Engine & Transmission Installation

Time to fit the engine and gearbox! After attaching the finished gearbox to the engine, we lifted the front of the car up and slid the engine/gearbox combo underneath (these were on a wheeled trolley). It's then a series of incremental steps of lowering the car and easing the engine back into the bay so the gear box feeds into the transmission tunnel. We removed the lower mid chassis braces to assist in positioning the gearbox, and we also removed some of the cooling system and the idler pulley from the engine to allow it to fit.

You will notice a pair of feet or legs appearing in these shots. These are artistically provided by Steve (Shireman on OzClubbies) who has decided that all shots should have his feet featured in them. This exercise would have been impossible without his assistance as the constant positioning and repositioning of the car and engine needs plenty of carefully applied brute strength. The photo to the left is about halfway through the install with the car being lowered. When I do this again I would be inclined to remove the gearbox support subframe from the chassis as well and attach it later (reverse of how we actually did it).
Once the engine is fully seated in the engine bay, its a case of lining up the engine mounts (previously attached to the engine) with the mount points and then bolt these up. Its amazing that the entire engine is supported by only 4 hex bolts (mounts to block) and two large bolts (mounts to chassis).

After some four hours, about an hour of which was spent laying on the floor trying to located and secure the flexible gearbox mount bolts, the engine was fully installed. From here the pieces that were removed were added, the chassis cross braces were reinstalled and the hose for the clutch was routed across towards the distribution point for all of the hydraulic lines.  Engine and gearbox in!. This was a great step as it really now feels like its a car, and I can see what needs to be done to complete it.  Thanks again to Steve for skinning his knuckles and sliding around on the dirty garage floor underneath the car securing bolts all in the name of getting the car finished!

(One more photo from another angle because it looks so cool now!).


Lessons learnt:
- Remove the gearbox support from the chassis
- Remove the old manifold studs first.
- Have the engine on its trolley as close to mount height as possible.
- PUT OIL IN GEARBOX BEFORE YOU INSTALL!!! (its a pain to do it once fitted)