How do I take off this tasty looking donut?
 

Hey guys,

I feel like I ask like a bazillion questions, but I'm getting pretty far on my swap and trying to finish it before Sunday (bit optimistic).

I got the transmission off of my 617.952 only to find this thing. It looks like it is bolted from the motor side, so I am really confused on how it works.

http://i1269.photobucket.com/albums/...ps831f8a6c.jpg

I feel like I'm missing somthing blatantly obvious.

I already tried brute force. :/
Kind of looks like it has to do with this hole on the bottom of the motor, but I cant really lift it up to see.

Thanks PP, you guys are great
-Josh

That is your torque converter. Think of it as a viscous clutch for your automatic

6 13mm bolts from the opposite side, accesible from underneath, there is an oval plastic cover at the back o the oil pan. You rotate the motor to bring the 6 bolts around. (In groups of two)

Thanks JB. I had no idea what a torque converter looked like. I'll have to find some sort of way to rotate the motor. This thing doesnt want to rotate at all.

EDIT: NM got it to rotate woot back in business :)

I think you're only supposed to turn the engine clockwise (from the front) maybe too late or I may be mistaken. Just FYI.

Use a 27mm deep Socket on the Crank bolt, and turn it to the right facing the front of the engine.

Remove the GP`s or injectors to make it easier to turn.

Always remove the 6 13mm bolts, BEFORE removing the engine trans from the vehicle. Much easier.

Been there. :rolleyes:


Charlie

change the starter while you've got the chance. with the motor out it will take 5 minutes tops :D

First step is to remove that bottle jack from the oil cooler housing before you crack the housing and have to find another. Support it from something that is not aluminum. Or use a block of wood to spread the load.

Second, JB3 is correct. Remove the TC from the flex disc.

The TQ bolts have to be accessed from an access hole in the bottom of the block behind the lower oil pan. Kind of an oval-shaped thing. Huge pain, because they're typically rusted. :furious3: You'll need to get at them from underneath. If you can lock the FW, life would be easier. But if you can't, wrench away :D.

Second KarTek. Never turn the engine backwards because the timing chain tensioner isn't built to handle that direction of movement.

3rd, sleepstar is right on. The starter is a huge pain to do in the car. I would at least have it tested while it's out of the car.

BTW, that thing is pretty heavy, and if you drop it on your sister's foot, you WILL be in trouble. Not that I would know anything about that.

Uhh.......crap.

I hope I didnt break anything. I tried to make sure I turned it clockwise though, cant be sure. I turned it clockwise with relation to the front of the engine, so counter clockwise in the rear? If I broke something, would be nice to know before the weekend since I planned for the motor to go in on Sunday. Luckily the bolts werent rusted and actually came off easily (relatively).

I got it off and worked on the flex plate bolts, stripping two of them. So now I'm at a standstill. :/ I ended up lifting the motor up with the hoist and putting it halfway on a pallet, with the other half on a jackstand so I was able to access the bolts. I bought the engine out of vehicle from HooniverseJeff on Benzworld (doing a 5.7 Hemi swap in a wagon).

What point of view would clockwise be from? I cranked it with that screwdriver in the picture in the two slots in the torque converter. Was an extreme pain to turn.

I know that the starter on my 240D was operational, should I just swap that on? (If I didnt break it by turning it the wrong way?)

I'd hate to get a new motor, was a hassle enough to get this one from Southern California and drive it up to Tracy, then to have to bring it home when I had a hoist.

Clockwise facing the front of the engine.

Eeek, Stripped auto FW bolts are a pain in the rear. I had to weld nuts on to the ones I stripped to get them out. I'm sure others have other ideas if you don't have access to a welder.

I made a special socket for getting those auto FW bolts out. Its a 12 poin 12mm if i'm not mistaken. The problem wiht the auto FW bolts it the heads are half as tall as the manual FW bolts. I took a 12pt 12mm socket and ground off the first bit. If you look at the end of the stocket that goes on the bolt you'll see they round over about a mm with of the grabbing surface to make it easier to get the socket on to a bolt. well when you only have about 5mm of head on your bolt, that rounded area is 20% of your contact area. So I ground it off. I still managed to round 1 even with the modified socket. I hate those bolts.

Are you swaping to a manual? if so you'll find the manual bolts are much nicer.

Phew, I did turn it clockwise then. Or.......the right way.

