911 Engine Removal Made Easy
Page 2

Figure 42: Fuel Filter Connection

Figure 43: Fuel Accumulator Disconnected

Figure 44: Fuel Hose Connections

Figure 45: Fuel Hose Connections

Figure 46: Main Engine Wire Harness Connector

Figure 47: Disconnecting Wire Harness and CD Box

Figure 48: Disconnected O2 Sensor

Figure 49: Oxygen Sensor

Figure 50: Breather Hose Disconnected

Figure 51: Breather Hose Connection

Figure 52: Accelerator Engine Mount

Figure 53: Accelerator Linkage

Figure 54: Cruise Control Unit

Figure 55: Cruise Control Bracket

Figure 56: Four Nuts that Hold Transmission to Engine Case

Figure 57: Engine Motor Mounts

Figure 58: Engine Dropping Down

Figure 59: Pulling Engine Away from Car

Figure 60: Engine Dropping Down

Figure 61: Engine Dropping Down

Figure 62: Engine Separating from Transmission

Figure 63: Separating Engine From Tranny

Figure 64: Separating Engine from Tranny

Figure 65: Top View of Engine Separating from Tranny

Figure 66: Top View of Engine Pulled Away from Tranny

Figure 67: Separating Engine from Transmission

Figure 68: Engine Pulled Away from Tranny

Figure 69: Motor Resting on Wooden Blocks

Figure 70: Make Sure the Engine Doesn't Rest on CAT

Figure 71: Engine Lowered on Blocks

Figure 72: Watch Not to Damage Hard Line

Figure 73: Engine/Car Clearance Problems

Figure 74: Engine on Cart and Almost Out

Figure 75: Engine Removed

Figure 76: Engine Bay Without Engine

Figure 77: Engine Removed (Time for a beer)

     After the gas lines are detached, then move to the right side of the engine compartment and disconnect the electrical connections.  Start with the main wiring harness (Figure 46).  Be careful when pulling this apart - use a small screwdriver to remove the plug.  This will minimize damage.  Then, move on to disconnecting the CD box.  This is the small aluminum finned box located next to the fuel filter, as shown in Figure 47.  Be careful when pulling this apart too.  Be sure to disconnect any additional electrical connections like the heater blower motor (white plug visible in Figure 47).

     Now, you want to disconnect the oxygen sensor.  I believe that only cars from 1980 on had the O2 sensor installed.  The sensor has a plug that connects near the fuel filter and accumulator, and can be seen in Figure 48.  Disconnect this plug and tuck it out of the way.  For reference, the O2 sensor is located near the driver's side heat exchanger, right before the catalytic converter, as shown in Figure 49.

     After you unplug the O2 sensor, you want to disconnect the oil breather hoses.  This in general varies greatly with the different cars and fuel injection systems.  Figure 50 shows an oil tank breather hose that is attached to the filler neck.  This is common on most carts.  Figure 51 shows a breather hose attachment point for the CIS injection.  Depending upon your car, you will have to look carefully and inspect the hoses to see which ones need to be disconnected.  Don't confuse the A/C hoses with the oil hoses - the A/C lines are connected to the A/C compressor.

     After removing the breather hoses and oil lines in the engine compartment, you now need to disconnect the accelerator linkage from the motor.  On my 911SC, this was unusually difficult to do, and I ended up accidentally bending the accelerator rod - something you want to avoid doing.  The rod is connected using a small ball joint end that snaps into a rocker that is attached to a bracket located on the top of the engine.  This rocker/bracket assembly is shown in Figure 52.  It is barely visible from the rear of the car when the engine and all of the fuel injection is installed.  This assembly is connected to a long rod that runs from the engine compartment to the rear of the transmission.  You need to disconnect this long rod at the ball joint (Figure 53) and remove it, to avoid damaging it.  The ball end of the rod should simply snap off of the rocker located inside the engine compartment.  After it is disconnected from the engine compartment, you should be able to slide it off of the mounting point at the rear of the transmission.

     For those cars equipped with cruise control, you need to disconnect the cruise control cable.  The control actuator is shown in Figure 54.  This unit is normally located on the driver's side of the car in the engine compartment.  The long cable coming out of the unit is connected to the accelerator, and may be difficult to reach and disconnect.  If you follow the cable, you will find that there are two small bolts holding on a bracket that attaches the cable to the throttle body of the fuel injection.  You need to disconnect this bracket, shown in Figure 55, and put the cable out of the way somewhere inside of the engine compartment.

