Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Explorer Engine Swap - Removing The Mustang Engine

Ok, we have our explorer engine ready to go into the Mustang minus a few parts that we need from the Mustang.   At this point we want to remove our old engine.

Engine removal is a process that is definitely going to take more than 2 hours.   I am not going to break this up into phases as a lot of it is just taking the same stuff off that we have already done and removing your old engine.

Ok, so where should we start?  Well how about with some safety first.

  1. Since removing the engine requires that we get under the car, you will want to make sure you have a good set of jack stands that you can trust.  (I am assuming you already have a hydraulic floor jack)
  2. Make sure you have a couple of drain pans for your fluids that will be coming out of your engine.  You will also need a plan on how to dispose of these fluids.
  3. Make sure you have enough room around your vehicle so you can easily store parts and get under the car.
  4. You will need a second person to help you remove the hood.  It is just to bulky to handle alone.  The only thing that will result from you handling it on your own is that you will probably break something, most likely your windshield.  This person just needs to be someone who can lift 25 lbs.
With that said, position your car in the garage with enough clearance to get under it from both sides.

Jack the car up and install the jack stands back behind the wheel wells so that it does not interfere with the operation of the engine hoist.  Remove the front tires and put them somewhere they won't be in the way.  

Grab your oil drain pan and drain the engine oil from the engine.  You can leave the oil filter on if you want, but it may get in the way of some items.  either way, it doesn't take much to remove it and it doesn't hurt to have it off.  Remember, there are 2 drain plugs that have to be drained on this engine.  

Next you will want to drain the radiator.  There is a drain plug that you will loosen to get the anti-freeze to come out.  This may take some time to complete so you want to have your pan under there while you work on the stuff on top of the car.

While your fluids are draining, you will want to remove the hood.  The hood is fastened by 2 nuts on each side.  You will have to also unplug the light for the hood which is buried under the pad attached to the hood.  Once all nuts are off and light and ground wire (on passenger side) have been removed you will need your helper to help remove the hood and place it leaning against a wall.  I recommend putting a couple pieces of cardboard under the corners of the hood to prevent chipping your paint.  

At this point you will want to have a notepad and possibly some masking tape available.  Because we are going to be unhooking a lot of different items including vacuum lines and other plugs that can look like they are the same, you will want to mark where they came from.  Don't fall for the "I'll remember" line.  I did, and now I have one vacuum hose that I had to plug off because I don't know where it went.  Not a good thing.

Take notes about how everything is being removed so that you can put it back the same way you removed it.  This is very important.  You don't want any missing parts.

Make sure you put all of your bolts in marked Ziplok bags.  I can't emphasize this enough.

Now that your hood is removed, you will want to remove that upper strut tower support piece.  This piece will not be going back on the car.  You will have to get a special Ford Racing model in order to get this strut support back on.  The reason is that the intake is too tall to allow for this one to work.  Make sure you keep your bolts though as you will need them for the new support.

Next you will want to remove the battery and the battery tray.  Both of these items are pretty straight forward, so no detail is going to be made.

Once your fluids have finished draining, put your drain plugs back in place and remove your drain pan from under the vehicle.

Next you will be removing the radiator.  This is going to involve removing the electric fan and the reservoir tank.  This can be a bit tricky, but it involves removing the computer control that is held in place by a bolt before it can be unplugged.  Once these items have been removed you can now unbolt your transmission lines if you have an automatic transmission.  Beware, transmission fluid will come out of these lines.  You will want to put your drain pan under here to catch any fluid that will come out.  

Remember, you will probably still have some coolant in your radiator and some hoses.  Making sure you have that drain pan ready any time you deal with this is going to be a good thing.

Next remove your upper and lower radiator hoses.  Be sure to keep your hose clamps in a safe spot as to not lose them.  You will need to reuse them.  If you have the hose clamp style that does not have a screw tight model, I would upgrade your clamps if you can.

Now that your radiator is out, it is time to start taking apart the front of the engine.  When it comes time to remove the power steering pump, you will either need to purchase or "borrow" a puller.  Without the puller you will not get these parts off. 

Start by removing the serpentine belt.  This will get in the way if you try to keep it on.  Note how it was run because you will need to do that when it comes time to install it.

At this point I recommend removing the pieces of the upper intake that connect to the air box.  including the piece that holds the air filter in place.  There will be a part of the plastic still there, but it should not get in the way.

Start taking off your alternator and pollution pump.  Although it may seem that the pollution pump needs to be totally removed, it doesn't. It can stay attached to the bracket and come out with the bracket.  This piece is sometimes hard to get one or two of the bolts out of.  Make sure you unhook the hoses that are behind the pollution pump.  You will need to unbolt the belt tightener in order to get at one of the bolts behind it.  Once you get all the bolts out you can remove that bracket and things will start opening up a bit.

Next work on the power steering pump and the air conditioning pump.  The air conditioning pump is going to stay in the car.  You do not want to unhook those a/c lines from the pump.  That will be very bad for the environment as well as your pocket book trying to get it filled back up again.

