Damnation: The Cynos Project

Yes...its happened...

After endless turmoil, I just could not persist with the masochistic treachery that is maintaining my POS, so I did it...





















HAH! I know what you were thinking, I'm not that much of a defeatist! No, I have decided that with the Easter Holiday looming, now would be as good a time as any to swap the "heart" of this arthiritic wannabeast, and, why not, do it myself! With the scenario set, now to describe the not-so-treacherous 3 days leading upto finally dropping the engine out.

I cannot remember what day it started, but I had decided to initiate the engine swap to save on any further lost time, and went on a short - and painfully slow due to a surfeit of idiotic drivers - drive in order to warm up the oil, perfect for draining on return, and made sure a before picture was taken.



Shortly after..







..the front bumper and radiator were off, and by the evening the turbocharger assembly was off, along with the bonnet, apart from the bloody downpipe..I've always had issues with the nuts/studs holding the exhaust onto the downpipe, and one of them decided to round off, and rather than struggling too long (a lack of cutting discs for my Dremel has left me wanting for solutions), I just moved along and left it in situ. The next morning saw the removal of the intake manifold as well as swapping some parts onto the new engine, such as the TPS, IACV valve and...that's about it, I'll have to install some parts soon ish. In preparation for dropping out the engine, I also went about unplugging the loom and labelling all relevant connectors...a surprise is that there are so many idle connectors doing nothing, so the loom stripping would be an ideal thing to do.





The head assembly was also removed, as I figured it'd make things SO much easier for me when dropping out the engine. I further noticed a strange white residue on the piston tops, but I am inclined to think that it would be normal, as it follows the similar colouration of a healthy spark plug.

The next annoyance followed shortly - since I intended on dropping out the engine myself, I figured it would be wise to move the exhaust sytem out of the way. Little did I know, that the system was actually a seamless system, so unfortunately I couldn't just unbolt the muffler and be done with it. No, I removed the front section hangers, then concentrated on the rear, where the muffler hanger was held in place by the most annoying set up - little inacessible hose clips tightened around the standard mount prongs. I eventually got those off, but then there was another annoying mount, on the mounting arm for the petrol tank/panhard rod. I loosened the bolt, but on further unscrewing, I noticed that the mount, and the nut on the other side were just spinning freely, and no amount of dual wrench wielding could solve this dilemma.

OH WELL, to hell with that. Off with the driveshafts! Right, big hammer? Not-checked, a piddly one will do. Big heavy brass drift to hit driveshaft out with? No, just some copper piping I could find, it will do. Except they didn't. A few enquiries around suggested I used a pry bar of sorts, but on finding one, I couldn't figure a good enough levarage area to finangle the driveshafts out - I found my heavy steel, err, drift, and presumed with banging the holy hell out of the driveshafts, nothing. I then tried again with the prybar and, what's this? Gearbox oil?! Woohoo! Soon got the driveshafts out, and went about disconnecting the last few components to ready dropping the engine out; the gearbox connectors proved a minor annoyance.







Now was the time to drop the engine out, and with the exhaust system and downpipe still in situ, I was a bit precarious about how to go about this - I then settled with placing a wooden pallet over them, and having a jack under the sump, which would help spread some weight over the contact area with the exhaust. Anyway, from there it was pretty simple, remove the through-bolt on the rear mount, unbolt the gearbox side-mount (silly me also decided to store one of the bolts in the front chassis channel, hah!), and then nervously undo the engine-side mount, and upon doing so, slowly lowered the engine down. I has accomplished half the swaps nao!



Since then, I have also split the gearbox from the engine (and the guy that bought the gearbox more than two years ago can finally collect it!!), and will commence to dismantle and examine it. So, where does this leave me now? Well, the engine bay is atrocious, and vile - I will...*shivvers*...clean and degrease it thorougly, and maybe even cover it in a durable coat of Hammerite. Other jobs I see fit to do as well:

- Replace Brake Master Cylinder assembly with Levin unit
- Perhaps replace proportioning valve
- Get some Polyurethane engine mounts whilst they're accessible
- Strip the wiring loom down
- Remove the coolant bypass
- Remove the charcoal canister
- Remove the bumper brace mounts
- Perhaps upgrade the alternator/starter motor wiring
- Perhaps relocate the battery

Plus whatever else I deem plausible/useful to do - I actually recorded a few thoughts on my phone which I will pen down shortly. Oh, and ofcourse, I will have to complete assembling the new 4E-FTE sharpish and ready for installation ;)

Tomorrow, I hope to disassemble the old 4E, remove the driveshafts, and being removing the dashboard...onwards Me!