Well, as a few of you know my Timing Chain broke under unusual circumstances. So after obtaining a pretty much NEW Long Block for the swap, I have started pulling the car apart but am currently waiting to get the car in the garage so I can actually pull it apart inside instead of on the driveway and in the weather.
I will continue to take pictures and post them as I go.
So far I have taken the 12 bolts out of the bumper and the 8 plugs and removed the bumper and then removed the foam on the bumper support.

 

The bumper is being re-painted by my father in law while I'm swapping the blocks.

 

So you haven't done anything yet..

 

Nope, I'm dyin' to get started but need help backing her into the garage. My driveway is on a hill and the car is facing the house and needs to be turned around and pushed up into the garage before I tare it apart.

 

Wow, timing chain snapped? Never actually seen that happen in a car that didn't have a million miles on it.

 

yea, i know. my Harmonic balancer came off when I was gettin' on it and when it released all that energy it, in a sense, over turned the crank and it snapped... it will be all documented on this thread in the posts to come

 

Alright, I finally pulled it into the garage last night with a lot of help from my Dad's 2000 lbs electric hitch wench.
I drilled a hole in the garage floor and set a anchored 5/8" bolt in the floor and hooked it over it.
I pulled the car towards the garage, then turned the wheel and rolled it back and turned the opposite and rolled it forward down the hill. Then backed the car in.


after spining around in the driveway


Here is the little winch I used to pull her up and in




Funny thing was, when I got it mostly in the garage, the auto lights came on as to say "I'm still alive"


The garage lip was rough for the little winch to get the car up, but we made it

Just barely inside the garage so I have plenty of room around the other sides of the car

The car is in it's resting spot




Old Motors final resting place before dismantling

Sittin' in the da Garage

 

Looks so fine naked

 

OH Yes it does

 

Take some pics of the old engine and damage. I want to see the extent of it. Don't forget to lube up

 

Yea, I will definately. I plan to dismantle the engine to see what happened specifically and also to sell off the pieces of the block to recoupe my money.
Oddly enough there is not a lot of DIY info online about pulling these apart. So I'm just gonna document my dismantling and shwo what I do.

 

Started disassembling the car on Saturday around 11am.





Always wear protection




After removing the aluminum bumper I discover this in the front left plastic, wedged under a metal support


The radiator was FULL of leaves, bird feathers and trash




After removing my CAI I found why my A/C stopped working. Looks like the CAI rubbed a hole in the return line of the A/C system. Gonna have to get that fixed now.



Got the front off

You can kinda see here where the HB is crooked.


I removed the HB to find it all cracked up










removed the Plenium top

The inside of the plenium was caked in oil

Took the center piece out and found a bath of oil











The injectors were REALLY dirty.

You can almost see the problem here (I'll tell you later what I found)

Shoty RTV everywhere


Checked the status of the Timing Chain under the covers.


Starting to add parts to the new block....

Motors gettign closer to removing. Have to take loose the tranny.







Yanked it out.... Came out surprisingly easy





I found while removing the coil packs that I had a valve cover leak in the #6 cylinder

these, I think, are the Cam position sensors.


After removing the intake I found these little Japanese labels just sitting in the belly of the block



Motor is coming along nicely

Stripping a little at a time from the old block and putting it on the new


The guy that I bought the new motor from also sent me a new oil filter for it. That was nice



The wiring is a intimidating mess, but surprisingly not all that complicated.







Gonna need a clutch after while. Prolly another year or so. I'm really easy on my clutches.

Mounted the flywheel and clutch up

New motor and trans is ready to go back in



It was really helpful that my new motor came with the factory hoist bars that bolt to the block. Otherwise it would have been hard to find a place to lift it



Old motor getting ready for Ebayin'




After re-installing the motor I took a lot less pics. Here are the few I have





By 9:30pm last night I had it running, and pulled it out of the garage.
I started at 11am on Saturday worked till about 7:30pm, went to Church Sunday Morning, came home and started at about 1:30pm and worked again till 6pm, then Monday from about 2:30pm to 9:30 pm and finished it up.

I went to drive to work today, even without a front bumper, but that didn't work. The plastic fairing on the bottom that connects to the bumper flapped too much so i will have to wait for the bumper so I don't hurt anything.
BUT it runs great.

 

Oh yea, the original problem of the motor blowing was when the Harmonic Balancer came loose it sheared the key off the driveshaft that kept the timing gear in it's place which acted like the timing chain had broken but in fact is just spun the crank seperately from the timing chain and cams. So in affect it had the same result as a broken chain but actually didn't break the chain.

 

Also, I have $800 in the new swap... $500 for the long block, $230 for shipping and $70 in fluids to get the ol' girl going again....

New Cars are SOOOO much easier to work on than the older cars I'm used to. The bolts all came loose so easily and once they were broke loose they could be finger loosened off. The car came apart so gracefully. I was astonished how fast and easy it came apart. No hang ups at all. Love this car...

 

Glad you got it back up in running.