I'm more than half way removing a junk engine from a 2002 Focus wagon. I have a used replacement split port engine to put in the car. Getting the junk engine out is a nightmare, as you can well imagine.
I've unhooked everything electrical, dropped the air conditioning pump, removed the muffler bracket and the driveshaft bracket from the bottom of the junk engine. Do I have to undo the control arms and drop the drive shafts too? I thought I could take the starter off and unbolt the transmission and just pull it apart and lift the junk motor out. Is this possible, I mean to leave the tranny behind?
thanks
There should be enough room to pull the motor with out the tranny. You may have more issues lining up the new motor but you will deal with that when you get to it.
Good luck.
FWD makes it harder to leave a tranny in and just pull the motor out on its own, but it is possible. It is almost always easier when the driveshafts are out of the way as far as possible, either by undoing the bolt to the strut mount or the ones to LCAs. If the car is automatic you have to unbolt the torque converter first from the flexplate, if its manual you need to remember the input shaft from the tranny needs to be cleared first (pulling towards the passenger side) then lifted out. All in all, it will be easier to pull everything and just separate what you want after, thats how we do it at my shop.
Ive got a zetec motor and tranny up for cheap. With ecu. 5 speed. Just needs wiring harness and its an easy swap
I've managed to pull both engines and separate the transmissions. The replacement engine is unfortunately another split port, but it runs and the junk engine is destroyed, dropped a valve seal on the forth cyclinder. Three things I found out from removing split port engines that I could pass on. One: the drive shafts cause most of the problem in lifting the engine out with the transmission attached. Two: the starter is a nightmare to get out with three bolts instead of two, the bolt head can break off or strip to a round end. Three: it's very easy to break off the transmission cooling lines, I broke both even with separating the cooling element from between the radiator (which I remove entirely first) and the a/c radiator.
The starter shares the same metal gasket as the engine and transmission, and because the alignment pins are on the engine, you need to attach the starter to the transmission before joining the transmission back to the engine, which I didn't do and now I'm forced to remove the intake manifold bottom bracket to get the starter in. Of course the first of four bolts I tried to remove on it broke off.
Right now I have an engine and transmission suspended over an empty engine compartment and two shelves full of nuts, bolts and intake pieces.
I don't know how I'm going to get the drive shafts back on, as the driver's side one came apart at the rubber sleeve and the worst grease I ever saw dripped out on the floor. That will be a real challenge I'm sure.
.
[attachment=915]This is a follow up to let everyone know I've installed the replacement engine, drive shafts and repaired the transmission cooling lines. It looks good to see everything back in and the hood back on.
However, (there has to be a however, unfortunately), everything doesn't work as it once did.
The battery light is on. The air bag light is on. The line to the power steering pump leaks at the connection to the pump. The passenger side drive shaft extension wouldn't go all the way back into the transmission, it's out by about 5mm. And the worst part is the starter, which worked before I removed it, only clicks on the turn of the key to an engine that won't turn over. The crank seems jammed. Probably due to how the tork converter was bolted to the engine.
So, I have to: 1. find out why the engine crank won't turn. 2. fix the leak at the power steering pump. 3. find out why the battery light is on. 4. find out why the air bag light is on. 5. be glad my 1985 GM full size wagon just keeps on going, and going.
.
Well if car isn't running, air bag and battery light will stay on so first thing would be to get it running then sort the other issues.
Have you tried turning the motor with crank pulley? Make sure it can actually spin. You may not have a good connection at the starter
The air bag light is on because I didn't connect the electrical back to what ever point the sensor is on the frame some where, can't find it.
I started by putting a wrench on the crank pulley, then disassembling things until I could turn the crank. Took out the spark plugs to lessen compression while it did it.
I loosened the transmission from the engine by about 1/4" and the engine crank became "turnable", so something in the transmission must have been jammed improperly. Bolted it back together and put the starter back in (thought the starter was jammed somehow but it wasn't).
The engine started but was very rough and vibrated. Looked that up in other posts and found it should smooth out via the computer learning over the next few days. Don't believe that but we'll see on that one.
Went for three short drives. On the third drive the transmission stopped working and I had to get the Focus towed home. Let it sit for a few hours and then started it up and the transmission was working again although fluid was leaking out of the long shaft seal at the transmission connection.
I didn't know you were supposed to unbolt the transmission tork converter and leave it in the transmission on "disassembly". I pulled the engine apart from the transmission with the tork converter attached to engine, guess that screwed something up. Probably the transmission pump connection, I don't know.
All very discouraging, . . .
Went out to start Focuss this morning (-19C or -2F) and wouldn't start. Hear one cylinder kick a couple of times. Too bad the block heater plugin to the block comes off when you wiggle in the starter motor. There's no way to get the plug back in I guess unless I take something else off?
(Stupid place for the plug anyway. Just like the oil filtre location, only worse)
I guess everyone is wondering why I'm going to all this trouble to fix an old car,
why wouldn't I just send it to the scrap yard and buy a new one?
Let's just say my life's situation isn't as prosperous as it could be right now.
Got to use the resources I have.
I have the car, I have the parts car, so there you go.
Time? yep, have that too.
So I guess I need one of those OBD2 readers to tell me that it doesn't run, eh?
What's the best, cheapest one to buy?
Well here's an update on my exchanging split port engines. It's now January and I solved the vibrating engine problem. You'll be happy to know (all the regular contributors to focuscanada) that a worn motor mount was the cause. I replaced the top motor mount that came with my used engine for the one on the junk engine I took out and presto the bad engine vibration that shook the whole car disappeared. Yes! something goes right. (I got the solution from post archives)
However back to the transmission problem which stopped the crank from turning and then got freed up when I loosened the transmission from the engine again and then bolted it back up. I never knew why it was stuck. How could I? I'm an amateur repairman.
