I was searching and saw a post where ItalianJoe said he had removed motors in his driveway with jack and jack stands. Then another guy said the front end has to be three feet in the air. My question is, with a standard 2 ton floor jack should I be able to get the body high enough to slide out the cradle assembly?

 

Jack up the car high enough. Remove the wheels. Remove all components from top. Drain coolant. Remove the brake calipers and secure. Remove top mounts. Leave the trans and motor sitting on cradle. Remove all necessary components. Drop cradle down with 2 jacks. Or 3. Slowly. It can be done. I do it a lot in my driveway.

 

#teamremovefromthetop.

I seriously doubt a floor jack is going to do it. Unless you remove everything in front of the engine. Radiator, etc...

 

Use an engine hoist to lift the car over the engine, use floor jacks to rollthe drivetrain away from the car. Or be cool like jesse and I and yank it from the top.

 

A floor jack will do it if you use a beam across the center (between the front and rear wheels). It also helps to raise the rear by setting the rear wheels on top of spare wheels. #itworksaskmehowiknow

 

Yanking it from the top looks like a big pain. I like the idea of being able to separate some of the components with the engine out of the car. My least favorite part about working on this car is bolt access.

 

jack it as high as you can and lower the motor and trans down with the engine hoist
easy, ive done it solo more then once

 

What is the last thing holding it in? Will I need access to the top and the bottom at the same time? What I am trying to ask is if I can do all of what I need to from the top and then lift it up and leave it there without having to crawl up on a step ladder or something to get to the top once it is in the air. Or is it easier to jack up and down until you get to the final step?

 

Disconnect everything from the top. Then jack it up and start removing the subframe. You can hang the ac compressor and keep the rad and ac heat exchanger in their stock location just make sure the tie them up.

 

You can go by the build book to see all the things to disconnect before dropping the cradle. I did that, took copious notes of everything I was disconnecting, then it came out nicely. I used a piano dolly with some 2x4's to roll out the assembly. I also separated the axles from the hub and the LCA's from the knuckle rather than disconnect the struts, but they are equally easy in my opinion. In hindsight I probably should've done the latter so that I could have checked my strut mounts easily.

 

 

https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=7F254...212944&o=OneUp

GM PDF on engine removal

 

I have the build book already and was planning on following it for instructions. They just say you need a lift. Thank you for providing a link/download though.

 

In the build book they lift the car up and lower the subframe away. Without it, you just lift the car off of the subframe. It's not that different. I wish I had taken pictures. Take the front wheels off, the lower the car and subframe onto the dolly. Unbolt the subframe, then lift from towards the back. The front end is now very light so you can lift from pretty far back. It's then like a giant lever so you get quite a bit of clearance in the front with not much lifting in the back. It's easier than it sounds.

 

I get what you are saying and I think I can get the front end high enough with the rear end down. I tracked down some dollies so I can set the subframe down on it. I plan on getting started tonight. Will try to take many pictures but that can be hard sometimes when you are trying to get things done.

 

look at my build thread and see how high i jacked it not much

 

Just a few steps away from dropping the cradle assembly. The hardest part so far was removing the steering shaft knuckle from the steering rack shaft. Anyone else ever have trouble with that? The book said it should just wiggle off which it definitely did not.

 

tap it off with a long screw driver
polish the shaft before install and toss on anti seize

 

This is how I removed it but it still wasn't easy. I don't really like pounding on things connected to shafts because I don't don't know how well the bearings will handle the shock load. Can't be good on them. But thanks for the feedback, sounds like I probably didn't cause any damage.

 

I had issues and I ended up dropping the cradle while wiggling that free (ie raising the car away from the cradle). Another hindsight item, I think what is happening is the slip joint is frozen which is the common failure of them.. It might also be why mine is clunking. I need to get that fixed.

Actually maybe I'm thinking of a different item. I'm thinking of the intermediate shaft. I didn't have any issues with the tie rod on the knuckle.

 

I stuck a big ass prybar in mine and sprayed it with liquid-wrench a bunch. it still was rusted on there and pulled the steering shaft out a bit when I dropped the cradle. I beat a flathead in between it and pryed it apart. was stupid

 

I always pull the two 18mm bolts that hold the rack to the cradle and leave it in the car. It stays attached to the knuckles anyway.

I drop the subframe by itself, then lower the engine/trans onto a cart using an engine hoist. With the weight gone from the front, I use my floor jack under the center tunnel with a piece of wood across the two rails and lift the whole nose way up. If you can't get the car really high, unbolt and remove the right strut. There's a cutout in the frame rail that is almost exactly the shape of the valve cover, it will slide right out that side without having the car too high.

 

I already replaced that shaft on mine since it had a little play in it and broke on my old jeep. There is a better design on it now.

 

Two jacks on the jack point of my under car rails was enough to get it just high enough to slide out.

 

looking good