rabbit eng; remove w/ tranny, or separately??

[Josh]

Before I tackle rebuilding my core 1.6TD from an early '80's Jetta, I'm going to rip into the 1.5 na with a cracked block that's sitting in my rabbit.  

  Rabbit Vets, do you prefer to pull the engine and tranny as an assembly, or to remove them separately?  I see that to remove them together, one drops them out from under the car.  Obviously, the tranny by itself would come out from under the car.  I work alone, so that's my main consideration.  What can be most easily handled by one person with a hoist and a pair of hydraulic jacks and stands?  

  And as long as were polling folks, I assume it's best to insert the engine and tranny together when re-assembling the car; this way it's easiest to be assured of proper torqueing and the lack of leaks, yes?  Would this hold true when putting in a 5 speed instead of the old 4 speed?  

  So many questions, so little summer!  

   -Josh  ('79 rabbit below is the current patient)

[Justin]

you cannot just pull the engine, when ever i have pulled the engine i pull the engine and tranny together though the top, all it requires is an engine hoist, it works out pretty good for me, and yes it is easiest to put the engine and tranny together vs. the engine then the tranny,

good luck
Justin

[janb]

I do mine together, out the bottom

I use 2 floor jacks to raise car, tho one will do, and cradle the engine with  jack straddling oil pan and tranny,  Then I drop (don't foget to remove cold start cable  :oops: )  When engine is resting on jack under car, I place a 4x4 block under front and block up rear, pull out jack, remove tranny block, drop to ground, remove frt block, then slide out thru drivers fenderwell.

Sounds complicated, but... I've done it both ways, and short of doing at my friends house (who has a car lift + a 2 axis overhead crane) (we always do from top there)  I prefer the bottom, when working alone.

It is not a big deal either way, and if you use a hoist, a smaller one helps  (or a large work area

Hint... Going from the top... remove one hood hinge bolt on each side, and SLOWLY rotate hood back against windshield)

[vwmike]

I've never had to unbolt the hood hinges. I try to keep the chain on the engine short so that it's close to the arm. It usually works out that the arm just barely clears the hood and there's also just enough room to pull the engine over the core support.

[fspGTD]

I have always gone out through the bottom - the pics on these pages show the engine swap work in process:
http://home.comcast.net/~vwgtd/swapout.htm
http://home.comcast.net/~vwgtd/swapin.htm
Looks like from those pics that I also opted to remove the hood.

[veeman]

Same here... Engine hoist is used to get them both out the bottom.   A load balancer on the hoist is an added nicety.  Keeps everything going down at the same rate and prevents binding.

For me, the trick is getting the car high enough on jack satnds to that once the engine and trans are lowered to the ground, I'm able to drag them out from under the front of the car.  I try to put the engine/trans combo on a big piece of carpet to make dragging them out easier and those big 3 ton jack stands help out with the height.

Most of all when swapping engines, I really try to label everything as best I can.  I number my tags on wires / mechanical connections / vacuum lines and then make a list of what the numbers represent.  

Seems silly, but if the engine is out for a few weeks (or months!), my memory doesn't hold up enough to put everything back as it should be.   I've even started taking digi pics of certain assemblies so I know how everything "was"...

[fatmobile]

Yep I'm in the engine out the bottom club.
  I set the engine on the ground then hook the hoist to the hole under the front motor mount to lift the car.

[chrissev]

Before I tackle rebuilding my core 1.6TD from an early '80's Jetta, I'm going to rip into the 1.5 na with a cracked block that's sitting in my rabbit.  

  Rabbit Vets, do you prefer to pull the engine and tranny as an assembly, or to remove them separately?  I see that to remove them together, one drops them out from under the car.  Obviously, the tranny by itself would come out from under the car.  I work alone, so that's my main consideration.  What can be most easily handled by one person with a hoist and a pair of hydraulic jacks and stands?  

  And as long as were polling folks, I assume it's best to insert the engine and tranny together when re-assembling the car; this way it's easiest to be assured of proper torqueing and the lack of leaks, yes?  Would this hold true when putting in a 5 speed instead of the old 4 speed?  

  So many questions, so little summer!  

   -Josh  ('79 rabbit below is the current patient)

Well, if you try to take the engine out without also removing the transmission, you're going to discover what everyone else who's tried this has already found out...it can't be done.  Reason is pretty simple.  There's no room to move the engine to the left so that the mainshaft can pull out of the clutch and the engine can be lifted up.  The transmission can be moved to the right enough to have the mainshaft clear so that it can be removed without removing the engine as well, so you can remove the transmission without removing the engine, but not the other way round.  

When I did the removal on an 84 rabbit, I removed by lifting the engine out of the car from the top.  This was really hard to do because the power brake booster is in the way and it took a lot of manouvering to get the engine past it.  Getting it back in was even harder.  I've been told that it's a lot easier to simply lower the engine/transmission to the ground and lift the car over top of it.  That is the way I would do it if I had to do it again.

[Josh]

That sounds like a concensus; remove the rabbit's diesel engine along with the transmission from the bottom.  

It's going to be a fun weekend!  

   Thanks all.  

    -Josh

[Patrick]

Never tried it out the bottom, always the top. Had a brother that pulled engine only out the top, couldn't put it back together that way, couldn't get hte clutch back on. I pulled the tranny and finished teh job.