Once the power steering pump and air conditioning pump have been removed/unbolted, it is time to take the bracket off.  In order to get this bracket off, you will also need to unhook the coil.  There are wires going across here.  Remember which ones an what direction they were in.  This will be very handy when installing the engine.

Remove any brackets and hoses that were connected to the pollution pump.  when you are done, you should see 2 metal connectors that had hoses hooked to them.  Oh, don't worry, they will get in your way soon enough and we will talk about what needs to be done.

At this point I would remove your distributor to get it out of the way and to ensure that it doesn't get damaged.

If you look at the lower drivers side of your engine you will see where the battery bolts to the engine for the ground you will want to unhook these wires.  You will see something similar on the passenger side of the car.  

Before we really start getting into the under side of the car stuff, it is time to unhook your linkage for the throttle and EGR valve stuff.  Once this is unhooked, move your linkage cables to run where the hood gap is.  This will ensure that it is out of the way when you try to pull the engine.

Next unbolt the upper intake.  You will not be using this intake, so put this in your sell/recycle pile.

At this point you will want to start working on the removal of the coolant lines that run across the top of the engine.  It will be a bit tricky to get the hoses undone from these unless you remove it first.  Remember, this is the piece that you will be using on the engine going back in.  It gets removed the same way the one on the explorer engine did.

Unhook your fuel lines.  This requires a special plastic tool that slips in and releases the lock and then you can pull your lines out.  Keep in mind that there was fuel going to these before so some will come out.  I took a ziplock bag and zip tied it around the lines after draining as much fuel as possible from them.  This kept the gas smell down a bit in the garage.  I tucked the gas line in where the air filter was to keep it out of the way later.

This is a point where you need to make a decision.  Will the manifolds come out with the engine or stay in the car.  It can be done either way although I didn't know it until I did my project.  I had a hard time getting the exhaust manifolds unbolted from the catalytic converters.  Because of this I left the manifolds/headers in the car and pulled the engine that way.  Personal preference I think.  Although if I could have gotten them unbolted at the converters, I would have preferred to do it that way.  It just tends to make things a bit easier.  

In order to get the manifolds unbolted you will need to remove the oil dipstick.  This is a good thing because you will need it for your new engine.

Now is the time to start to get the underside work done.  Under the car you will need to make sure that you remove the oil level sensor from the oil pan.  You will also need to unbolt the main stud from each of the motor mounts.  You will also need to unbolt the torque convertor bolts from the flywheel.  Unbolting the torque converter bolts is something that you will want to have help with from someone to turn the engine over and hold it in place so you can loosen them.  It isn't required, but it makes things much easier.  

I am not going to cover what needs to be unhooked if you have a manual transmission as that is just a little bit different and I did not get to experience that at all. 

I want you to notice that I did not mention anything about the starter at this point.  Although that is an under the car task, we will cover that in a minute.  Once the bracket is unbolted you will be able to pull it straight out of the block.  Ok, you may need to turn it a bit to loosen it, but it will pull out.

Next you will want to get your engine hoist hooked to the engine and raise the engine up to where the motor mounts are no longer in their spot.  At this point you will be taking the nuts off that hold the wires and transmission lines to the motor mounts.   Although you would be able to get at these with the engine lowered, it makes it a bit easier with it raised.  At this point you will want to remove both of the motor mounts as well.

With the motor mounts out of the way, it makes it much easier to get to the bolts for the starter.  Note, You will be leaving the starter sit in the engine bay so there is no reason to unhook the wires that go to it.  Leaving this here will help a lot because of the underbody brace that may be there.  I know my car had one because it was a convertible.  I am not sure if they put them on the coupe or not.  I would think not.  

At this point I believe all the under the car work is finished.  All that remains is unbolting the transmission.  These bolts are in an area that is really tight to get at.  You will want to use a ratcheting wrench to get these out.  It will make your life so much easier.  

I suggest that you start with the lower bolts first as these are the most difficult to get at.  It will make it much easier later when we have to put the jack under the transmission and separate the engine from the transmission.

In order to get the very bottom bolt out of the transmission, you will need to remove the dip stick tube from the transmission.  Even then it won't be an easy task.  The dipstick tube is held in place by the one transmission bolt and then it pulls right out of the transmission.

Once you have your transmission unbolted, don't be surprised if the transmission doesn't come loose right away.  This is why you need to have your jack under the transmission.  to keep the transmission from falling down to the floor and causing other damage.  

With the jack in place and the engine elevated, wiggle the engine left and right to see if it comes loose.  if it does, you are one of the lucky ones.  :)  If it does not, you will need to get a pry bar and use it to separate the engine from the transmission.  There are 2 things holding this together.  The first is the doll pins and the second is the torque converter.  Once the doll pins release, the torque convertor usually comes loose with no problems and you just need to raise your engine out of the vehicle.

If you left the headers in the car, you will need a pry bar to get them out of the way.  It doesn't take much, just enough to cause a separation to clear the block.

Now you have your engine out.  Congratulations.

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