     If you have gotten this far, then you should have just about everything disconnected and ready for the final engine drop! Once, again, I cannot stress enough that there are significant differences between all of the 911s, and you will have to use some common sense to make sure that you disconnected everything.  Look for electrical connections, hoses, gas lines, breather hoses, etc.  Look, and then look again, as there is a likelihood that you missed something.  Also, when you are dropping down the engine, make sure that you do it slowly, and keep checking to make sure that nothing is still connected.

     Now it's time to disconnect the transmission from the engine.  There are four nuts that hold the engine to the transmission.  The engine case has four studs that protrude from the case and are inserted into the transmission case.  You now need to remove these four nuts.  Two are located on the driver's side, and two are located on the passenger side.  Three of them should be obvious - they are large, and look like they hold the engine case to the transmission.  The fourth one is impossible to see - you have to know it's there.  It's located above the starter.  This nut is also not your typical nut - it's a Allen barrel nut, and requires either an 8 or 10 mm Allen wrench to remove.  This nut, and the other three 'normal' nuts are shown in Figure 56.  Note that if your engine has already been out of the car (for a clutch job, for instance), then the person reassembling it may have placed a different type of nut in it's place.  Unfortunately, you can see up there, so you will have to figure it out simply by feeling around.  If you have a difficult time figuring out where these nuts are located, you might want to look at some of the later pictures in this article, where the engine is being removed from the transmission, as this will give you an indication of where the nuts are located. (Figures 62-68)

     After the four bolts are removed, it's time to lower your engine!  start by placing your jack under the engine, and jacking it up until the jack just begins to support the weight of the engine.  Place the jack under the oil sump plate, as this is a pretty good balance point for the engine.  Now move to the engine compartment and remove the engine mount bolts from the center of the engine mounts.  The engine mount with the bolt removed is shown in Figure 57.  The motor mount bar which bolt screws into it tapped and threaded, so there is no nut that you need to hold underneath the motor mount.  After you remove these bolts, you should feel the motor drop down slightly as the weight shifts from the car to the jack.

     Now, you want to slowly lower the motor down.  It's wise to have two people around for this job - one to lower the motor, and one to check to see if there is anything caught in the mess of hoses and wires.  Lower the motor down very slowly until you have enough room to pull it forward slightly.  This distance will probably be about 1 foot or slightly more.  Figure 58, Figure 59, Figure 60, and Figure 61 all show the process of dropping down the motor.

     When you get enough clearance in front of the fan to pull the motor forward, have your assistant look under the car at the seam between the motor and the transmission.  If you give a slight yank on the jack, pulling the motor away from the car, you should see the engine start to separate from the transmission, as shown in Figure 62.  This is a good sign.  In order to effectively remove the engine from the transmission, you need to have the angle of the engine lined up properly with the transmission, as shown in Figure 63.  If the engine is cocked with respect to the transmission (Figure 64), you will have problems removing it from the car.  You should move teh jack up and down until you find the exact point where it will separate from the transmission.  Once you have the proper alignment, you should be able to pull and yank on the engine in order to get it to separate from the transmission.  Figure 65 is a top view of the engine separating from the transmission.  Once you pull the engine completely away from the transmission, it might begin to waver slightly on the jack.  It would be a good idea to have your assistant help you with balancing the engine.  Figure 66, Figure 67, and Figure 68 shows the engine pulling away from the transmission.

     Once the engine is freed from the transmission, you can lower it all the way down.  I recommend resting the motor on wooden blocks.  This is a good way to go, because then you can remove your jack and transfer the motor to a furniture cart, which makes it much easier to move around.  I recommend using some 4x4 blocks of wood, and placing the motor down, resting on the heat exchangers.  While this is probably not a good long term solution, for the immediate need of transferring to a cart, this should work fine.  Figure 69 shows the motor resting on two sets of blocks.  Be careful not to have the motor sit on the catalytic converter (CAT), as this will damage the sheet metal and perhaps the CAT too (Figure 70).  Figure 71 and Figure 72 show the motor sitting firmly on top of wooden blocks.

