How much does my engine weigh (CVH1600)

I can't imagine any car engine weighing anywhere near 1/2 ton.

jt ( snipped-for-privacy@spamkiller.hfx.andara.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

The whole car? Unlikely, but possible. A Caterham is around half a ton all in, so a fairly stripped seven or kitcar could be around that weight.

The engine alone? Most definitely....

Two seconds worth of Googling finds

Dave Plowman ( snipped-for-privacy@argonet.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

The 429 Thunderjet engine in my 7.0litre V8 Thunderbird is pretty damn heavy...I can assure you.

Try taking the engine out of a Landrover Series 111 2.6 petrol, which has to come out with the gear box and transfer box and if it isn't half a ton you'll be convinced it IS !

Andrew Mawson

I said car, not truck. ;-)

Given this groups predilection for old vehicles (strangely enough), cast iron blocks and heads and large engines are going to abound.

However in context of the original post - lots of safety factor built in :-)

"jt" realised it was Mon, 1 Dec 2003

It'll only lift a 1/2 tonne whit the boom all the way in. As soon as you extend it, the max weight lifted rapidly decreases.

I remember the workshop manual for the P5 Rover warning that the engine weighs 5 1/2 CWT (the straight 6 not the V8), and advising mechanics to make sure the hoist is up to it. That is the heaviest production road car engine that I can think of, and it is still well within the 1/2 ton.

Jim

The message from "Jim Warren" contains these words:

Stick a gearbox on the end and it gets closer.

The heaviest engine I ever encountered was the 2.5 in a Riley RMB/F. The cylinder head was about as much as I could lift on my own and the block was well beyond me even without the crank. I don't know the total weight but ISTR the car itself weighed in at 30 cwt and it is not inconceivable that the engine plus gearbox could be a third of that.

The other thing to remember about pulling out an engine is that not all of us are perfect and engine plus front of car is much more likely to exceed 10 cwt than the engine on its own.

Roger

Roger Chapman ( snipped-for-privacy@zetnet.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Ah, the "Oh, soddit - forgot that mount" moment... Yup, BTDTGTTS.

s/mount/earth-strap, M3_2!

Of course the other point about chain hoists (I'm assuming it's a block and tackle rather than an engine crane), is how useful they are for other things. It may be strong enough to lift an engine, but how is it going to stand up to pulling a car onto its side, bending bits of chassis, uprooting trees, pulling barbed wire tight, etc?

Why's everybody looking at me like that?

Funny you should mention that - the heaviest engine gearbox combo I've ever removed was from a Riley Pathfinder. With my trusty Haltrack hoist. It needed two hefty blokes to winch it up. Didn't worry much about safety factors in those days...

Had to remove the front panel to avoid having to lift it up high. And it had been off before as the bolts had been replaced with much longer set set screws. Which were rusted solid, but wouldn't shear, and were too inaccessible to cut. Took most of the day just to remove them.

Strange how some jobs stick in the mind. ;-)

Willy Eckerslyke (oss108no snipped-for-privacy@bangor.ac.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

That's one strong earth strap. I find they usually go "ping" before the car's fully in the air. Same with speedo cables.

I have friends who've "straightened" rolled cars by jacking one side up, tying the pillar tops to a tree, then kicked the jack out and jumped on the opposite sill....

Creativity, I believe it's called, by some. Dangerous bodging, by the jealous...

My first "decent" car was a 1947 Jaguar 3.5 Litre, some 40 years ago. It was an all-iron pushrod straight six. Same as Roger, the head was just about liftable by one person, and God knows what the whole lump must have weighed.

Still remember taking the head off. It was well and truly corroded on, and none of the usual tricks worked. We ended up filling the combustion chambers with penetrating oil via the spark plug holes and jacking the whole car up on the starting handle. Two days later in the middle of the night there was an almighty bang as the head released and the car crashed to the ground.

Geoff MacK

You must had reasonable valves/pistons to do this though. I had the same problem with a Triumph Mayflower which was sidevalve with an ally head - and all the exhaust valves were shot to the point where it wouldn't run.

Ended up removing the pistons via the sump and whacking the head via the bores with a lump of wood as a drift.

Has anyone tried the rope trick? Take the plugs out, feed some rope into the hole (leaving a trailing end) so that it coils onto the piston crown, then crank the engine over by hand?

Sounds gentle and guaranteed at the same time, unless the rope compresses too much, or you can't shove enough in.

-- Ken Davidson DocDelete

Mine was the 3ltr Humber straight six. Again cast iron.

Called in a neighbor when removing the head, but got it back on my own by standing under the bonnet on the chassis rails, and lifting the head from the plank slid along side the engine. Cue the sudden camera flash as aforesaid neighbor snapped me in the "giraffe giving birth in an engine bay" position.

Vehicle: 1960 FX4 Diesel taxi Hoist: Local hire shop (probably too little)

Quote the workshop manual, after all the ritual preliminaries, " the engine AND transmission, weighing approximately half a ton, may now be removed" (but only after the hoist toppled over for'ards, and a narrow escape for parts of me).

It's not a car, but........

TT