Pulling the motor....well, not quite

Yesterday was supposed to be the day when the engine and transmission came out, but it turned out to be overall frustrating. I borrowed an engine hoist with a leveler, but it only had three of the four attachment brackets that bolt to the intake manifold. So I called up Tim to borrow his hoist. I got it loaded in the truck myself and also took a hoist plate from him so I could bolt that to my intake to hook the hoist hook to.

On the way back to Jay's, the back doors on his truck topper came open and the plate (that had the bolts and washers in it) fell out onto the highway. I pulled over and miraculously found 3 of the 4 washers AND bolts (I had about 4 seconds to look on the highway each time before I'd have to move for a car). As luck would have it, I could not find the fourth bolt or washer. So that meant when I was ready to hoist I'd have to make a trip to Lowe's, it was already 2 pm in the day, and Matty had come up to participate/help me and he was at Jay's waiting for me too.

The day continued to stay pseudo-miserable. It was rainy and cool enough to bring you to just a shiver. We took off the tranny fluid drain pan and got fluid everywhere BUT the oil pan I had set underneath, resulting in a catastrophic red mess beneath the car. It looked like a person was killed under there. This happened BEFORE all the rest of the things were disconnected from the transmission, so that meant this is now what I was working in. As I was sitting in this under the car, I would see an occassional mouse climb out or in. Not comforting when you're laying inches beneath a drive shaft and don't really have a place to go.

We then pulled the carb only to find that it had four small studs coming out of the manifold that attached it, which meant I was not going to be able to bolt the lift plate...which meant this engine was not coming out today. I'll have to pick up a cradle and balancer from Tim and resume this in a week.

Everything else still happened successfully...we lifted off the hood, unbolted the engine from the mounts, removed the drive shaft, disconnected all attachments to the transmission, unbolted the transmission from the support (but kept the support bolted to the bottom of the car until we're ready to take it out), unbolted the exhaust manifolds from the engine, and disconnected any miscellaneous wiring or hoses connected to the motor. As it sits now, the engine and transmission are now only merely sitting in the car, attached to nothing. I have a final on May 4; after that I'll be able to pull the motor and transmission and start getting deep.