Success on engine removal! Day 10, 11 and 12!

Just spending a few effective hours of work in the garage for one weekend proved to be enough to remove the badass 1975 400 CUI high performance engine! Below are photos describing the work. We had to keep the pace up so I admit I didn't really photograph every single bolt, but I still managed to get a lot of pictures.

We started off by removing the hoses to the radiator. They were
really hard to remove but they should be replaced anyway while
overhauling the engine so we cut them off. The two transmission
cooling lines had been removed by previous owner, and
instead hoses had been used which is not recommended, but
easily removed. Be sure to keep separate fluid containers for
the coolant and transmission oil.

This is Jocke. He drives a '71 Chevelle. I have tried hard to convince
him to go mopar(GM), but he just doesn't get it - yet. ;)
Radiator removed, fitted with four bolts.

Equally, the fan shroud was fitted with four bolts.

As for the fan...

We moved on with the master brake cylinder, attached with
four nuts. We reassembled the nuts afterwards not to lose them.

These are the original exhaust manifolds made of cast iron.
Changing these for hooker competition headers will provide
a nice flow and primarily a nicer sound to the vehicle. The exhaust
manifolds are fitted with three quite large studs which are threaded
on both ends. It doesn't matter which side unbolts first, but if
the inner one does, coolant from the block will come out of the
hole. It really surprised us at first! :) Except for the studs there are two
smaller bolts on the right, one of them is fitted with a wrench socket
on the picture, and the other one is just to the left of it. Finally there
is a small bolt fitting the EGR system to the exhaust in the back.

The bolt for the EGR was really stuck. Here's me giving a shot at it...

...and here's Jocke. Enthusiastic enough. ;)

Well, we had to cut it off, it wouldn't budge!

Removing the cables/wires/hoses to the speed control system.

Removing the clips attaching the throttle and kick down linkage.

And our girlfriends picked us up since we had a couple of beers
this wonderful Friday evening. :) On the left, my girlfriend Sarah,
in the middle Jockes girlfriend Rebecca and to the right Jocke himself.

This is the pile of stuff we'd removed so far.

Saturday. We started by removing the EGR bolt from the exhaust
manifold with a smaller tool with a compressor instead of a
built-in electrical engine...

Then we removed the fitting for the exhaust pipes. This
"bracket" is slided on all the way up to the exhaust manifold
where it's attached with two bolts.

And this is what it looks like on the exhaust manifold side, only
one bolt hole is visible but the other is on the left side in the shadows.

I believe the pipe coming out of the exhaust manifold port is from
the EGR system, blowing air into the exhaust using the air pump.

They look nice and tidy but damn were they heavy?

Pickaboo!

Remember the wheel house was stuck on the drivers side?
Well, we cut it loose. As visible it was a bit rusted out and will
need some welding to get nice again.

Clearance! Thank you lord!

This is from within the fender, I don't know if you can tell, but the
drivers side fender is welded to the rocker panel, probably because
the drivers side had some bad rust here and there. Still it's a really bad
solution from the old owner and prevented me from removing the fender easily!

In the middle of the picture is one of the engine mounts. There
are two ways to remove this. Either by one really large bolt close
to the frame, or by the three smaller attaching the block to the
engine mounts, this is one of those three.

Here is the other...

Gotta love them big US cars. It's not every day you can actually
perform the work from INSIDE the engine compartment. ;)

Whoops. This might not be recommended, but it's quite effective
on bolts that won't come off by hand. ;)

The fuel pump, attached to the engine block with two bolts. These
are hard to reach, but the pump is just in front of one of the engine
mount bolts, and needs to be removed to reach that bolt.

Pile keeps getting bigger...

Gaskets from exhaust manifolds look pretty worn out... :)

In the middle you can see the power steering pump and reservoir
removed. I think it was fitted with three bolts into it's bracket and
that the fluid line was fitted to the pump with one bolt.

Tried to get a shot of the transmission bellhousing, but it was hard.
Along the edge of the bellhousing there are 6 bolts that needs to
be removed in order to separate the engine from the transmission.

Below the transmission there is a plate covering the flexplate
and torque converter. It's fitted with four bolts. Just above it to
the right is a bolt connecting the starter to the engine block,
once removed, starter will actually stay fitted to the transmission.

