Pulling Motor/Trans, couple questions Topic is solved

[polskamafia mjl]

The bolts on my flex plate were indeed 12 pointed 17mm and they had red loctite on them.

[benpineapple]

Hey, just thought I'd post a follow-up now that the job is done, on what I had the hardest time with. All-in-all it took a whopping 36 hours. I did a lot more than just pull the motor, I'll put a total list of things replaced at the end. But there were a few very time-consuming snags I hit, most of which were unrelated to the engine pull.

Overall, I was surprised at how smoothly it went, and other than being very time consuming, it wasn't terribly difficult. Staying VERY organized with removing everything helped out quite a bit. Any nuts/bolts went in labeled plastic bags, and I taped the bags to whatever part they were associated with.

In regards to your bits of advice, I found the DS axel to be fairly easy to remove and reinsert. A hard tug popped it out of the trans, and a firm push got it back in place. The job was a much larger mess than I thought. I had thrown down plastic beneath the engine bay, and the space were I was setting the engine down, and even still I got trans and motor oil everywhere. Went through 3 rolls of blue paper shop towel. While the axel nuts probably didn't need to be replaced, I did anyways. One of them the washer was fused to it, and wasn't spinning, which just worried me as to it's ability to stay put. I reused flex plate bolts, none of them snapped when torquing them down.

Here's what didn't go well:
- I removed the oil cooler thermostat for reinstalling the motor, which had scraped on the sidewall when pulling the motor. I didn't have a replacement rectangular oil thermostat gasket, so I flipped the existing one over for reinstallation. Not a good idea, it dumped about a half-quart of oil after the car had ran for about 30seconds. This was foolish of me to think I could reuse it, thankfully dealership had a new one, and I replaced the oil cooler line o-rings while I was at it.
- Oil filter was stuck on. I left the old oil filter on when the motor was out, in an effort to prevent damaging the new filter when putting the engine back in. Mistake, I spent 4 hours (1 of which was driving to and from the specialty parts store) in an effort to remove the filter. Ended up using a special strap tool that works great for filters that are recessed like the P80 filters. I'll make a special post for that, with images of the crushed filter.
- Had ordered improper seals. As it turned out, my car has a trans that is different than what the VIN indicates. At some point, someone put in a AW50-42LE trans (which I believe comes in the T5s?). And so by the time I got to the part where I was replacing the faulty trans seals, all my output shaft and angle gear seals weren't right. The trans oil pump seal (where the torque converter inserts into the trans) was the same at least. Anyways, had to leave the motor out for 4 days while I waited for the new parts to come in from the dealership. Check the inscription on top of the trans, and on top of you block before ordering parts like seals.

List of parts replaced:
- Rear main seal
- Trans pump seal
- Output shaft seal x2
- Outer angle-gear seal (on trans)
- Angle-gear collar sleeve seal and o-ring
- Trans dipstick o-ring
- Trans cooling line o-rings x2
- Oil cooler line o-rings x4
- Oil and trans cooler lock clips
- Oil cooler thermostat gasket
- Oil dipstick o-ring
- Turbo oil feed gasket
- Catalytic converter pipe clamp
- Heater-core hose x2 inlet/outlet (block - firewall hose)
- Expansion tank
- Upper and lower expansion tank hoses
- Turbo outlet cooling hose
- Turbo inlet rubber hose section
- Axel nuts
- Front strut tower nuts
- Misc. hose clamps
- All vacuum lines (reused check-valves)


Hope all this info helps someone out who is thinking about pulling a motor! It really wasn't as hard as I thought, it just took a very long time to do. Having an extra set of hands when removing the engine itself, and when putting it back in was super helpful. Other than that, I did all of the rest myself.

Thanks for all the help, and for the limitless VRD!

Edit: the trans leak is no more, or at least hasn't showed up after an hour of driving. I am pretty sure the source of the leak was the outer angle gear seal (on the trans).

[erikv11]

Thanks for the great report. Glad you got it fixed. I cringe when I think about dealing with an AWD trans for a pull-and-replace but you make it sound manageable.

For that matter, I would say any engine pull is much, much less technical than opening up the engine for a head job. Many people compare the book hours on the two jobs and say "they are equally difficult" but in fact an engine swap ends up much easier IMHO. Head work is all about detail and technique, engine pull/install is all about moving heavy stuff, keeping track of things, having room in your workspace for a hoist etc, being safe and not damaging items.