ive heard that one can remove the engine from the top of the car rather than drop the cradle..

right now i have prety much everything disconnected and engine down to the heads, number 2 cyl is, well, lop sided, so im going to have to replace the engine..

i figure that i need to remove coolant lines, engine mounts and bellhousing bolts, then i should beable to pull the engine up.. correct me if im wrong or if i need to disconnect anythng else before pulling the engine up.

thanks!

Andrew

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i pulled the first duke out of Ling from the top.
and i really dont recommend it.

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Buddy - there are two "G"s in my name
Ling = 84SE-350-N2O-Poly-Mr.Mike seats-Sequential turn signals-short shifter
Julia C = 85GT stock (kinda)
KCFOG

Well the engine has to have enough room to slide to the passenger side of the car by about 6" to get the trans shaft out of the engine. Or remove the driver side suspension and slide the trans off the engine.
I dropped my cradle and it was a lot easier to swap the engine with the entire cradle sitting on a table.

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Happiness isn't around the corner...
Happiness IS the corner.

I will be removing the engine on my 88 Formula soon so this info is also of interest for my situation. What I am wondering is, how high does the car need to be lifted to get the engine out from underneath? I have a floor jack a few jack stands and a pair of ramps, but I can't see any of them being able to get the car up high enough to pull an engine out from underneath. How do you do it without a lift?

Drop it through the bottom, youll be glad you did. Best way i found for lifting the body is to hook an engine hoist to the place where the engine dog bone mounts to and use the hoist to lift the body way up to clear the engine.

you can rent an engine hoist from most auto parts stores if you dont have one at home.

You can take the engine AND the trans together as a unit through the top, but beware of the back window! and be prepared to swear a lot, its not much fun.

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85 GT undergoing a 2000 3800SC transplant. The wiring hell ugh......headach. Digital dash in progress.........more wiring ugh. Making it all work together.........wheres my advil

90 GMC suburban (for sale $3000 firm or trade for a good running fiero! ask for details, pic below)

2000 dodge intrepid- the daily driver (snore)
2000 Ford focus (SHO engine swap soon!)
2004 BMW Z4 convert, cause gotta have a bitchin chick magnet!
AIM: Ambulancemech

http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/046963.html

this will help. take a look...

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quote Originally posted by Thebrainn: I will be removing the engine on my 88 Formula soon so this info is also of interest for my situation. What I am wondering is, how high does the car need to be lifted to get the engine out from underneath? I have a floor jack a few jack stands and a pair of ramps, but I can't see any of them being able to get the car up high enough to pull an engine out from underneath. How do you do it without a lift?

Lift the front end up and slide the ramps in. Then raise the rear up. To clear the body with the cradle, The rear bottom of the frame needs to be 36" to 40" high. I had mine at 42" due to the engine going in was slightly taller. Then rent or borrow a hoist and lower the cradle. You can drop the entire cradle and rear suspension as on assembly. Replace and clean what you want then hoist the entire assembly back up.

I used a floor jack and a 4X4 piece of wood to raise the car up high enough to fit the jackstands just forward of the cradle. I then used the hoist to lift the rear of the car higher and raised the jackstands until the rear was high enough.

I have never used anything more then a decent floor jack, a long piece of metal, a wheel chock and a dolly and two jack stands. Alittle scary but I've done it 20+ times now.

The major question is WHY???

When pulling it out the bottom is so easy. I pulled a v-6 this morning before doing a gas tank swap on my 86 GT project. Swapping the gas tanks took longer than pulling the engine out the bottom with just a floor jack, two jack stands, and an engine hoist.

ahh, ok, from the bottom.. thanks.. +s around!

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I would have to say that I can pull out two or three engines from the bottom in the time it takes to one from the top. I have done both ways many times and I will never pull one from the top if I have a choice. One big advantage of dropping it from the bottom is that 90+% of the engine tranny is assembled and adjusted to spec before it even goes in or out of the car I dont know about you but I think it is a pain in the butt just to change the alt. more or less line up the tranny, A/C, wire harness and on and on if you pull it up from the top.

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Rickady88GT QuadCam 3.5 V6

i promised myself i'd not post in religious threads, but...
ive done 2 dukes out the top, onne with and one without the tranny. link w/ pix
http://www.mtsu.edu/~mkr2c/fiero.htm