HowTo: Engine Removal on a Hyundai Coupe

Page last edited Wednesday, 17-Apr-2013 18:37:34 BST

(You can see my other 'HowTo' guides here)

I've removed the engine from my Evo as I'm breaking the car for spares (both to sell and to support my new F2) and I thought I'd take some photos along the way in case they're of interest/inspiration to anyone else.

First things first, my task was very much one-way i.e. I had no intention of putting the engine back in... or at least that was the plan! Given how well this Evo engine runs I'm actually tempted to put it in my F2 now that I know what the task entails as it is possibly in better condition despite having done twice the mileage - that's the payoff with regular maintenance! Anyway, what I was going to say was that if you were doing a straight engine swap there are some differences such as not having to remove quite so many components, and also making sure you take lots of photos showing things like cable loom runs. You would also benefit from labelling up every connector so you know where it plugs in to - there are a lot of identical looking plugs on these cars!

So, here we go... Firstly you'll need to remove the bonnet because otherwise the engine hoist won't have enough height clearance.

There are four bolts to remove to do this and whilst it is cumbersome it is possible to do this on your own. Next up we've got the prepared engine bay:

I removed most of the ancillaries - intake/exhaust manifolds, power steering pump, aircon compressor, clutch slave cylinder, battery tray, radiators/fans and related cable looms. You could leave many in situ if doing a swap and indeed some like the aircon compressor you'd have to leave connected, albeit unbolted, otherwise you'd need to refill the system afterwards. Because mine was a one-way task as mentioned I had the 'luxury'(?!) of being able to remove everything - and I wanted to recover many of the parts for sale/spares anyway. I'd also recommend removing the bumper, not only for clearance (underneath - I think you'd be fine reach-wise with a decent crane) but also given how fragile it is - a suspended engine is a pretty hefty pendulum and it'd be all to easy to knock into the bumper and cause damage!

Next up you need to loosen the engine mounts. The first being at the front:

Completely remove this bolt - it's quite safe to do so. Next up is the similar one at the rear:

Again, completely remove the bolt. The engine will now be sitting on the support beam whilst also being suspended from the upper mounts. Speaking of which, here's the next one on the left hand side (looking from the front):

Loosen this bolt but [b]don't remove it yet![/b], not until the hoist is connected up in a couple of steps. On to the right hand side mount (looking from the front):

I opted to remove the engine with the gearbox still attached. This required the extra step of previously removing the driveshafts. If you were doing an engine swap you might want to keep the gearbox in to save this extra effort, but then you've got the issue of separating the engine/gearbox in situ and, more pertinently, the issue of lining it up again afterwards! I think it's worth pulling the lot to be honest. If doing this, you'll need to actually [i]remove[/i] the right hand engine mount (not just remove the centre bolt) otherwise it will foul the gearbox on the way up - or at least that's what I suspect would happen. The mount is bolted in to the sub frame by bolts that are accessible from the wheel arch behind some rubber plugs:

I cracked these bolts loose but, again, [b]didn't remove them yet![/b]. With the two remaining engine mount fixings ready to be pulled it is time to push the crane in. The legs of my crane were too high to fit under the wishbones and so I had to jack the car up at the front ever so slightly to allow it to slide under:

With the crane in place it could be connected up:

The lifting brackets can be found on the front-left of the block (dedicated bracket) and rear-right (the bracket that holds the ignition coil):

With the crane jacked to take the tension you can now remove the remaining engine mount bolts! Once done, a few pumps of the handle and she'll be free!

Note that despite the weight of the gearbox and the off-centre mounting positions the engine remains dead level. This is thanks to the load leveller:

You can slide the pivot point along to keep everything balanced - I'd highly recommend it, not only for the this benefit (it'd be particularly useful when putting the engine back in) but also because it makes attaching the engine to the crane an absolute doddle.

With the engine in the air I opted to push the car back out of the way after removing the jack undearneath - without an engine in the car will sit high and thus won't foul the crane legs anymore). I did this rather than pull the crane back because I was working on a block paving drive which is not the best for moving metallic wheels around with a hefty load in the air!

So, with the engine clear of the car you're left with something of a void!

I carried on to split the gearbox from the engine - note that to do this you need to remove the clutch lever [b]completely[/b] as the clutch release fork will be wrapped around the clutch bearing and stop you from pulling the gearbox away otherwise. Gearbox now removed:

Next up is the clutch which I decided to also remove. To do this you need to first remove the clutch bearing by pushing the spring clip apart. As always there's a 'special tool' for this but I just used a couple of small screwdrivers and a bit of patience! Unfortunately I didn't take a photo showing exactly how (obviously not patient enough!) but here's the clutch once removed:

Not bad condition given it's been in from new and has done nearly 170k miles! Again, look after an engine and it'll look after you! ;-)

With the engine, gearbox and clutch split I was curious to see how heavy they all were so whilst the wife wasn't looking I nicked the bathroom scales... First up the engine itself:

112kg (without most of the ancillaries remember). Then the clutch:

This came in at nearly 8kg. Finally the gearbox at 41kg:

So it was a total of around 160kg, and obviously well within the 1 tonne crane limit (I actually had it on the 750kg reach setting for convenience).

That's pretty much it really! Time now to wheel the engine out of the way:

To be joined by the rest of the bits...

All-in-all it wasn't that difficult a job, and certainly something you can do without an assistant which is lucky given mine had found a comfy spot early on:

Finally, if there's one unexpected advantage to removing your engine it's that there's no more leaning over when changing the wiper blades!

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