     By this time, it will be obvious if you need to jack up the car higher, as can be seen in Figure 73.  At this time, you can take the jack and use it to jack up the car from the rear of the floorpan, near the rear of the car.  Make sure that you use a block of wood or newspaper to avoid damaging the floorpan.  Don't jack up the car in the middle of the pan, because it is weak, and cannot support the weight of the car.  After you have enough clearance, I suggest transferring the motor to a furniture cart, as shown in Figure 74.  This will make it really easy to pull out and roll around your garage.  The final step is to just pull the motor out from underneath the car.  Be careful of clutch cables and electrical wires that might be hanging down, and might get caught on the wheels of the cart.

     Well, that's about it!  Once you have your engine out, it should look like Figure 75.  The inside of the engine compartment, complete with transmission should resemble Figure 76.  Finally, the engine sitting on the cart is shown in Figure 77.  Now you're ready to replace your clutch, fix oil leaks, or rebuild your engine (all future tech articles).  Please remember that your repeated support of Pelican Parts is essential to the growth and upkeep of this site.  Bluntly put, if you don't think of Pelican Parts for all your Porsche needs, then we won't be able to provide this great resource for free to everyone!  Our toll-free number is 1-888-280-7799, and you can find our extensive Porsche 911 on-line catalog by clicking here.

     Please help spread the word about us too.  If you liked this article, and think that one of your Porsche friends would like it too, then please click on the 'Recommend a Page to a Friend' link below.  Once again, if you have any questions, or additions to this tech article, please don't hesitate to email us.

Click here to look at comments, suggestions, and feedback from other people who have read this article.  Or, add your own feedback, and help everyone else out by learning from your experience!

Dave Kalokitis (dkalokitis@sarnoff.com) adds:

Wayne, I just completed R&R on my 911 engine. Now that I'm done, I found your article on the process. You seem to have covered al the bases. These is one thing I would recommend slightly differently. I used a plywood dolly between the engine and jack. It is layered plywood about an inch and half thick with 4 casters. Its about the size of your furniture dolly with a solid center. You could add a plywood center to your dolly and have a similar set up. Just screw the plywood to the dolly. This worked great. I set the engine down and the dolly was already in place. Now I could use my jack to pick up a corner of the car and wheel the engine out. I changed the clutch and reassembled. The engine never left the dolly. I removed the engine and trans as a unit. You should mention this option as clutch alignment is easier in this fashion. Hope this helps and thanks for the good tech articles.  I have used your valve adjustment procedure very effectively.

Dave Kalokitis
'91 C2T

Dale Pratt (Dale92261@aol.com) adds:

Your article on dropping the 911 engine was very helpful, and I thank you for  taking the time to write it. I have something that may prove to be helpful to others in respect to that fourth nut holding the tranny and motor together, the one over the starter. Mine was the original barrel nut (10 mm Allen) but the stud completely filled the cavity, preventing me from inserting an Allen wrench. I simply skipped this nut, and went ahead with the engine drop. When the engine had dropped down about two and a half inches, the nut was easy to get to from the engine compartment. I used a very small pipe wrench to loosen the nut, and the rest of the drop went normally. I hope this helps any others who may run into the same problem, I still don't know why that stud was so long, but on reassembly I intend to see if the stud can be seated into the block a little further. Thanks again for the article.

Just a little idea which you may like to add to your 911 engine removal (or others maybe).

We all know that when oil lines are disconnected that oil drips follow and whilst putting rags in the ends of lines may work for a while, if they become saturated they drip as well. A simple very inexpensive idea is to use kids ballons as oil line "condoms". Just stretch them over the ends of lines... they seal well and also act as a mini-accumulator of oil.
Photo attached of my engine showing balloons in place.

I was put onto the idea when assisting some guys in the Porsche Car Club of Queensland (Australia) work on engines.

Another minor point in articles on the site... eg "spark plug #1 is at the back on the drivers side" ... uh uh ... in other places the drivers sits on the other side of the car ... better to refer to #1 as at the back on the Left Hand side when viewing the fanbelt or whatever.

Your articles are never the less VERY VERY excellent and a great help to home mechanics like myself.

Keep up the great work and look forward to your 101 Projects book being released.

Regards

Barry Long