Engine Out

It's been over a year and a half since my last post on this blog but I'm finally back to working on the Sonett.

Obviously the last update there was a knocking on start-up/idle. I don't know if I ever actually wrote it down but I suspected the issue was the fly-wheel/clutch backing off the engine. The sound seemed to be coming from the bell-housing, not the engine.

Nicholas Byrne suggested last time I had the engine out to just disconnect the lower control arm to swing the half-shafts out to make removing the trans-axle easier. This was an excellent idea, even more so now in hindsight that I realize all I had to remove were the sway bars, and not actually the entire lower control arm... Oh well.



Once all the engine stuff is disconnected you have to make sure the linkage is off the back of the trans-axle as well as disconnecting the trans-mount... which in the Sonett is a single 5/8" bolt, well on my car it is anyways after I re-tapped the threads there to something usable... Guess since it sits on the pan that's probably fine.


Remove the tapered pin holding the interior linkage to the stub off the trans-axle. Don't break it! They should be really greased up and just pressed in, so it should sort-of just pop right out.



Another trick I've learned pulling this engine so many times is to remove three of the four steering rack bolts, and loosen the fourth, the you can pivot the rack so the hump for the linkage clears easier and you can lift the oil pan to clear the front frame brace.



Now just try not to forget to disconnect the exhaust and the P-clip that you added to hold the battery cable... Then remove the engine.



And out! The whole process start to finish took about 5 hours. We sort of cheated because I had already disconnected the alternator, belts, radiator, and other stuff that had to be removed to get the engine out before-hand.



Apparently while the starter is only joined to the trans-axle when you try to remove the transaxle with it attached, it pinches the oil pan and won't come off. That puzzled us for way longer than it should have.

Finally the trans-axle was off and I could get a good look at the clutch and fly-wheel:

Validation! It's hard to tell in the picture but 5/6 weren't actually touching the mounting face of the fly-wheel. One is pretty obviously out about 3/16", and the rest were literally finger loose. I took out the one tight one with a wrench in the time it took my friend to take out the other 5 with his hand...

But that would definitely cause the problem I was having. So this was a fantastic relief to see an obvious problem and have a solution ready to go.

The engine is on the stand ready to be cleaned up, I'll detail the engine-bay and clean everything there up. Then replace the bolts, friction plate, carrier bearing, and bushing.