Nik and I casually discussed the possibility that we could get the motor out today, but I'm not sure I really believed it. I hadn't gotten as far as I needed to on the previous visit, but I dug in anyway to see where we'd end up. Keep in mind we don't get these workdays started until around 5 p.m.
Here's where I left it last time:
The biggest items left were the exhaust and the driveshaft, then transmission leads and other assorted connections.
The exhaust hardware was pretty rusted together, so it took some time with the Freeze-Off and giant impact gun. I'm deaf now from that thing, but the exhaust eventually came off.
At some point it had a supersprint cat-back installed. I don't think I ever drove this car, so I can't really say how it sounds.
The driveshaft is bolted at the back, and the fasteners were extremely difficult to move. In fact, I couldn't get them to budge and really didn't want to strip anything; it would be super obnoxious to do extraction up in that space.
It seemed like as good a time as any to take a break and think on it over some Mexican food, so we broke for dinner.
Afterwards, I found a video suggesting a wrench on the nuts, then using a prybar in the driveshaft-u-joint to apply force. I sprayed a bunch a of freeze-off, put a line wrench on the nut, wedged it against the body, then applied some serious force via the prybar. It worked! Thank you internet-hive-mind. I doubt I would've thought of that. I was able to get all four off. I'm pretty sure they haven't been touched in 40 years.
The front of the driveshaft just slid out which let 20 gallons of old ATF out of the transmission and onto the floor. Joy.
This is obviously before I got the driveshaft out, but after the protector plate removal.
After some clean up and the unplugging of anything left holding the engine and transmission to the car, we hooked up the gantry/hoist and started pulling.
We had to move the connection on the front of the engine mid-way through to get enough angle to get over the radiator support, but other than that, it was pretty drama-free.
The ATF found one of the gaps in the flooring, so cleanup was a huge PITA.
I didn't get out of there until nearly midnight, but I'm so glad to have the driveline out. Feels like real progress.
Now I have to get serious about finding a new motor for this thing!
Thanks for reading!
damen
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