The rest of the class ran for the hills. Very scary (and funny since it was a trashed car anyway). We made the mistake of putting the bolts about 1/2" into the threads. Don't make that mistake.
 
What John just said is why i won't use the lower intake to raise or lower an engine. I to use straps ran through the headers and I always pull the upper intake off of the car first so that it doesn't get caught in between the straps when they get tension on them.
 
I've used the plate on top of the lower intake every time i've taken a motor in and out. This includes a 351w in and out. I think John's case was not using the right bolts or tightening them down all the way. I've used grade 8 bolts, in every hole possible on the lower intake, and have had zero issues. Makes it reallly really easy.
 
A plate with the right bolts and threading them all the way in should be totally fine. I found that using the header bolt holes with grade 8 bolts gave me good control over adjusting the tilt of the motor though. With the tranny attached, it had to tilt back like 45°.
 
Well I took it out last night. Used the yellow strap and wrapped each header and pulled out the engine! Now gotta take out the old stuff to the new block.
 
wow John, your lucky you didn't get hurt! that is always a concern with the plate system but like nmcgrawj said, it was the fault of too short a bolt.

Use the wrong bolt in the header bolt holes or dont tighten it down all the way and the same thing will happen.

I'd rather have the intake fail and the motor drop straight down than to have the motor strapped diagonally and to have one side fail and the motor go swinging sideways into the fenders :eek:


Either way is good, just do it the correct way! No shortcuts:nono: