fastcougar
CEG'er
Well, I'm not sure where to begin, so it might help to tell this tale chronologically. Since totaling the Contour, I have had many inquiries into the engine/trans since placing the for sale ad in the classifieds. However, only one lucky soul was fortunate enough to get the entire setup and that person stands before us:
SVT3391 (Rick)
Rick had basically agreed to buy the engine/trans out of the totaled Contour ... you know, the one with only 110-120 miles on it before I rolled the car ... yeah, that one.
So, in our discussions on price and what not, we agreed that I would give Rick a price break for keeping his SVT engine. Rick had also lined up a buyer for the trans already and since I was essentially buying his engine and would be shipping the trans for him to the new owner, I thought it best to test drive the car. So, we agreed to meet on Friday 9/22 after work so I could drive the car.
I test drive the car around 7:15 and I'm very pleased ... the clutch engages nicely with no signs of slipping and the engine revs nice and smooth with no odd sounds. I literally drive less than 3 miles and never got the engine over 6,000 RPM ... why do I mention this ... because when we get back to my office, we park the car and start talking about swap. We sit and talk for about 3-4 minutes when I start to see steam coming up from under the hood. I quickly glance down and see the temp gage in the red and quickly shut off the engine and pop the hood.
At this point, I'm thinking that I'm cursed and shouldn't be around SVT Contours and should stick to driving Cougars :laugh:
Options are limited at this point. Either Rick calls a tow truck to haul him from there to my house or we save quite a few bucks and drive back to my place and either A) rape my race block of it's nice new water pump or B) get my tow dolly, hook it up to my 97 Explorer (for sale BTW) and tow it back to the house. We talk it over for a little bit and decide that the swap has officially began and it was to start with a 48 mile trip to my house to pick up the dolly.
Now, by this time it's probably close to 8PM. The drive home is 1 hour and 5 minutes. Get home just after 9, load up the truck and get on our way. Had to stop at AutoZone for some radiator fluid for the swap and also had to pick up a tire gage since the tow dolly tires where at 40 psi and the SOB was bouncing around in the back and I wanted to air them down to the exact pressure on each side. Stop at Wendy's for dinner and finally hit the road and head back to work to pick up Ricks car. Get to the car around 10:45, load it up and talk to the wifes for about 5 minutes and head back to my place around 11:30. I take the long road home because the short way is much more hilly & MANY more curves and we don't get back till around 1AM and we finally turn in around 1:30AM
7:15AM and I wake Rick up and go down stairs to get ready for the long day ahead of us and look outside to see it has started raining ... things just where not going my way. We go out and grab a quick bite/coffee at Sheetz and get back around 8AM. I check the weather channel and decide it best to plan for the worst and start clearing the garage. We finally pull the car into the garage around 9:45AM.
Now, I helped DanG on many engine pulls and know what I am doing. I manged to pull the SVT engine from the rolled Contour in 5 hours taking my time and going slow ... installing the 3L/trans took only 4 hours. I manage to pull this same 3L/trans from the rolled Contour in about 5 hours as well. So, I figured this should be a cake walk ... 5 hours out, 4-5 hours in and Rick will be home in time to tuck in the kids. NOT!
2.5L wasn't sitting on the floor till nearly 10 PM! We wasted nearly 3 hours trying to get the damn LCA separated from knuckle assembly. I don't think Rick has heard as much cursing in his entire life as he did that day ... I take that back ... I think he heard more on Sunday. Saturday ended for us around 1:30AM Sunday morning with the 3L in the car, but nothing else done ... simply guided in, seated and engine/trans mounts bolted down.
Sunday was better, but still didn't start the car until nearly 5 PM ... we started around 9AM after a trip to Sheetz for breakfast. Seems like anything that could have been a trouble spot was, except for the y-pipe oddly enough! I pulled a bone headed move on the radiator install that wasted a good 30 minutes ... forgot to feed in the fan shroud FIRST, strap it to the engine and THEN install the radiator ... radiator went in first and we somehow managed to squeeze the shroud in from the intake side of the engine. I think I was starting to loose it from pure exhaustion and just had a brain fart!
10hr job MAX took us roughly 16 hours!
