I am pulling the engine on my Max to fix broken manifold bolts.

I have the engine compartment prepares and wondered if you can pull the engine and leave the trans alone.

I would prefer not to have to pull both out.

Have anyone had any experience with this?

I have the shop manual but no details.

Is there some place to get this information on how to do it?

 

you have a shop manual but no details? hmmmmm....

it's best to pull the tranny and the engine at the same time. the tranny is only about 5 more wires, two hoses if you're an auto, axles, and two mounts. I can pull the tranny by itself in an hour, but if it's going with the engine you have about 20 min worth of extra work to get them both out.

I find it best to have the car about 3 ft in the air, then use a chain hoist to lower the engine and tranny to the ground on a sheet of plywood or a dolly, then pull the engine and tranny out from under the car..

once you have it out of the car, it's a matter of about 9 or 10 bolts to separate the engine and tranny. very easy.

when putting back together, make sure the splines and such line up on the end of the torque convertor or clutch. the auto tranny will bolt together if it's not lined up, but you can't turn the engine afterwards.. if that happens, just loosen the bolts a few threads and turn the crank until they pop into place and re-torque. once you're done with everything, slide the assembly back under the car and hoist the engine back into place.

 

hmm... just read the part about pulling the engine to fix the manifold studs..

there is NO NEED to pull the engine to replace them. you can remove the engine mounts and tilt the engine down a couple of inches and you have all the room you need to do it. I've done this job a half dozen times already. it's cramped, but very possible.
take much less time to just deal with the clearances than it does to pull the engine out and fix it, then put it back in.

 

don't pull the engine, just lower it a tad. also unbolt the air conditioning compressor to make getting to the top #2 cylinder stud much easier. don't remove the compressor completely though, just nudge it out of the way a little.

 

matt what do you mean by tilting the engine down all i would have to do is unbolt the engine mounts and then bamo do the tilt (how would you suport it or tilt it please explain)

what else would have to be unbolted and unhooked

this would be sweet if i could just do this instead of having to take the head off
that damn ticking is ticking me off

no pun intended

 

All you do is support the engine from the bottom.. pull the y pipe off (since you have to anyway), then stick a block of wood and a jack under the oil pan or crank pulley. remove the engine crossmember with the mounts attached... watch the O2 sensor wire since it's clipped to the rear engine mount..

once the engine mounts are off, you can lower it several inches- just make sure you don't pull a wire or hose loose up top. then you've got room to pull everything off the engine and get a drill back there. it's a LOT easier than pulling the head!

 

oh.. FYI..

http://www.4dsc.com/articles/drivetr...ld_studs.shtml

 

Thanks to everyone who responded. This is another dumb question but on th 1990 Nissan. . .is it possible to separate the engine from the trans and drop only the engine to attack the exhaust bolts? Steve

 

Please read above from Matt...I've recently done it the way he says, and it DOES work. If all you are doing is replacing the studs, you don't have to pull the engine....

 

I highly recommend NOT pulling the engine. you would be doing 20 hours of work in order to make a 3 hour job easier..

 

What we need is a step-by-step for the REAR manifold studs. I had read the how-to on the 4DSC site, but that is for the front.
Any of you more experienced folks care to write one up?

I'm facing this job on the rear manifold studs as soon as I can string two or three afternoons and a weekend together.

 

Well, Matt's the expert on manifold studs- he's done it 5 or 6 times, or more. He would probably be the best one to do it, but that's up to him...If he doesn't want to, then I guess I could muddle through it since I just did it a little while ago. And he's the one that helped me, so it would be his instructions that I used anyway.

 

Hi there,
I have just removed two broken studs on the front manifold and put it all back together again just to find the back manifold was leaking as well.
I have removed the back manifold to find two studs were just hanging on by a bit of thread and now they are broken in the head.
I thought I may have to remove the engine to do the rear studs, but there seems to be some discussion that tilting the engine will give me the access I need.
Could someone verify for me from experience that I can just tilt the engine to access the rear studs, or whether tilting the engine will only allow extra access to the front?

Thanks.

 

Yes, you can do both the front AND rear studs without removing the engine. You mentioned that you have already removed the rear manifold, so you already know that you can get to the bolts to get it off. Depending on which studs are broken will determine if anything else needs to be removed to give you enough room to drill out the broken ones. Most of us used some type of right angle drill, which is much easier to get into tight spots. Matt uses a air drill, mine is electric. Once you drill a pilot hole into the stud, you can use an easy-out to remove it. Again, the difficulty is having enough room to get the tools and your hands in there.
I don't know how you got to the rear manifold, but most of us do it from the bottom, which involves removing the y-pipe, center crossmember, both front and rear motor mounts, and the motor mount brackets that bolt to the block. That also means you need to support the engine either under the oil pan or the crank pulley. I used the oil pan, inserting a wood block between the pan and the jack to prevent damage. Removing the mounts and using the jack is waht allows you to tilt and raise/lower the engine as has been referred to earlier.
It works this way, it seems to be the preferred way that most of us do it, and it has been verified many times. This is not to say it's the only way, though. Hope that helps.

