Engine removed

So after a great ski trip it was time to get back to work on the kit car this weekend. The aim was to complete the removal of the Saab engine, rounding off all of the donor car activities from both the sierra and the Saab.

We started the by removing some of the wheel arch plastic liners and unbolting the aircon compressor and letting it hang out of the way. Then we got down to the main part of the task, undoing the wishbone balljoints and steering arm balljoints - which all went very smoothly with the Haynes manual for guidance. Pulling the suspension legs outwards let the driveshafts drop out. We then used the engine crane to take some of the weight of the engine as shown in the pic below.

As the engine is removed from the bottom of the engine bay then the front subframe had to be unbolted and removed.

Then it was just a few engine mounting points to be unscrewed and the engine was hanging free on the crane. We lowered the engine down onto some wood, where the engine sat surprisingly stable. As we don't have access to a pit or ramp or anything like that, we had to use the engine crane to lift the now empty front of the car as high as possible. We then removed the brake disc and suspension arm from the right hand side of the car to enable us to drag the engine out from underneath the car with some help from a couple of friends due to the weight of the engine!

We put the front subframe back on the car to allow us to refit the wheels to roll the car out of the way to put the engine into the garage. So now we have a finished all the tasks with the Saab, it will soon be going to the scrap yard after a final check that we have all the parts we think we will need from the car. In an ideal world we would keep the Sierra and Saab shells throughout the build in case we have missed something, but space limitations mean they have to be gone before the kit arrives in a few weeks time. So I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of the 2.0 turbo engine from the Saab that will be the heart of this Zero!