Happy New Year !
Undeterred by the after effects of a late night before, Andy and myself set about the engine install. We lowered the chassis onto 4 axle stands with the help of Rob and Henry, with the rear as high as the stands could go. The theory being that the elevated angle at the rear would make the gearbox to propshaft location easier.
We checked the aforementioned adaptor plate against the gearbox mount and it seemed to line up so it seems we needed to install the adaptor plate in the tunnel.
Time to hoist the engine. Some "in progress" shots to demonstrate.
It was a fairly easy task to get the engine in. We lifted the gearbox with a trolley jack and the connection to the propshaft was pretty easy too. As with all things that work out too easy there has to be a catch.
With the engine resting nicely on the near and offside engine mounts it appeared to be positioned a long way back in the chassis. The top of the bellhousing was almost touching the wiring loom across the bottom of the tunnel chassis rail and the rear most water connection was very close to the bulkhead.
Also the earbox mount did not line up with the adaptor plate and the prop didn't appear to be fully home in the gearbox.
This required much head scratching ... the engine was alligned correctly with it's mounts and was tight on the bulkhead/transmision tunnel ... but needed to sit back further forward to align with the gearbox mounts yet sit back to be fully home on the propshaft? So either the engine mounts were incorrectly located and the engine needed to move forward about 1 3/4 inches and the prop needed to be longer or I needed to move the wiring across the chassis rail above the bellhousing and re-drill the adaptor plate for the gearbox mounting and the gap between the prop and gearbox was acceptable?
So we retired gracefully to the warmth of the house and I penned a lengthy e-mail to Westfield Technical Support for much needed guidance.
Hi Kevin, I've had the same problems... It was necessary to leave the adaptor plate out all together: if mounted, the gearbox leaned on the adapterplate and not on the gearboxmount. The gap between the prop and box should be no problem since the spline is meant to be able to move in and outwards on the original sierra suspension.
ReplyDeleteb.t.w. I suspect you have the same printed manual as I have. Check this out: http://manikllc.com/manuals/ Here you can find the pdf's of the manuals with better pictures and the build manual of the Aero Racer contains much needed information on the installation and coolinglayout on the 2L Zetec.
Gr Rob
Robbo, many thanks for the manuals URL ... very very helpful ... if only Westfield had provided some of this earlier :-)
ReplyDeleteI spoke with Westfield yesterday and they confirmed what you have said ... which means I need to remove the engine and tidy up the wiring across the tunnel to leave a bit more space.
Cheers,
Kevin.....