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Can 1.9 engine be raised without removing crank pulley/damper?

758 views 5 replies 3 participants last post by  John Sawyer 
#1 · (Edited)
Can the 1.9 CFI engine block in an 89 Pony be raised four inches while in the engine bay, separately from its manual transmission, without having to remove the crank pulley/damper? Or does the pulley need to be removed to give the block room to be moved away from the transmission far enough to disengage something that links the two, or to allow the clutch assembly on the rear of the block to clear the top edge of the transmission's bell housing as the block is raised? Without removing the pulley, there's about five-eighths of an inch between it and the fender wall of the engine bay, and I'm hoping this is enough wiggle room. I'd rather not remove the crank pulley because for some reason it's a big hassle to reinstall the timing belt on my engine, even when I have the tensioner fully loosened.

As you can probably tell, I've never pulled an engine (or a transmission), but now I need to at least raise my engine so I can replace the freeze plug on the rear of the engine that's covered by the transmission. Two of the original steel freeze plugs on the radiator side of the engine already sprang leaks when I did an engine flush recently using oxalic acid, so I replaced all three on that side with brass plugs, but I'm concerned that the rear one might also leak soon. I've been doing some other work to clean up leaky gasketing on both the intake and exhaust manifolds, so they're both removed, along with everything else that needs to be disconnected to do that, and at that point I noticed that it didn't look like much more needed to be done to raise the engine a little, but the info I've been finding isn't clear about what needs to be done to allow the engine to clear the transmission.

My measurements show that the engine needs to be raised only about four inches to get to the freeze plug. I'd rather do that, than lower or remove the transmission, since I've never pulled halfshafts out of a transmission, though I will at some point to replace their leaky differential seals. I'm not really prepared to do that right now, because after having done a bunch of other repairs recently, I want to get the car back on the road for a while.

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#2 · (Edited)
I studied this some more by looking at a lot of photos and diagrams, and making some measurements, and I've pretty much concluded that this can't be done. To me, if nothing else, it looks like you need to be able to move the engine more than 5/8" away from the transmission bell housing to get the end of the transmission's input shaft far enough out of the clutch assembly to allow the engine to be lifted.

Oh well. This is probably for the best, because it means I'm more likely to do what I should, which is to leave the engine in place, and drop down or even pull out the transmission so I can both replace the freeze plug, inspect the parts in the clutch assembly, and also fix the leaky CV joint seals. I'll also probably clean and polish the bell housing, just to make it look nice.
 
#3 ·
If it were me, and I had done that much work already to get to the plug, I'd resurface the flywheel and replace the clutch disk, plate and bearing. Maybe even the rear mount. Sounds like you are keeping it, but it depends on how long. It's a good selling point though. I always consider the mileage on the clutch when I look at cars to buy.
 
#5 ·
If it were me, and I had done that much work already to get to the plug, I'd resurface the flywheel and replace the clutch disk, plate and bearing. Maybe even the rear mount.
That's another reason I finally decided not to just raise the engine and replace the freeze plug. I was planning on resurfacing/replacing clutch parts as a separate task (as needed, based on what I see, though the clutch seems to have been working OK), but it makes more sense to do the plug, the clutch, and the leaking CV joints all at the same time. The problem the car currently has with shifting, is felt more in the stickshift--sometimes it's a little difficult to get it into one or two of the gears, especially reverse, requiring more effort, and I was hoping this might be due to wear on parts in the shifter hardware itself.
 
#6 · (Edited)
The timing gear is separate from the pulley. You can remove the pulley and not have to worry about anything other than set the alternator belt tension.
Egad, you're right. Three months ago, I removed and reinstalled the crank pulley to allow me to replace the timing belt, but that's the only time I've done it, so I guess I haven't done this often enough for it to have stuck in my head yet. It probably will now. I think that between then and now, I merged the experience of removing the crank pulley with the one that followed, removing the timing belt, so that I made a false association, thinking that removing the crank pulley would also loosen the timing belt. Maybe a better name for the crank pulley to prevent this misconception might be "accessory belt pulley" (though the name's not going to change now, and it's unlikely a lot of people make this mistake anyway).
 
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