How Not To Remove Your Beetle Engine.

So.... i decided to remove the engine..... weeks of telling myself i will have to read the chapters on Engine Removel fell on deaf ears.... Chinese New Year was coming up soon ...so i needed to remove the engine soon bcos the shop will be closed for the holidays ...

I cldnt wait for my friend to be free... and since i have too much time on my side.... hmmm so i get to the shop with all my tools, two jack stands and a small 2 ton hydraulic jack and i get myself cracking.... There were a few more things i wanted to remove from the car, like the Hood Latch and the Wiper and Break Fluid reservoir.




Both reservoirs removed.......



I started labeling all the wiring on the engine before removing all of the connections..... but then i got a little side tracked and started removing the engine lid latch. The thing was pretty much covered in years of paint... had to be scrap it all off before the screws could even budge......




While i was on that ..... i thought hey i better remove the engine cover too..... unbolt the nuts and release the spring in the middle.... and it was off....


Some engine parts come off like the air strainer..................

U will need to remove this engine tin cover for clearance.

A close up of the spring clip of the engine lid cover....... next we (By that i mean me, myself and I) raise the car on jackstands.... but since i only have a small hydraulic jack.... the back tyres werent event off the ground....... (Pls make sure you have or borrow a BIG hyraulic jack) the car needs to be really really off the ground...... Ok now place the HJ under the engine to support it........

The next thing you should not do is to be under your car which is on jackstands... and start taking pictures of spiders...... ok after a few shots.... i start looking for the bolts and nuts which are holding the engine together.... believe it or not ...there is only 4 bolts holding the whole thing together..........

Above you can see the top two bolts which i found to be the hardest to remove...... oh yeah did i mention that you will need a 17mm bent box-end wrenches for all except one (the one attached to the starter motor).. which incidentally i didnt have .... luckily the paintshop guy had one....

Its pretty slimy and grease under there.... so it was a little hard finding the bottom two bolts...especially when you dont know what you're looking for.... oh by the way remove the bottom two first before you loosen the top two....... and the bolts which is holding part of the starter motor will need another hand to help loosen it.... doing it alone took me nearly half-an-hour for that one nut alone......

While i was taking a breather i decide to take a look around the engine to see if i missed out on any wires or connections which are still attached to the engine........ thats when i found that the accelerator cable was still attached to the trottle..... detached that yah.....

below is a view of the back of the fan shroud/cover...... you can see where the two top bolts are attached too...... and where the trottle cable enters from...

Ok so now that i have everything off..... i start to yank on the engine..... heee hoooo heeee hoooo...... it comes of about 2 inches then it just stops... "clunck"..... after that its just wont come off....... i was tired and try if i may it just didnt budge ...... so thats when i grew a brain and called my uncle.... (remember him )

Now i dont know why i did what i did next .....but i did it ok.... just dont ask me why.... while the engine is hanging half way like that.... i start draining the engine oil........ i leave it to drain and the take the oil sump cover with me (like i said....dont ask why) ... and then i go pick my uncle up.......

He has a big ass hydraulic jack which cant fit in my car so we take his car.... and when we reach the paint shop he gets behind the beetle to check things out while i get the jack out of his car... before i can even do anything...."boom" he has the engine loose..... but because i didnt have the car jacked high enough ...the engine is just stuck.....

We then jack the car higher and then replace the small jack under the engine with the bigger one and "boom" he has the engine resting on the jack......... but while trying to get the engine off the jack and on to the floor it seems to be stuck..... the egde of the jack is stuck in the sump which i left open.... and forgot to cover back up.... and further more i had left the cover back at my car.....which was back at my uncle's place.... sigh.... in the end the oil strainer had jammed itself between the HJ's teeth.... we get the engine finally off the jack but not without tearing the oil strainer off of the sump........ one more item to add to my long list of parts........... sigh........

Where the engine used to be..........

Where the engine is residing now..........

The torn oil strainer......... :(

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end of how you should not remove your vw beetle engine.........

.....mo