hey guys. well i have to do my first engine pull. and was wondering wats the easiest way to do it? if anyone could help me out with wats the easiest way to do so that would be great.

 

Do you have a lift or can you use a friends?

 

Ive done it both ways and without question dropping the cradle is easier. I can have the cradle out of a car in under 3 hours using a truck bumper jack. I do have to remove the front cover but that doesent take very long. If you have access to a 2 post lift its a breeze.

 

Dropping from the bottom is way easier.

 

Got a horse lift and took the motor and trany from the top. Removed accesories. Pulled out together in about 3 hours. First time.

 

i pull out the top 2 1/2 -3 hrs

 

alright thanks. yea i was told by a number of people to do it from the bottom. i wish i had a lift but i dont. so i have to jack it up as high as i can get it to do it.

 

your going to need a lot more height than a regular jack, or you will have to block the hell out of it and that wouldent be very safe. remember you cant jack on the k-member beecause its coming out with everything else

 

Through the bottom is the way to go if you can, bolting the trany to the engine out side of the car makes life alot easier. Do some searches alot of people have come up with very creative ways of droping the engine out the bottom with out a lift.

 

I dropped mine out of the bottom. I used a engine lift to lift the car off the cradle. Don't listen to these 2-3 hour guys. If this is your first engine pull, it will take to half to most of a day to do it right. After doing it a few times you can probably get it down to a few hours.

 

Did mine in 5-6 hours on my first pull out the top. Ramps under the back tires and blocked the front. disconnected steering and lossened the k-member.took off acces. and disconnected the drive shaft. Put a floor jack under the tail housing of the tranny, and pulled it out the top with 2 other people. Two guiding the motor/tranny and one pulling the lift. Its very doable with little to no expirence. Save yourself some headache and mark which sensors connect to where with differnet colored string or wire.

 

Hope that helps in your pull.

 

Ha Ha Ha! I was pulling them out the bottom in the Third gens. It is easy to do with just an engine hoist and two car ramps and a rollaround cart. If you have access to a lift then all you need are a few jack stands I have a lot of pictures of when I used to do it with out a lift. Realisticly it took me about 2hrs with the engine hoist when I was just working at a normal pace I have done it in less than an hour with another person that had done it with me a few times. If it is your first time I expect it to take you about 3-4 hrs due to figuring out what comes with the motor and what stays with the car etc... I used to give instructions to people over the phone. With the lift I am down to about 1-1.5hrs by myself even with my SC piping etc... Its just too easy from the bottom once you've done it, and it definatly saves you a lot of beating up on the car. Not very many scratches on my cars at all and they have been out at least 6-7 times on the orange car and about 5 times on the black one. Could you have seen a bunch of cherry pickers on GM's assembly line LOL!

 

Out the top here bubba,, Not a big deal really just gotta remove the intake to clear the cowl, dont try pulling it with the headers though, not a good idea. dropping the cradle means a front end alignment, and bleeding the brake system on top of all the work.

 

No front end alignment needed, as you are not messing with any of the adj points, but yes you do need to bleed the front brakes. And there is so little work in comparison to taking it apart in the car. But I am not going to debate the point any more I did that years ago and in the end it is hard to convince someone to do something the are not used to even if it is easier and faster. I'll be pulling my motor in a couple of days and I'll snap a few pictures for some of you guys.

 

ive never needed a front end alignment either. bleeding the brakes takes about 5 min.

 

I took mine out of the top last week. It's really not as difficult as you'd think. I think the worst part about it was getting the headers off first, since my whole exhaust is one piece and was hard to get the pipes off the collectors. Then it was a real tight squeeze getting the headers out. Otherwise, with them out of the way, it's not hard to get to all the bolts that hold the bellhousing to the tranny. Just had to get the last couple from the top. Motor mounts sure were a pain though, since you have to take the alternator off to get the bolt out on the drivers side, and my alternator didn't want to budge with the bolts out even. lol. Still got it out in about 2-3 hours though.

 

ive helped a friend pull his LT1 out in about 5 hours first time. jacked the car all the way up disconnected everything and placed a couple furniture dolls under to catch trans and motor assembly. used a cherry picker to pull the nose up higher to roll it all out

 

now for the wiring harness, did you all just disconnect everything and throw it on top of the engine or wat?

 

Yeah basicly the motor harness goes with the motor, and I just unplug everything on the passenger side fender well the PCM and then the blue and white plug from inside the car, by removing the passenger side kick panel.