I'm trying to get the engine out of my newly purchased AE71 spirit to clean up the engine bay, change the clutch, etc, however I've hit a bit of a snag.

 

We cannot seem to get any amount of decent force onto the top bolt in the back of the gearbox on the drivers side (RHD). Does anyone have any tips as to an easy way to get the bolt undone?

 

It seems that whenever we get a ring spanner onto the bolthead, the other end of the spanner is either hitting the firewall, or we can't get it onto the head as it's fouling on the back of the engine?

 

Any help would be much appreciated. The only thing I can come up with is buying a longer ring spanner that's straighter than the ones we are trying to use at the moment.

Put car up on jack stands, then get under it and use a really long extension with a breaker bar or rattle gun if you have one :jamie:

Pull the motor and box out in one package ?

Put car up on jack stands, then get under it and use a really long extension with a breaker bar or rattle gun if you have one :jamie:

 

The particular bolt I'm referring to is on top of the gearbox, and has about 7cm between the top of the bolt and the firewall, and of course, you have tou reach up over the gearbox and behind the engine to reach it. It would probably not be so bad if I could get a socket onto it, but there isn't quite enough room down there for a socket wrench. Let alone a rattle gun or a breaker bar....]

 

Thining about pulling out both gearbox and engine as one, but that involves removal of gearshift, etc, etc and we were figuring surely there is an easy way to remove this part. To change the clutch for example, surely I don't have to pull out the whole damn thing.

I second AE70's motion. So much easier to pull it out as one unit.

Get thee a wobble bar. Its by far the easiest way... and as per post #2 get underneath and use long extensions. Go buy some if you need to... they're really handy to have.

Pulling out a 4AC is a peice of piss, Where are you located, Id be up for helping you out if your near by.

Edited January 17, 200719 yr by AE70

Pulling out a 4AC is a peice of piss, Where are you located, Id be up for helping you out if your near by.

 

Adelaide.. But, it sounds like pulling it out as one unit is the go. We've gotten it to almost ready to pull out, but we were trying to do it with leaving the gearbox in-situ, however this one bolt is giving us the shits..

 

My mate reckons I should put a hole in the firewall where this bolt is (and then plug it) so it will make the job easier next time. I'm reckoning that it wont be required if removing the whoel assembly as one is as easy as you guys are saying..

ahh ko I'm in QLD so I'm out of the pic. It is really a easy job with the 4ac, I pulled mine out a month ago or so and it took me 2 hours to get it out by myself so.

Cheers for the advice guys.

 

Pulling the unit out as one was really easy.. Except that now we've gotten a gearbox worth of oil on the ground.... oops.... :jamie:

 

So easy that it's convinced my partner in crime that I don't need a hole in the firewall. Hoever, when I put the gearbox back on this time, the 'offending' bolt will not be done up with a billion NM of torque, thus meaning it'll be not so hard should we elect to do the operation again sometime.. Now I only wish I had the digital camera last night for some more pics with the parts on the hoist coming out of the car for the collection.. ;) Oh well..

i handy item to have also is if you have a spare buggered tail shaft is to take out the univesal joint to the front yoke and just keep the yoke then once you take out the tailshaft in the car you quickly insert the your spare yoke and you lose none to very lttle gear box oil then once the gear bok is back in you just take out the yoke and insert the cars tail shaft just a habdy tip 2 save gearbox oil

the easiest way is to drop the gbox crssmember, undo all the bolts except 1 on each side, then bolt gbox crossmember back up and undo final two ;) , that makes it super easy to get the top ones with an extension :jamie:

Much easier to remove the unit as one. Just as you have now found out, gotta plug that rear extension housing on the gearbox.

 

Been there, done that before.

I get that bolt by linking 2 spanners together, works a treat (don't use cheap spanners - they break). If you're just doing the clutch I'd just be putting it on stands and removing the gearbox.

when i changed the clutch on my 4ac i used a wobble bar made life easy. i couldent get it out any other way and if that fails pull the lot out.