SO... after months of dreaming about it, this project is finally under way. After changing the headgasket twice last year I had come to the conclusion that my motor was just generally screwed. I assume that there's a sizeable crack in my waterjackets because of the volume of coolant that empties into the oil pan (but no oil in coolant, last time it was driven there was a sizeable discharge of black smoke on the side of the road.. I nursed it home and it's sat in my garage for nearly a year now). I've bought a used r50 motor from LKQonline.com. It's out of an '05 automatic with only 23k miles on it. It's in transit and ought to be delivered to my office either today or tomorrow. I was surprised to find out that LKQonline does not have a core charge and I'll be able to keep the motor I pull out. I am under the impression that I'll have quite a few parts that I can sell off to help offset the cost of the motor some (I'll post a list up on here once I really get to tearing it down.. but I'm guessing there'll be a full set of valves, cams, springs, timing chain, oil pump plate/engine cover, valve cover, sprockets, pistons, push rods. I don't think any of the bearings on the crank will still be any good, but the crank itself ought to be alright the actual head itself will be hit or miss considering what it's been through. I'm betting the block is a paperweight.).

Last week I picked up a cherry picker hoist and an engine stand from a buddy and bought a second engine stand from harbor freight on Saturday. I plan on putting the "new" motor on my buddy's stand and the old one I pull out of the car onto the stand I bought so that I can return his stand when the work is done but will still have the old motor set up to be torn down on my new stand. I'm more interested in determining what went wrong with it than I am in selling parts.

As of this moment, I'm sitting at my desk at work looking at my dirty hands and wondering why I'm not under my car.

I'm doing all of this work by myself in my garage on jack stands. It took me most of the day on Saturday to get the radiator off because I only had my one set of hands, but.. feelsgoodman.jpg

here's a couple of pics I've taken along the way. If anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer them.. or if anyone would like a good pic of anything specific inside here for their own info while I've got it open, just let me know.

 

Congrats on being on the road to getting the mini back!!
Good luck, and at the very least, i would toss a,new clutch disk in when bolting the tranny/flywheel up to it!!

 

Good luck.

 

Thanks Zippy, Bram... Good point on the clutch/etc.. I actually only have about 10k miles (if even) on the clutch that's on my original motor. Considering that the engine I'm putting in came from an automatic and my transmission is manual I'm going to have to swap the clutch disk and flywheel anyway, even if the one on the motor that's coming looks like it's in good shape. I'm pretty sure that they're two different parts, even though the drive shaft is the same. (either way, my clutch has about 13k fewer miles on it)

 

My motor was delivered about an hour ago.. Left Mass. on Friday (good friday) and was delivered just north of Tampa on Tuesday (two days after Easter), literally only 2 full business days between it being put on the truck and getting to me. Used motor was bought through LKQonline.com and shipped via FedEx. It was wrapped like a carton of eggs in a ton of bubble wrap, then boxed, then fastened to a pallet. If their care in packaging says anything about how it was removed from its original vehicle I can be pretty sure that this one's going to go off without a hitch. Incidentally, a used non-s motor out of an '05 with 23k miles on it cost me $2485.05 shipped (no tax, no core charge, no additional shipping fee). It also came with an intake manifold, throttle body assembly, oil filter assembly, thermostat housing, starter motor, flywheel and clutch disk for an automatic transmission and various other parts connected to it (maybe more, I haven't really opened the box yet, just looked in from the top), all of which I don't need and will be adding to the list of items I'll have for sale (this thing's practically paying for itself by now).

SO.. now that I've got that out of the way.. I've got one question:

Everything I've read in my haynes book and seen online says that I'm supposed to hook this motor up to my crane by fastening the chain to these three skinny little bolts sticking up from the valve cover (one on the left side by the motor mount and two more on the back to the right side behind the oil fill). Seriously? those skinny little bolts that only go into my head are going to be strong enough to support that whole motor? Granted, they'll be in tension without any (much) shear stress on them, but it just doesn't sit well with me. but the only other places I can see to hook it up to would need to already have the motor mount removed in order to connect to it.. and would then put way more shear stress on the bolts. I'm just paranoid about lifting this by them and damaging it. Anyone have any suggestions? Or am I just being too paranoid about it and just need to shut up and do it already (I'm good with that, if that's the answer)?

Gotta go get my hands dirty.

 

Cant wait to see more pics of your progress!

 

Where is this at now?