My engine drop & IMS, clutch, AOS, RMS etc

So I have taken some time off this week to tackle a bunch of things on my 996. I have taken the approach of dropping the motor and transaxle together so that I can do a number of these jobs and learn a few things along the way. I'll write up the full process with tips on my web page when I'm done but in the mean time I'll throw a few pics out there of some of those problem areas that are usually encountered along the way. To be honest I didn't really have too many issues with dropping the motor but that is because of the "heads up" comments from some of the guys that already went through the process. Some key points that may benefit others. Drop the motor half way and then worry about the AC rear bolt, clutch slave cylinder & power steering lines. Slave cylinder - I undid the lower clutch slave cylinder bolt using several extension bars so that the ratchet itself was positioned at the brake rotor - obviously the trans/engine has to be lowered far enough for this to be possible. I then lowered the engine/trans another several inches until the upper bolt was visible/accessible and undid that one using the extension bars as well. This only took a few mins to do. Pic with red arrows shows the bolts. AC - As mentioned elsewhere dropping the engine 8-10 inches gives more room to swing a ratchet. The pics show the rear bolt and the angle to approach the bolt with a ratchet and extension bar. I also used a magnetic pickup to lift and hold the bolt out of the way while I manoeuvered the AC compressor free of the block. This method took about 10 mins and most of that was wasted reversing one of the front bolts with a long nose plier after I used a gear wrench to loosen it and then discovered I couldn't get the wrench off the nut (or finish loosening it) because by that time it was up against the intake manifold as can be seen in the pic (Tip - dont use a non reverseable gear wrench ) Vent tube clip - as mentioned by 15PSI there is a grey clip which needs to be removed before the vent tube can be disconnected - pic attached. I was a bit concerned about the lack of room to swing a spanner to undo the power steering lines but once again these were easy enough to do with the engine lowered. As I found out the engine can be lowered quite enough to do all these jobs and it makes them all significantly easier. Thanks to the previous Rennlisters who have shared their experiences .

Very impressive work, which makes a number of difficult jobs easier, like AOS, coolant tank replacement,etc. Thanks for sharing OZ951.

Can you pull it out (that's what she said) with the car on jacks or are you going to have to lift the car higher to do that? Nice job BTW.

Very nice. I like seeing guys taking on challenging and more-massive tasks with "regular guy" tools. I might be lucky enough to have a lift in about 6months, but until then it's good ol' jackstands and jacks. Very cool, keep us posted.

Good luck! Keep us posted!

How long did it take you to get drop the motor and tranny like the last picture?

you are the man!!!!! I love this type of sharing it really helps remove some of the trepidation to take on this kind of project. Pete

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I'll find that out today when I get back to the job and remove the wood blocks from between the motor and ATV jack. I have been working on it for the last two days between 10am and 5pm. Not that it has been that much continuous effort by any means - I have just been very particular about wire brushing crud off exposed threads and applying liquid wrench to every nut and letting it soak in, and several applications over time for the tough nuts on the cross-member & drop links etc. This has paid off with no stripped bolts interrupting the job and I had plenty of not so good looking nuts/bolts to contend with, so I'm very happy about that. So it's been a pretty casual pace while I figured out a few things. Here in the UK it's about 3 or 4 degrees C now which is a bit bloody cold for Aussies like me to be working in an open garage - I just remind myself that Canadians probably think 3 or 4 C is a luxuriously warm day and tell myself to get on with it.

Nice work OZ951, can i make a suggestion? Well any way I would allso check the variocam tensionerblades. My C2 has 83k Km and the blades looked like this

Nice work and great photos!

