Engine into Bus, Part I

The engine left the garage on Sunday. It is currently sitting under the bus, where it ill sit until this Sunday. I'll hoist it into place then, but just getting it out of the garage and into position took more effort than I expected. Today's post covers those efforts.

Measure twice..
Before I did anything, I took a level and set it on top of the highest point on the engine. As you can see from the picture here, that's about 33 inches. Then, I measured how far off the ground the rear end of the bus was, to get an idea of how much higher I'd have to get the bus to fit the engine in. From the picture on the right, here, you can see that I was only at 25 1/2 inches. Simple math later, and I need over 7 inches more clearance. The fact that I really didn't have 7 inches of jack stand lift remaining didn't really matter. I was not too hip to the idea of jacking the bus that far up into the air. So, what to do?

then measure again.
I got to thinking about rolling the engine onto its side and sliding it under. Then it would just be a matter of getting it upright again. Its funny how something that sounds so simple just isn't. I measured the width of the engine (no picture) and it was around 25 inches. After double checking all the measurements, I started loading up the right side of the engine with rags for padding. Right side: side on the left when looking at it from the back of the bus. The turbo is on the left side.

skateboarding I rolled the engine and transaxle, as a unit, onto 2 skateboards. The 5 seconds it took to type that describe a 60 minute effort of roll it on, test move, get it off, repeat. The picture on the right here was posed to illustrate how the skate ultimately fit on the engine. There's a bracket on the rear of the engine that I got caught on one side of the board. That helped hold it in place. I had to jam the other end under the front of the engine with my boot while hefting the transaxle up. Heavy, man. Then, I put a second skateboard under the transaxle. Why didn't I use the ATV jack? I wanted it available to slide under the engine/transaxle unit under the bus.

ready for lifting
Once the engine/transaxle were set on the 2 skateboards, I rolled the engine out of the garage and into the driveway. With that much weight on the boards, they really don't steer, so it took a little muscling. As you can see in the picture on the right here, it just fit under the rear end. After it was under the rear beam, I wiggled the engine around until it cleared the beam, but wasn't past the transaxle mount. Then, I dropped the bus. That was a big moment. I mean the bus had been up on stands for over a year waiting for this.

A little more wriggling and the engine is upright (slight lean) and ready for lifting. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I worked it, I couldn't get the ATV jack under the engine. So, it will be more than just sliding into place. Until next weekend, though, it looks like this picture on the left. That's a big change from where we've been.

I probably won't post again until next weekend, as I don't expect to do much on the bus during the week. It is just geting too dark and too cold to work in the driveway.