 

Exactly what he said.
once you get this far into it, so that you have the manifold off and the crossmember out, all you have to do is lower the engine down a couple/few inches and you should have clearance in there to get to the studs. the air drill I used was a $19 cheapo one I bought at Harbor freight for this job. it's not a good one, but it will turn a drill bit. If you spend a couple bucks on some cobalt (or better) drill bits, then you can drill the studs out in less than a minute each.. then the fun part is putting it all back together and lining up the engine mounts again.

 

Hee hee...yeah, I wonder where I got my info from???

 

Thanks for the reply guys, that helps me heaps.
To remove the rear manifold, I removed the Y pipe and took off the lower two nuts to the rear from below and got the rest from above.
The two studs that are broken are the two closest to the front of the engine.
Since this is a RH drive, they are up behind the brake booster. Looking at it, yes, if the crossmember was out the way, things would be greatly improved.

 

damn take some pics of that rhd..good luck on ur mod

 

Do you happen to know the torque settings for the bolts that hold the engine mount bracket on the block and the engine mount bolts themselves?
Damn they were tight so I thought I had better check how tight they should be when I put them back in.

 

Another question guys. I could get a lot more room if the RH axle wasn't in the way.
My question is, is it practical to remove the RH axle (or driveshaft or whatever they call it)? It would be good to get the shaft and the mount that it goes through that is attached to the block out of the way.
If so, what briefly is the procedure for removing it?
Thanks.
Thumpyls, the car is stock, what did you want a photo of?

 

torque on engine block bolts.. really tight is about the right torque.
FSM says around 80ft-lb if I remember correctly, but I just zap them on with an impact wrench and don't worry about it. it's not like head studs or flywheel bolts where torque is extremely important.


RH axle... remove huge nut on end of axle, unbolt the 3 bolts at the bottom of the ball joint. crawl under car and remove the three 12mm bolts securing the axle to the bracket on the back of the block. drain tranny fluid. pull strut and spindle out of the way so you can pull on the axle. pull axle out of car. that's about it. takes me slightly longer to do it than to type it out.

 

Thanks again guys for the advice. I am pleased to say that I have managed to removed the two broken studs. After applying the equivalent of liquid wrench to them for a couple of days they moved nice and loose. So I only had to drill enough of a hole to get the extractor in and work them out.
Pity on the second one that I drilled the pilot too far and straight into the water jacket. I did the same stupid thing on the other side of the engine previously, but I found silicon gasket in the hole, followed by the stud does the trick for holding the water in. But not too pleasant striking water and finding yourself stuck under the car with your finger over the leak.

Managed to get at the far stud by just undoing the steering pump and moving it aside, so I left the axle in. Amazing how much room is in there. I bought a cheap right angle adapter for my electric drill and it did the trick for giving me enough room to drill.

Thought I would give you some feedback and thanks again for the advice, it was invaluable.

Cheers,
John

 

Hi John-
Glad you managed to get it done without pulling the axle- just that much easier. Sorry to hear you struck water, tho. Guess we should have reminded you that there really isn't alot of thread in the block to work with. At any rate, sounds like you are well on your way to fixing it-congrats!

Oh, one other thing- make sure you check your manifold to see if it is warped or cracked anywhere. If you put it back on that way, you've done a lot of work for nothing. Don't ask me how I know this, just trust me.

 

Thanks for that. The front manifold could have done with a skim flat as it was a little warped out to one end. So yes, it may give some trouble in the future.
I have the car back together and going again. Purrs along nicely.
Was a bit confused by having one large bolt left over until I figured out that the only place it could have come from was the steering rack mounts and it must have been lost by the mechanic that I had do the rack a short while ago.
Yes, I checked that all the bolts for the steering were in place.
I did notice that the engine mounts are pretty much shot (rubber has just about ripped away in the centre) and I wonder if this contributes to the manifolds breaking studs as well. With the engine being able to move further and faster with less support from the mounts, it must have more stress on the exhaust manifolds.

 

Yes, you are absoultely correct on the engine mounts. Best to get those fixed as soon as possible, since the more the engine moves, the more stress it puts on things- exhaust manifolds especially. You don't want to have to do manifold studs on a regular basis..

 

Yup.. you'll notice the studs always break on the ends- never in the middle.
if it were simply a weak bolt issue, the studs would break at random points or in the middle, where the heat is greatest and the manifold trying to pull away is more (just like bad head gaskets- they usuallyl blow in the middle, not on the end)

but yeah, bad engine mounts can help the problem along. definitely get them fixed.