Marcos Mantula: Engine in

Busy day today, quick early morning trip to Long Marston and picked up a engine hoist (thanks Andy for the loan of the hoist) and looking forward to finally getting the engine back in the Marcos.

When I took it out, both the engine and gearbox came out as one piece however this time I had already refitted the gearbox and was hoping that dropping the engine in, then slide back to meet up with the gearbox and bolt together was the plan but was not quite so straight forward as I was hoped.

When I lowered the engine in place I firstly found both the water pump assembly and front pulley would foul on the top chassis rail and steering rack and then also had to remove the oil filter and once all removed I had a right game in trying to match engine and gearbox both up together with the last inch proving troublesome however with many up and downs with the hoist and a little sideways rocking it all suddenly came together. Great, now just lift it all up a little, fit the engine mounts, lower it back down to meet up with chassis and job done, hmm not quite as the engine mounts were not meeting up with the chassis. After much trying, even after loosening up the gearbox bolts to give me a little more movement I finally managed to sit the engine on one mount however the other side is still not lining up by approx 3mm so have placed a block of wood underneath the engine to secure it even and called it a day, back sore and need a bath and beer !

Having removed the offending engine mount, I will weld up the hole in the mount that the rubber sits on and drill a new hole 3mm to the side and this will sort the problem out.