Mike, my neighbor and fellow MGA owner and I just completed pulling the
engine out of the A last Monday night. It was not as easy as the books
make it sound. Maybe this A is deformed, but the engine/tranny assembly
was too long to pull out without considerable adjustments to the Haynes
procedure. We did it without pulling the floorboards but I don't know how
much difference that would have made. The tranny mount, the fire wall, and
the front engine compartment brace were positioned such that the tranny was
wedged between the firewall and the tranny mount before the front of the
engine cleared the brace (where the bonnet latch is located).
After about 20 minutes of frustration, we started pulling parts off the
front of the motor. First we pulled the dog nut and the crank pulley.
That helped a bit. Then we pulled the timing chain cover- the timing marks
point straight down and are in the way. This was almost enough. I went
back under the car and started fiddling with the tranny position and if
finally popped out. Is this typical? We tried moving the tranny to one
side of the mounts but there wasn't enough room to allow that much
angulation of the unit. The front brace was in the way but the front cowl
lip was not far behind. We had to remove all padding up there to get the
motor out and that was scary indeed since the paint is pretty good.
My concern now is getting it back in. Any advice on a different technique
would be greatly appreciated. This was not an issue about the rig used to
pull the engine not allowing enough angulation. The problem was hard parts
on the car grounding to hard part on the engine. Luckily I had removed
most of the ancillaries (manifolds, oil filter and lines, starter,
generator, dizzy, motor mounts, etc.) before trying this or who know what
else would have hit where. One thing we did find that should have been
remove but wasn't- the tranny dip stick. Luckily it straightened out with
a few loving strokes from the mallet. The tranny still has three levels of
full- low, high, and MOWOG.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Bill Eastman
61 MGA and running gear undergoing separation anxiety in the garage.
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