First off, I want to thank Swazo again, but publically this time. THANK YOU! I will be calling the tuner to see if he would be willing to make an "official on-the-record" statement concerning his dealings with the previous owner. This will be added to my "pile-of-evidence" concerning this transaction.

Now, moving on ... the 3L I ordered arrived yesterday while I was at work. I had to work later than normal, so I didn't even see it in the driveway until around 8:45PM. I went inside, ate dinner and then promptly started to rearrange the garage to that I could get it into the limited space that I have since I have other parts/tool/equipment taking up space already. I would have left it outside another night except my area is under a winter ice storm warning. I didn't want to the engine exposed to ice, so I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.

Let start by saying I froze my ass off! It was between 15-17 degrees last night and probably around 17 degrees when Too damn cold to take pictures in the pitch black on what I had to go through to get this thing in the garage. The entry into the garage was hampered by the fact that I have not 1, but 2 1-2" dropoffs from the garage floor. The first is a solid inch, which then gives way to the asphalt driveway, which has no topcoat (new house built), so there is another 1-1.5" dropoff there. I found the best approach when trying this by yourself to be crafty

I purposely left a lot of slack in the chains because the engine was on a standard crate and my hoist would not straddle it, so I need the "swing" of the slack and the high angle on the chain to not crush on the "rear" valve cover. Why Ford didn't leave the "eyelet" on the rear heads found on 98 engines (could be all earlier engine too, not sure) is beyond me. Threading a long bolt into the alternator cradle worked out well, but that eye would have been money! Anyway, jack the thing up and wheel here backwards to the first drop off. I squared up the hoist for a completely perpindicular entry and then used the weight of the engine to help raise the back of the hoist off the ground enough to slide the whole thing into the garage until the front wheels met the first lip. Try as I might, i couldn't "tug" the hoist from the other end over the frist drop-off, so I had to be creative.

I have a small platform dolly that I built myself for carting my CD4E around in the garage before I rebuilt it. What do you know ... it holds a fully dressed long block no problem So, I jack the engine up just enough to get the dolly underneith and lower it just enough to add slack in the chains so I can move the dolley with 0 hanging weight. Between the 1st & 2nd drop offs is about 12-14 inches, so I roll her back to the second drop off. I then jacked up the engine, repositioned the dolley and repeated the steps again. Within 5 minutes, I managed to get the engine into the garage. Good thing too, because I writing this from home, where I am working from today since it's snowing and calling to turn to all freezing rain any time now. Damn glad I didn't leave her outside! I would have to wait for all the ice to melt for this to have been done and judging my the forcast, it that might take awhile.

Anyway, got the engine in the garage and got to work on getting her up on the stand that my "race engine" is on.

On with the pictures:

The room I have to work with ... yes, those are the turbo parts in the pile on the right ... and NO, I didn't use the propane space heater last night because the garage door on the other side of the car was open for 20+ minutes and propane is expensive.


Other side of the car showing my workbench. Yes, that is a front subframe to a 98 Contour and NO, it's not from this Contour.


Parts, tools & equipment - OH MY!


Engines? I don't need no stink'n engines! "race block" on the stand in the back, Cougar's (on the other side of the garage door) engine on the left & the 02 Escape block in the foreground. Add in the lump of [censored] under the hood of the Contour and that makes 4 engines


Close-up of the Escape engine.


The swap officially begin as the "race block" is retired to the floor and the engine stand bracket/arm is placed on the Escape engine.


Closeup of the bracket/arm orientation.


Spun around so she can face the stand and hoisted up.


Stand fitted to the bracket/arm. Hard to tell, but the stand wheels are roughly 1-2 inches off the ground.


Same thing, different angle showing how stand sits between the legs of the hoist.


All done. It's time for teardown. I'm going to call the machine shop today to see if they can get me turned around fairly quick. They did the "race block" and got me the Clevite rod/mains, so they will need to order those again as well. Simply disassebly, hone the cylinders, tank the parts & fit new rings and off we go ... wonder what that will cost???


Last edited by fastcougar; 12/15/05 05:10 PM.
For Sale: 1997 Explorer XLT V8 AWD