Looneybin

I'm doing a head gasket refresh, pulling the motor, and have a question about the bell housing / torque tube removal
for reference it's an '86 S3
The shop manual is vague about what needs to be removed at the back of the motor to separate the motor from the torque tube. Do you need to remove the bell housing bolts from the back of the motor? or the 4 bolts from the bell housing to the front of the torque tube? i've unbolted the triangle plate from the flywheel, and loosened the clamp from the end of the drive shaft
if the bell housing at the back of the motor, how do you get a wrench on them, there is no room to turn one

I am also going to remove the transmission to get it resealed due to a leak, and replace the TT bearings, so removing the entire torque tube / rear end has to happen anyway

also, is it possible to unhook the harness from the motor side and leave it attached at the CE side? I'd prefer not having to wrestle it through the firewall and causing possible more issues with the old wires?

thanks for your assistance as i make my journey with this project car

FredR

You can get all the wires disconnected in the engine bay but you have to remove the inlet manifold in-situ to get at some of them. Edit-Apologies- that is the case with the S4 and later not sure about your model year config.

If the cores are so decrepit that removing the harness via the firewall will damage them then realistically speaking they need replacing plain and simple.

Rob Edwards

You can certainly undo all the engine harness connections at the engine and put it up in the cowl, without undoing it from the CE panel.

There are 4 M12 bolts that hold the bellhousing to the engine block, 2 accessed from the top, 2 from below. A long handled pivoting 1/2" drive ratchet with a low profile 19mm socket is one option, or better, find an extra-long 17/19 mm flex head ratcheting wrench like so, it works much better in the limited space:


Undo the two bolts that hold the transmission to the rear crossmember, then you can slide the whole bellhousing/TT/transmission assembly rearward, so the engine can be lifted out.

Before you do that, there's a vacuum line that runs rearward to the transmission, want to make sure that's undone before starting to lift the motor.

Looneybin

Hi Fred and Rob
Thanks for the great replies, i do have a swivel ratchet, i'll give that a try
I don't think the wires are that crispy, i just don't want to risk anything or cause an electrical problem by trying to force the wires through the firewall and most of the harness is already unplugged in the engine bay anyway since the intake and injectors are already removed

FredR

My experience is that the loom tends to get frazzed in and around the connectors in the engine bay and particularly so under the boots. Once one gets into the main loom the cables seem to fare much better. last year I revamped my harness with new quick release junior powertimer connectors, new cables for the injector pig tails and I also transplanted some cable cores from my late S4 harness to match the colours Took a fair amount of effort but then I wanted to change the layout a bit as well.