Grumblings

I guess you could call this my first video blog. Here are some ramblings about taking an engine out of my mini cooper.

So after I managed to get an engine hoist, kindly lent by my neighbour, I pulled the last nuts a bolts holding the engine in and single handed coaxed the engine out:

Good day to pull an engine!Glorious!

Flying engine!

Given the alley down the side of my house is too narrow to get the hoist down I had to find the wheel barrow and use that to get the engine near the shed. Well i wasn't just going to leave it on the drive way!

Mental power to weight on this baby! lol!

serious weight loss!

The damn thing is heavy! About 150kg. Wheeling it out to the garden in a barrow took about 15mins by myself. Once in the garden I wheeled the hoist into the garden and lifted it out of the barrow and onto the hoists beams with some wooden joists.

Once in position, it was a case of relocating the tools to the garden and begin removing the offending bolt from the starter to remove the gearbox from the engine. and low and behold, the friggin' thing had been cross threaded!! I was bloody lucky I didn't shear it!

 I later managed to reform the damaged thread and tap out the hole in the bell housing, now it screws back in with ease.

night shift!

So with gearbox off, I could get access to the clutch, which a new one was fitted, 15 min job, and the gearbox was taken into the shed for further operation! A tarp round the hoist to keep the elements out of the engine. Good time to stop for a beer and chill out!!