I do admit to using the wrong transmission fluid. I filled it with Type F rather than the recommended mercon V fluid. I'm sure that's what caused the horizontal drive shaft seal to leak at the transmission. And caused the power steering pump to stop working as I also used type F there too. A mechanic I know in another city, warned me that could damage the transmission, but too late. I'm still not sure if the damage to the transmission was caused by joining the engine and tranny together with the tork converter attached to the engine rather than the tranny. But I suspect so.
I've attached a picture of the inside of the tranny for those interested, as I pulled the pan to drain out the type F fluid. I did put in some mercon V but the car only moved a few feet then I got that grinding noise again and neutral in every gear.
Hope all my posts here can save someone else some grief.
The car is going into the garage tomorrow to have a "real" mechanic check it out and confirm what I suspect, which is that I screwed up a good automatic transmission.
However, on the money side so far, I really had nothing to loose, I had the doner car for free and got lots of driving out of the car I pulled apart to fix. So most of my "repair" work cost me only fluids so far. I guess you can rationalize anything if you want.
Anyway here's some pics of something most of will never see first hand, tranny exposed.
I want to finish this thread with what happened to my car so it will be completed. The transmission shop which has the 2002 Focus wagon, informed me that when I put the replacement engine in, I should have also replaced the axle bracket which bolts on the back of the engine. Apparently the replacement engine, which had a manual transmission, has an axle bracket which is slightly different than a bracket for an automatic transmission. The result was the shaft was not going all the way into the transmission and could easily slip back, the result being lost of power to the wheels and loss of transmission fluid. So I sent the garage the bracket from the damaged engine and they said they are pretty sure that will correct the problem.
Now I'm waiting to see if there was any other problems with the transmission when they go on a test drive. (I hope this thread may offer someone else good insight if they attempt a similar fix for the dropping of a valve seat)
Of course, the car is over ten years old, so who else would try what I did when they can pick up a good used one for less trouble. Right?
Simple mistake but an easy one to make. Good to see this all wrapped up for you finally
(01-29-2014, 05:31 AM)GFXjamie Wrote: [ -> ]Simple mistake but an easy one to make. Good to see this all wrapped up for you finally
Well, here's an update of the engine replacement and transaxle repair. I've been driving the Focus since I replaced the engine myself. It's now October, 2014 and the car gets me to work and back every day. It's pretty much "gutless" but it runs and gets great mileage. Doesn't burn oil. The engine lights been on since May, when the front left tire dropped into a pot hole one night. I found out it's not anything important using the code reader. I replaced the ball joint to the steering linkage in September, probably due to the pothole.
The odd time on the highway there's a complete loss of power for about a half a second, not sure what that is, but doesn't happen very often.
The engine seems to run smoother if I let it run for a couple of minutes when cold before starting out.
good to hear everything seems to be running good. next time you blow a motor I would highly recommend swapping over a zetec engine and tranny. grab a couple friend and you have it done over a weekend
(10-20-2014, 10:12 PM)drunkinmonkey Wrote: [ -> ]good to hear everything seems to be running good. next time you blow a motor I would highly recommend swapping over a zetec engine and tranny. grab a couple friend and you have it done over a weekend
Well it's been over a year since I swapped out the focus engine for another split port. I made it almost 60,000 km before a valve seat dropped. This time it was number two cyclinder. So there's been three split port engines in this Ford Focus Stationwagon.
I removed the plugs to see which cyclinder and found some oil on the 2nd plug but it wasn't bashed up too bad, just a few minor dents in the seat. Could not see any evidence of anti-freeze leaking, which is different than last time. So I put the plugs back in and left the spark wire off number two plug. Turned the key and . . .
It runs with no clanking sound. A bit of a vibration of course with one plug not firing. No smoke out the tail pipe.
So I have hope I might repair this one rather than replacing the whole engine. I like the automatic transmission
over a standard.
I should mention that the car ran fine over to the emission testing garage before all this happened. But the mechanic who started it up to take it into have the emission test wasn't so fortunate. You should have seen how "green" he looked at the clanking, stuttering, shaking, Ford split port engine. They couldn't wait to push it out to the parking lot and wish me good luck in what ever I decided to do with the car. They didn't charge me for emission test, ha ha.
Lol time to get a zetec !
Well here I am, (new moniker) to tell you that I replaced the engine again with another one from the scrapyard. The mechanics I talked to said the ztec engine wouldn't work in my Stationwagon Focus. So I dropped in another split port. There's lots of those available in the scrapyards, lol.
Again, I did it again, because I like the Stationwagon model, I can carry my bicycle inside the car. Also, I was using a Sonota for several months while the Focus was being repaired and the Sonota was costing me $55 a week in fuel and the Focus costs me about $35-38 to do same driving. So I'm still liking the fuel economy, though I will admit the power in the split port is lousey. There's a reason for that, lol.
so let's see how far I get with another used split port. lol
The zetecs came standard in the ZTW model wagons. What you'd need is the ecu and connected harness, from fuel tank to engine bay on the passenger side, then the harness from drivers side front inner fender to the rest of the engine and fusebox. Heck the drivers side one may even be the same. But after this splitport fails (knock on wood) then you do have the option of the zetec. And with 445,000 on the one I just pulled out of my car, it still ran fine, just replaced it with a 79k engine with a supercharger hanging off it
