I am planning an oil pan swap in my 63 Valiant in the next month or so. I am thinking that I will pull the engine in order to do this. I really don’t want to deal with the trouble of getting the gasket to line up from under the car and then not have it seal properly.

I have never pulled an engine before. The service manual has you pull the engine and transmission together. I am hoping to get some real world tips and a procedure outside of the service manual for pulling the engine without the transmission. I will be doing this in my garage/driveway and plan on renting and engine hoist.

Thanks,

John

Interesting you ask this as I`ve just completed the exact same thing. Due to the constraints of doing it in my garage with not a lot of height clearance - taking the whole engine and gearbox assembly out was out of the question, not to mention it`s a lot harder/fiddly to take the whole assembly out than just taking the engine out. Seeing as though you only need to work on the engine, then that`s all I`d take out. Even though the manual (probably) doesn`t say to remove the hood, you`ll find things a lot easier if you do remove it.

Apart from all the other ancilliaries that will be covered in your manual - there are only a handful of bolts securing the engine to gearbox so it`s a pretty straightforward job. Just whack a jack under the box when you remove the engine, and don`t forget that of course the slant will want to tilt as soon as you lift it (depending on how you`ve attached the lifting chains) - this also applies to when you reinstall the engine, it`s going to want to tilt to the side when it rests on the engine mounts, so you have to kind of guess the position that it will 'fall' to (if you know what I mean).

So all in all, I believe it`s much easier to remove just the engine if that`s all you need to do. Having said all that - the engine swap that should have taken me a weekend ended up being 3 weeks because of all the little problems that come with swapping engines

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I recently pulled a slant/833 combo from a 65 Valiant as a complete unit. Although a tight squeeze, I didn't have to remove the hood. I think the main trick was getting the motor/trans at enough of an angle to clear everything AND to have some help if at all possible. I've removed/installed slants/904s by myself but sure helps to have that extra pair of hands.

I found it helpful to have a floorjack to adjust the position of the transmission while guiding the engine/transmission out (already mentioned, I know).
Also, I did mine with a borrowed engine hoist, in my driveway, by myself. It was an advantage to have the car raised on blocks, so I could easily get under the car when necessary, and then to remove the blocks to change the height and angle of the body front to rear. Not a big deal, but helpful. I didn't have any extra problems during the R&R, and had everything buttoned up in two days, taking it easy.

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Last one out , turn off the light

You did not mention wether you have a manual or automatic transmission.
You can pull the engine without removing the automatic tranny, but with a manual tranny it does not work that way.

Thanks guys. It's an auto.

John

John,
If you need a hoist and engine stand, you welcome to use mine if you only need it 2 or 3 weeks.

Cecil

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Slant Cecil

Just remove the engine itself. Disconnect the trans from the engine, supporting it with a floor jack. Use the two bolts on the cylinder head between the valve cover and manifolds to put the lifting fixture. The engine should jack straight up (you'll want to remove the hood of course). I swaped engines with a friends help and only took around 4 hours, including lunch.

leave the tranny in-- much less to adjust when re-installing. The pushbutton style tranny you have will not need any adjustment--if you remove that(tranny) it will add to your list of items to tune when the engine is re-installed.. If nothing else take digital pictures before you start -- it will assist you when you put it back together. Enjoy your learning!!!

Thanks Guys. It's good to know that I can lever the transmission in.

Thanks for the offer Cecil. I'm planning on doing this in the next couple of weeks. I will definitely take you up on the offer. I still need to pick the engine with the new an up from Charlie. I've been sort of a deadbeat there.

John

I pulled engine and tranny together with hood removed from a 62 Lancer..no real problems...except hooking the automatic tranny back up and getting it to shift right was close to impossible. If I ever have to pull the engine again I will NOT pull that transmission!!!!!!!!!!!!!