The starter bolt removed.

It's a good idea to protect the transmission pan with a piece
of wood. We had none, except for this broken brush. ;)

Jocke attaching the engine hoist. I'm gonna post a few pictures
so that you can see how we attached it.

Still happy after a hard weekends worth of work.
Thank you so much for all the help Jocke!!

The engine starts to come out!!

While slowly and carefully taking the engine higher we made sure
no electrical cables were still attaching the engine to anything.

What a beast!

Kind of a funny picture, looks like we used no engine hoist.
Swedish vikings do without!

Quite an impressive sight!

Oily, rusty, but seems to be in savable shape.

The flex plate. Before dettaching this from the torque converter
we marked one of the "wings" with a sharpy and did the same on
the torque converter side, to be able to put it back just as it was.

Then our girlfriends joined us with a couple of hamburgers after
a hard days work... We really needed that!

Me, my girlfriend and Rebecca...

Hamburger!

Sarah, a godess amongst women!

The boys handling the tough stuff!

Once again, swedish viking lifts the engine without hoist. True story.

Carefully lowered the engine to the ground.

During the next few weeks I will have a nice few hours of cleaning
the engine compartment from every little piece. :)

I'll remove the A/C condenser. The whole system for that matter.
Come on, how often do you drive a Cordoba with the windows closed?

Quite some cables, and alot of vacuum crap!

Pile near the end of the day. :)

Project status: A success, but still a lot to do! :)

Day 8 and 9 - Hood, fender and new stuff!

It's been a troublesome week. A lot to do to prepare for removing the engine, and a lot of problems in the project. These are the pictures from day 8 and 9. In just an hour or so my friend Joacim will join me in the garage for the entire weekend. I sincerely hope we will have the time to remove the engine! Pictures, starting with the hood:

The hood was secured by two nuts on each side. Please notice
I placed a thick cloth behind the hood protecting the window and
upper cowl. However, since the hood is retained with nuts it won't
slide when nuts are removed.

The hood leaning against a wall. You really need to
be two persons to remove this. Heavy and big!

Getting there... slowly, but surely!

In order to remove fender, the ugly antenna needs to
be removed. It has a similar contraption as the rear view
mirror wires, drive it around using a screwdriver. I think
there is supposed to be a plastic cover on top of this,
missing on my vehicle.

These are the parts that attach the antenna. From left to right,
bottom to top above fender.

My oldest brother helping me to remove the fender bolts.
The fenders are attached with 5 bolts and 2 nuts(same nuts
that secure the hood to the cowl). These are easily removed
along the ledge of the fender.

Then it's secured in the front bottom with one screw...

...and two on the bottom back of it. On to the tricky part.

There are three nuts securing the fender to the headlamp
panel. These are reached from within the fender and can
be quite tricky to reach. Two are on the top and one on the
bottom. You can barely see them between fender and panel
on this picture. In the best of worlds, the nuts will come of easily,
enabling the removal. However, they were stuck on my car so
I actually had to cut one of them loose.

If wheel house and all above mentioned bolts have been removed,
this is the result. This will truly help us on removing the engine!

Wheel house and fender dettached. The fender looks good,
I do not think any welding will be necessary!

On to the drivers side wheel house. It has some brackets attached
to it. The biggest one is the speed control system bracket...

...attached with three nuts from within the wheelhouse.

Another bracket to remove, just secured by one nut from within
the wheel house. After this I started getting some problems. I
figured I would just have to repeat the process from the passenger
side. And surely, that would have worked, however. Three bolts
in the wheel house were really stuck because of extensive rust
and general condition of wheel house on drivers side was much
worse than passenger side. So I figured I'd remove the fender first,
which is entirely possible, and then cut off the bolts. However,
it turns out previous owner in Canada had actually welded the
lower part of the fender to the rocker panel(!). Disabling me from
removing it before this weekend, it needs to be cut loose.

I went to a great hardware/car tool shop and spent more than
800 USD on new tools. This is like christmas. :)

This is what I got, after assembly. :)

So this is what me and Joacim have to work with. Please send
us positive thoughts on our progress removing this and I will
update as soon as I can again. :)

Day 7 - A little bit behind schedule...

