Engine drop to change the coolant tank.....and mounts

[Davidmudley]

I've started on the task of changing the coolant tank after finding a leak, after studying the various (very helpful) posts on here about whats needed (remove the air box, pump and dropping the engine) I cracked on.

Everything went swimmingly until it came to dropping the engine, surprise surprise the lower mount nuts were seized. Lots of penetrating fluid, impact wrench and breaker bar were put to task but still to no effect. I must have spent 3hrs lubing the nuts, gently nudging the nut to move, even talking to it at one stage but still with no consequence.

I moved onto phase two, which involved taking the Dremel to the bolt, I'd already made my peace with adding new mounts to the parts bill, and frankly at this stage I had stopped caring about the costs and would have paid anything to overcome the challenge. The Dremel made valiant progress but in the time it took me to cut (and give it a rest to cool down after cutting out numerous times) I came to try the nut with the breaker bar again (amazingly my cutting hadn't ruined the nut so it still worked!). To my surprise the nut came off.

With new found confidence I set upon the passenger side nut and it came out easy peasy. By this stage I felt like I'd move over from the slow lane into the winners lane.

Now came lowering the engine, as I lowered the supporting trolley jack, it appeared to come down a couple of inches but then no further. At this point I noticed that the jack was no longer supporting the weight of the engine so quickly raised it again.

With the engine in this lowered position I set out trying to extract the coolant tank. I'm not quite sure what words to use here, but I've sure those of you who have done this job may be able to help me out..... Long story short I've wiggled the tank loose, to some extent but it seems well and truly wedged in and there doesn't appear to be enough clearance to get it out. This leads me to trying to get the engine lower (which looks like it will solve the problem), but as I mentioned earlier I'm not able to do so.

Any ideas on what might be limiting the lowering of the engine from the mounts (which are both fully undone)? I've checked any and all cables etc. that I can and nothing appears to be taut, so I'm stumped with where to go next.

Any and all ideas welcome, many thanks and festive wishes to you all.

 

[Shurv]

I paid someone to do mine, now I know why.I have less than perfect movement in my hands and wrists due to a head on rta back in 1992, so cannot tackle all jobs on the car that I'd like to have a go at. I fancied a go at doing the bottle when mine cracked but felt that it was too fiddly and wouldn't suit my limited movement.Dove House did mine and I had a bew water pump fitted at the same time.
Good luck with fixing it, you deserve a medal.Happy xmas and hope ypu get it sorted.

 

[drmark]

You did remove transmission mount and cross member??

 

[Davidmudley]

No I didn't remove the transmission or cross member.

Today I successfully got the coolant tank out, it appears that this job is much harder on the 3.6, with that said the trick seems to be lowering the engine a couple of inches AND removing the coolant tank bracket (black and he's in with two bolts) which then provides more than enough space to wriggle out the tank.

 

[drmark]

No I didn't remove the transmission or cross member.

Today I successfully got the coolant tank out, it appears that this job is much harder on the 3.6, with that said the trick seems to be lowering the engine a couple of inches AND removing the coolant tank bracket (black and he's in with two bolts) which then provides more than enough space to wriggle out the tank.

:thumb: