Empty...
And a jolly nice day was had by all. Apologies for the sporadic and random nature of the pics; I was a bit too busy/smeared in grease and crap to get as many as I should have
well, actually that might not be quite true. By the time me and Madame le Jo had got up to Dave's man-cave catastrophically late (my fault, for a change, lol) poor ol' Dave had probably been sat there waiting for us for a couple of hours. To his great credit, he didn't give us a load of grief about "where the hell have you bastards been" or anything. So we got on with it. We picked up the engine crane (well, to be strictly accurate Dave had already loaded it single-handedly into the Race Volvo) and transferred to a secret underground compound to perform the next stage of the plan.
There, secreted away in a corner and blissfully unaware of the brutal act of disembowelment about to befall it, was TWiR, dreaming of happier times under his blankie
First things first, we had to wait for Dave to get his gimping gloves on. But that's only fair, he'd had to wait for us
Next, easing ourselves in gently, was to take the bonnet off. That's one of the nice things about FBs; you've no choice. I remember getting halfway through taking an FD lump out only to find the bonnet we thought we'd "save time" by not removing was right in the way of the hoist arm...
Dave had already done a lot of the hard work for us by dismantling most of the ancilliaries and engine bay panels, and the time-consuming stuff like labelling wires and hoses and stuff. This did mean "that" hole was plain to see, and will definitely need the attention of a tame welder as it's right above the structural member where all the steering arm and some suspension mounts go. How this has been missed on several MOTs just goes to show what a farce the MOT system is; a hole like this didn't just happen in the last week or so!
After a bit of grunting and heaving ... and plenty of WD40 (a bit like the birth of my kids, actually)... all the "easy" bolts round the bellhousing-to-engine join were undone and the only way forwards now was to get in there. After a short pause for Dave to slip into his gimping outfit... errrr I mean Rolls Royce superman overalls.
Here we see the elusive and retired Spotted or Herbaceous Mackay in one of its common habitats; arm-deep in rotang
Then another brief pause to assemble the grown-up Meccano set of the crane
...and then for Dave to get another thing from his Cool Tools For Big Boys stash; a battery-powered impact wrench because we'd just discovered that the wheels were exactly the right distance apart to stop both the cranes legs and we now couldn't easily drop the car off the jackstands as the gearbox was jacked up as well and it would have wasted loads of time, etc. Rolls-Royce don't do pit crews but if they did...
Fortunately, the sheared-off bellhousing bolt did indeed not thread into anything on the "wrong" side and with a bit of prying and heaving we were on the way
Thank God we were accompanied by Madame le Jo, not just cos of the obvious good company boost but also because she's had the engine in and out of Ralph so many times she could tell us exactly what to do and when without even really having to think about it. Which is just as well, given that thinking isn't my long suit. So, far and away the easiest engine removal I've ever been involved with...
Hurrah for us! This was the point where we started to let ourselves down, first by being unable to lift up the feet on the crane that stop it rolling while the engine was on it. The combination of lateral thinking and brute force overcame this. Then the problem was how to move it to Dave's lockup? The obvious method would be the Race Volvo, but we couldn't fit the crane as well as the engine in it... and we couldn't take the engine on it's own cos we'd need the crane to get it out again... and we couldn't take the crane first cos it was holding the engine already. Doh!
Fortunately, Madame le Jo came up with the obvious solution to our self-inflicted Chinese Puzzle and offered the services of Nigel the Cooper S. So, with much cursing, squeezing and juggling, we ended up with a rear-engined Mini
So that was that. We drove the engine round to Dave's garage with the crane in the back of the Ovlov and job's a good 'un. In fact, it was so straightforward we spent a lot of time looking at each other wondering what we'd forgotten/missed/overlooked and what was about to go horribly wrong to compensate. Weird. No need for Makita Street Tuning Matty-style, no sheared studs, no stuck nuts. TWiR now looked all funny and empty, revealing old scars and evidence of previous welding
but for us, for now, there was little to do but draw the curtain on a most un-Exile day in the world of Exile and repair to the balcony for cappuccino and biscuits*. Until next time, love and peace, groovers
*not completely accurate, I just had a coffee