So, I thought I got rid of the cold, spent one day in the garage and woke up on Saturday with the cold being as bad again. So I had to stay home the entire Saturday and only got a few hours today. This means I didn't really get everything done according to schedule, but I still have a couple of days to go so it should be allright. This is what I've managed to do during the weekend.

Started off by removing the "rubber like protection" whatever these
are called, lol. :) from the wheelhouse. They are only attached with
clips so they are quite easy to remove.

Rubber like protection thingy removed. :)

Close-up of clips...

It gives a nice clearance from the wheelhouse.

Before dropping the wheel house, be sure to disassemble
anything connected to it. There are a bunch of cable holders
and some nuts to secure several things on it. All are quite visible
except for the one on the picture above. It's right next to the coolant
reserve tank and my wrench is attached to it.

Remove all bolts from within the wheel house, they are all
around and in quite vast numbers. They all look the same
except for the two in the rear of the wheel house that are
a bit bigger. I had some rust in the wheel house but it was
a lot less terrifying than I thought. :)

Carefully lower the wheel house. Normally wheel should be removed
before performing this, but I kind of went for a better-safe-than-sorry
mindset since I was alone in the garage under this heavy weight champion car. :)

Edit: Just to clarify, ofcourse I removed the wheel
afterwards in order to remove wheel house.

Passenger side wheel house removed.

This is what I call good clearance! A lot of rust, but most of it
looks like it hasn't gotten it's way through the steel, so I should
be able to handle it quite easily.

And Jocke, I know you read my blog. Hypothetically, would you
rather remove the spark plugs from this angle, or go through our
last session again? ;)

On to the drivers side wheel house. It has more things attached
to it than the passenger side. Mainly the windshield washer fluid
reservoir and the speed control system bracket. Washer fluid reservoir
is attached with three bolts. Two on the top as visible on above picture...

...and one on the bottom as visible on this picture.

After I removed the windshield washer fluid reservoir I also
removed the rubber thingy without a name on the drivers side. :)

It's a bit smaller on the drivers side, providing less clearance.

Tomorrow, my other brother(not the one from last post) will join me to assist on some heavy lifting. Plan is to remove hood and fenders. I really hope we can get it done tomorrow, it would feel great!

Day 6 - The bumper comes off

My cold only got worse so I had to spend a week out of the garage to really get well. Now I feel better and with just a little over one week before my very good friend joins me to get the engine off I have a lot to do!

Todays main project - removing the bumper.

Before removing the bumper it's a good idea to remove
the lower shield extension. That's kind of a rubber material
extending between the bumper and the lower shield.
It's visible on the picture above and only fitted with seven
plastic snap-in bolts. Remove these to begin with.

Afterwards, look at the bumper from behind. This is where
the bumper is attached to the impact energy absorber. Removing
two nuts; one below and one above on both passenger and drivers
side will dettach the whole bumper as an assembly.

My brother joined me to help out since I figured the bumper might
be heavy. He's behind the camera so I'm on the floor on this pic!
Note that we placed jackstands and a floor jack beneath the
bumper to help us with the weight.

This is what the bumper attachment looks like when
bumper has been removed, it's attached to the impact
energy absorber.

And finally Cordoba without bumpers, kind of takes away a lot
of the beauty, eh?

A close up showing what it looks like without bumper. This pic
will also give you an idea on where to find the attachment for it.

Removed bumper. This can be disassembled to several smaller
pieces and I will do that eventually, just had to get it
out of the way for now.

My brother uses his artistic side to photograph me and my mirror
image in the side of the Cordoba. :) Removing front fender trims.
These are attached with 7 screws, my brother said it's a good
idea to leave one of the top screws for last, and it made things easier!

I was certain I would find a lot of rust under and that a thourough
welding work was needed but it actually looked good behind the trims.

Me using gods gift to human: CRC 5-56!

 That's about all for today. I will spend the entire weekend in the garage so you'd better check back soon for an update. I'm going to remove the gill panel, wheel houses and fenders. Hopefully all that will be gone by sunday night! Oh, and also I need to thank my brother for assisting on the work today!