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Henn28 · #**179** 12-09-2021, 05:01 PM

Its swap time . Monday was a half day devoted to gettign the car positioned, draining fluids, organizing parts, tools, etc. and basic prep. I pulled the cowl, drained the fluids (other then the front diff), labeled and detached lots of plugs and vacuum tubes, pulled the intake track entirely, pulled the splash guard and other subframe covers and dropped the middle exhaust section (headers back). Things went smoothly other than one of the copper header nuts decided to strip. 45 min of surgery with a sawsall paid off and I was able to pound the stud back through/pry off the nut remnants.

Lots of broken and/or very fragile vacuum tubes to sort out and the need for a giant hex bit (22 mm maybe?) to pull the front diff drain plug were my lessons learned for today. (Update...17mm if I recall. I bought a set of huge hex drivers from Northern Tool...less than a pint of oil came out.) Tons of oil all over the bottom end. I suspect the oil pan covers and the rear main for starters. I also think the front diff is leaking from the casing but can’t find a gasket on realoem for it. Anyone done this work?

Four days of prep total and it's finally ready to go...aside from having to pull the axles still. The past two days have been spent finishing the breakdown of the oil soaked and tired 4.4. Today I had time while I wait for an open bay at the garage, I'm a member of (on the lift currently) to start swapping parts, brackets, etc. to the new motor, after a good cleaning. I've never seen a dirtier motor in my life ... layers of oil gook measured in MM in places. The stiffener plate hides all manners of evil. Out of sight out of mind I suppose. Now that I've done it once I think I could do the prep in two long days.

I'll reposition it tomorrow into a spot where I can put it on jack stands which will allow me to pull the axels and then the motor. Short story is that the lift is shared so I decided to use the time I had breaking the 4.4 down completely and pull it out of the top minus the transmission on jackstands, when the lift was needed by other members. Its ready to go, including unbolting the flywheel from the torque converter and pulling the wiring harness, starter, every hose and fluid line, etc. With the cowl out there is a lot of room behind the motor and I think I can even get a wrench on the top transmission torx bolts. I can see them anyway!

My plan is to try to pull the axles, bearing carriers and diff/left axle support as single units since they are just going to get bolted on to the new motor. No sense asking for trouble by pulling the axles out of the hubs and the carrier and diff if I don't need to. Fingers crossed.

I also changed both Giubos while I was under the car and had to order a few hundred bucks worth of parts that were presented trashed after pulling them out. Most notably were bare wires on the camshaft sensors, lots of vacuum tubing and a fuel tank breather valve that looked fine but the car was throwing a code for it and everything associated with the vacuum plumbing for the brakes. The valve and hoses fell apart basically when I looked at them.

My effort to beautify the M62 can only go so far. I'm deleting the SAP and associated crap, and I painted the intake and rail flat black, but the boxes for the wiring harness are butt-ugly and I'm not smart enough, nor do I have enough time to do anything about them. I've seen some very cool pics of other guys efforts in this respect, so perhaps I'll sort this out when I build a "M60B44" from my old motor.

I've got what I hope to be my final parts (for the motor anyway) in route, but the long pole is the harmonic balancer. I don't really want to drop the new motor in without it, but may have to if it doesn't show up by mid-next week. I've decided to use my 4.4 DME to get it running on, then once I have it back home I'll ship that off to get some coding done so it can make the most of the 4.6 motor and 4.4 everything else and get a full delete of the secondary air pump system.

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