Yea the FW bolts were a pain. The other 10 of them came off alright with a breaker bar and that black screwdriver in the picture keeping the flex disc in place.

I dont necessarily have access to a welder, which is why finding the shift linkages off of the euro was like the best thing ever.

I had the 12 point ones, and had a 12 point socket to go with it. Only problem is that the 12 point socket was kind of round and not that pointy. That was my problem I guess.

I'm going to try to drill a bit into it and see what I can do. Found a decent guide on the internet. Hopefully I can get it done quickly since I have to get my FW bolts tomorrow for the manual.

For the stripped flywheel bolts, bust out the angle grinder and grind off their heads. The automatic flywheel bolts are stretch bolts at about 30ft lbs or some such. Once you cut off the head, the torque is gone, and they can usually be removed by finger unscrewing after you yank the automatic flywheel.

SUPER IMPORTANT-
Mark the position of the automatic flywheel to your crank before removing it. Some of the automatic flywheels are not a neutral balance, and the balance must be duplicated on the manual flywheel. Some are, but there is no way to tell either way. Safest easiest route is mark the flywheel to crank, take both flywheel to a machine shop, and have them match balanced, with the same orientation mark put on the manual flywheel, then reinstalled to the crank mark.

A lot of people have gotten lucky with a neutral balance, others have not. Personally I'm at a 50% rate, 2 617s with neutral, 2 617s with biased in manual swaps. No matter what you do, if you decide to just chance it to get the car rolling soon and just bolt the manual flywheel up, mark the crank and auto flywheel, because if IS a biased balance, if you lost the relationship between crank and flywheel, its nearly impossible to rediscover without tons of work.

At least with the original flywheel and crank marked, if you do have vibration issues, you can always match balance later if you want. The 4speeds are pretty easy to pull when in the car. One of the lightest gearboxes I've ever encountered

I'm really hoping for a neutral balance. Not sure if my 240D is neutral balance either, its a 1980. Kind of on the dot there I think for when they started switching. In a nutshell no mark is neutral right?

I will be happy if they are both :)

No mark could just mean the passage of time has made the marks totally invisible. According the the FSM, the marks are on the inside of the crank bore, and inside of the flywheel bore. I have yet to actually see one. :D

The 240s are all neutral balance though I believe. The 4cyl motors are much more inherently balanced than the 5cyls. They don't have this whole crank balance make up potential issue on flywheels and harmonic balancers.

Your 240 manual flywheel is almost certainly a neutral balance if you pulled it off a 240 616 engine. The 617 is a maybe

I'm going to check tomorrow when I pull the tranny off my 240D. Just hoping for the 617 neutral balance then! Kinda late for the shop to balance it for me before the weekend. :\

But please do mark the 617 with a punch before removal so that you don't hate yourself later :).

I used a delightful sparkling water. Is that an issue?

(Sorry - warped sense of humor here).

Dan

When I did the swap on the 85 300D, I had the manual and auto FW matched balanced. As I remember (been a few years) I think the guy said the manual was off 10 grams (what ever that is).

I just did this again since I found a 617 FW and the engine is out of the car for another reason.

You can shoot in the dark and hope you hit your target, it could be right on the money, but if not, you have 12 ways it can go on and might hit the right spot. Kind of a pain to R&R the Trans to find it has no right spot and then finally have to get it balanced in the end.

Lets see, 12 FW bolts @ say $6.00 ea and a one time use, and R&Ring the FW say 12 times....HMMMM that is 144 Bolts...... :rolleyes: just jiving you a bit here. :)

I know you are a student and are pressed for time and money and need this car running soon. Things don`t always go together as we want sometimes. skipping some steps can come back and bite us sometimes.
I hope this all goes together one time and it all matches up and you have years of motoring free trouble.

We are all giving you feed back from our experiences and what we read in the FSM. you sift through what is best for you. You will then gain your experiences and then be passing it onto the next newbe on the forum. :)

Keep asking.


Charlie

I think I'm going to take a stab at just putting it all together. I dont think the balancing shop is open on Saturdays.

The thing is though, that if I put it on and it just ends terrible, the car is going to be sitting in the driveway until I can get it going again.

If I have the wheels balanced to each other, its not going to be done in time, and be sitting in the driveway as I go back to school.

I figured I may as well try it just for that chance that it would end well and I could drive it back to school. I would still need to do maitnence though, like valve adjustments and new tires maybe rebuilt turbo etc.