End result was worth it though ... please excuse the abrupt ending of the video ... the camera was full at this point and it actually stopped itself from recording due to being full.
3L Acceleration Run (Right Click ... Save File As)
SVT3391 (Rick)
Rick had basically agreed to buy the engine/trans out of the totaled Contour ... you know, the one with only 110-120 miles on it before I rolled the car ... yeah, that one.
So, in our discussions on price and what not, we agreed that I would give Rick a price break for keeping his SVT engine. Rick had also lined up a buyer for the trans already and since I was essentially buying his engine and would be shipping the trans for him to the new owner, I thought it best to test drive the car. So, we agreed to meet on Friday 9/22 after work so I could drive the car.
I test drive the car around 7:15 and I'm very pleased ... the clutch engages nicely with no signs of slipping and the engine revs nice and smooth with no odd sounds. I literally drive less than 3 miles and never got the engine over 6,000 RPM ... why do I mention this ... because when we get back to my office, we park the car and start talking about swap. We sit and talk for about 3-4 minutes when I start to see steam coming up from under the hood. I quickly glance down and see the temp gage in the red and quickly shut off the engine and pop the hood.
At this point, I'm thinking that I'm cursed and shouldn't be around SVT Contours and should stick to driving Cougars :laugh:
Options are limited at this point. Either Rick calls a tow truck to haul him from there to my house or we save quite a few bucks and drive back to my place and either A) rape my race block of it's nice new water pump or B) get my tow dolly, hook it up to my 97 Explorer (for sale BTW) and tow it back to the house. We talk it over for a little bit and decide that the swap has officially began and it was to start with a 48 mile trip to my house to pick up the dolly.
Now, by this time it's probably close to 8PM. The drive home is 1 hour and 5 minutes. Get home just after 9, load up the truck and get on our way. Had to stop at AutoZone for some radiator fluid for the swap and also had to pick up a tire gage since the tow dolly tires where at 40 psi and the SOB was bouncing around in the back and I wanted to air them down to the exact pressure on each side. Stop at Wendy's for dinner and finally hit the road and head back to work to pick up Ricks car. Get to the car around 10:45, load it up and talk to the wifes for about 5 minutes and head back to my place around 11:30. I take the long road home because the short way is much more hilly & MANY more curves and we don't get back till around 1AM and we finally turn in around 1:30AM
7:15AM and I wake Rick up and go down stairs to get ready for the long day ahead of us and look outside to see it has started raining ... things just where not going my way. We go out and grab a quick bite/coffee at Sheetz and get back around 8AM. I check the weather channel and decide it best to plan for the worst and start clearing the garage. We finally pull the car into the garage around 9:45AM.
Now, I helped DanG on many engine pulls and know what I am doing. I manged to pull the SVT engine from the rolled Contour in 5 hours taking my time and going slow ... installing the 3L/trans took only 4 hours. I manage to pull this same 3L/trans from the rolled Contour in about 5 hours as well. So, I figured this should be a cake walk ... 5 hours out, 4-5 hours in and Rick will be home in time to tuck in the kids. NOT!
2.5L wasn't sitting on the floor till nearly 10 PM! We wasted nearly 3 hours trying to get the damn LCA separated from knuckle assembly. I don't think Rick has heard as much cursing in his entire life as he did that day ... I take that back ... I think he heard more on Sunday. Saturday ended for us around 1:30AM Sunday morning with the 3L in the car, but nothing else done ... simply guided in, seated and engine/trans mounts bolted down.
Sunday was better, but still didn't start the car until nearly 5 PM ... we started around 9AM after a trip to Sheetz for breakfast. Seems like anything that could have been a trouble spot was, except for the y-pipe oddly enough! I pulled a bone headed move on the radiator install that wasted a good 30 minutes ... forgot to feed in the fan shroud FIRST, strap it to the engine and THEN install the radiator ... radiator went in first and we somehow managed to squeeze the shroud in from the intake side of the engine. I think I was starting to loose it from pure exhaustion and just had a brain fart!
10hr job MAX took us roughly 16 hours!
End result was worth it though ... please excuse the abrupt ending of the video ... the camera was full at this point and it actually stopped itself from recording due to being full.
3L Acceleration Run (Right Click ... Save File As)
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