Ok, so today started off fine with getting the wooden blocks out from between the jack & the motor by resting the motor on wooden blocks under the headers on one side and supported by my trolley jack on the other side - thence slip out the wooden blocks from between the sump & ATV jack and raise the ATV jack to contact the sump and take the weight again. With the ATV jack bottomed out there was still about 30mm insufficient clearance to get the motor out from under the car so I removed the throttle body & intake manifolds and undid the fuel line/cable clamp which is attached to the rear hoist point. That provided plenty of clearance to pull the motor out at that point. Manifold removal was straight forwards - just make a note of the vac lines which are connected underneath the Cyl 1-3 manifold (LHS). From there I scrubbed around the transaxle-block bolts and started soaking them in penetrating oil. All was fine with the lower nut/bolt combo, the 12 point bolt and the Cyl 4-6 bolts which backed out easily enough. However the two bolts in the vicinity of the AOS were tough. I started a process of small turn, soak in liquid wrench & wait (or do something else like AOS / coolant tank). Anyway that process didn't help much in the end. One of the tough bolts 'gave' and backed out and shortly thereafter I saw that it was actually the block which gave. The last pic shows that a good chunk of block has broken off. Not very happy about that as now I'll need to have the engine collected and taken away to be repaired / welded & re-tapped. My workshop is coming to pick up the engine in the morning so progress is on hold for the moment. The other remaining bolt is actually tougher than the one that broke the block so that will probably have its head cut off in order to separate the trans then it will probably get cut flush / drilled & heli-coiled rather than risking any more block issues. Not the greatest wrenching day. On the up-side, the coolant tank replacement and AOS were cake.

Fricken awful! What a bastard that the block gave. Nothing worse than seeing something like that after all that work. I hope all the other items give you less grief. On a more productive part of the post there is a tear down of a M96 on Pelican that has TONS of photos to help with vacuum lines etc. Tear Down and a closeup photo documentary on a new engine: http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarti...rTech-114A.htm

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I would second this recommendation. Actually, at that point you can change all of the guide ramps. The tooling to hold and time the cams isnt too terribly expensive and quite easy to use. There is one additional $30 tool you can get to make life easier in compressing the tensioner assy.

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Thanks for the suggestions but I really have no intentions of opening up this 68K motor. I'm tackling the IMS because it can go at any time but as far as the rest of the internals go, they can wait till the 100K mark for a look see. My last 996 was running like a champ at 108k so I'm prepared to leave the internals for a while yet.

Fair enough. Just keep an eye out for bits in the oil and in the oil filter element.

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Aye, that's what I do.

can the trans be pulled without the engine to do a clutch? I looked on pelican for the diy. and i only saw one for both to be pulled like you did

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Yes there's threads on here doing it.

Got my motor back this morning after having the block repaired (welded) and helicoils put in where the two problem bolts were located. The workshop said they took some pics while they did the repair and they will send them to me so I may be able to post those later. Now on with the job!

My RMS was dry as a bone, IMS flange was pretty gunked up though. The bearing seals looked in-tact but the IMS itself was well loaded with oil so the seals were obviously letting it through. Here's a couple of the pics, just got to install this spiro-loc retaining ring now, doesn't seem like there is much of a groove for it so We'll see how it goes.

are you doing the ims bearing upgrade?

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Yes that's the LN engineering IMS bearing in the last pic of my last above, easiest way to tell is that the bearing seal facing the flange is "open" to allow oil into the bearings.

The spiro-loc installed easily enough and locked positively into place. Flange installation requires being careful since the IMS tube is being pulled to one side of the flange orifice and you don't want to be damaging the flange seal as it gets installed. I found the best way to deal with that was to put the flange in place with 1 screw in place then I put a socket and extension bar on the bearing stud nut and then I applied some pressure on the extension bar to line up the IMS centrally in the orifice and then insert the other flange screws and begin to snug them up.

The pics I posted at the beginning of this thread have disappeared but I have added a new page to my web with a more comprehensive range of pictures and notes regarding the work I am doing on my 996 at the moment. It can be found via the links in my signature or directly from here http://www.oz951.com/public/enginedrop.htm

OZ951, very nice write-up on your webpage. I will definitely be using it for reference when I do my engine drop in the next couple of months. Thanks for the info!

Hi OZ, Great work and awesome details! I have a basic question about removing one of the radiator hoses. I cannot disconnect the hose that is pressed into the hard metal pipe. This is the rear main hose on the right side that connects to the hard metal pipe and leads to the rear of the engine. It has a "C" clip which I can remove, but I cannot get enough torque to pull them apart. Is there a special tool or technique to separate them? Mine is a 2003 996 but assume yours is has the same setup. Thanks.

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Thanks, you can use a screwdriver to carefully separate the hose from the hard pipe (part of the way around anyway), you can get more purchase on the hose by using a belt/webbing/rope and then pulling on the belt. The hoses are definitely a bit of work to get off though. Good luck.