Motor in!

Well, the Sunday before Memorial Day I rented an engine hoist and put the motor in the car all proper-like. The guy at the rental shop asked what I was working on ("Ford or Chevy?") and was a little surprised to hear what I was up to. He then said a friend of his has a converted Rabbit, but doesn't know much about it.
I thought I could do drop the motor in in about an hour and return the hoist in record time, but no such luck. The motor mount holes were off just enough to prevent the bolts from coming through. I ended up disassembling the motor mount and "adjusting" the holes a little bit with a rat tail file. NOW it fits!
I didn't take a lot of measurements or pictures before removing the engine. My theory is that the frame that connects the transmission to the differential will ensure the driveshaft and U-joints have the proper angle. If the motor is too low the rear suspension might wear a little funny, but the nothing should grind, howl or bind. If it is low I can shim it up with some washers. That my theory anyway.m

Weekend update

Did a couple of little things over the weekend:

1. Busted the ring gear off of the flywheel. It's not needed since there is no starter, and removing it will save a little weight (surprising little, but better than nothing). People say the teeth of the ring gear creates turbulence as it spins, slowing the flywheel down, so, even if it doesn't save a lot of weight, removing it may help a little.
2. Pulled the motor out. I stuck my head out of the garage and spotted an unsuspecting neighbor who was easily talked into risking flattening some of his body parts by helping me lift the motor out by hand (no winch, no cheery picker, just a nylon strap and two he-men).
3. Did some adjusting and fitting of the engine mount. Cut the hole for the bolt head on the top of the ring clamp, added the rubber backing to the ring clamp and tried to assemble it with out much luck. The bolts are too short to bring the two halves of the clamp together and one of the bolt holes does not align. I still need to do a little cutting and welding for my "torque bolt" idea and now I have to "adjust" the bolt hole in the lower clamp and pick up some new longer bolts.

Motor installed - sort of...

The nose rack is mostly done, but until I get the motor in, I won’t know for sure how it will fit. The flywheel is still not ready, so I decided to just *place* the motor in for sizing purposes – no flywheel, no clutch – just put in place. I talked a friend of mine into helping so we could avoid the hoist rental. I bolted the adapter on the motor and made a sling out of some tie-downs. I put the floor jack in position and between the two of us we lifted the motor over the front of the car and into position. After a little wrestling we got the bolt holes to align and set them in place. A 2 x 4 between the motor and the subframe and wa-la! And guess what? – my nose rack doesn’t fit : (

Motor, motor mounts in!

Got two boxes today from EvParts. The motor looks pretty big…

Ordered motor, motor mounts

Ordered the motor from www.evparts.com since they had the ring clamp that’s going to be the key part to my motor mount. I like the idea of spreading the money around for this project – keeps everybody in business… I also got a couple of biscuit style mounts since the stock motor mounts and location may not work for me.