motor pull problem

charlieml

I'm pulling a motor out of a 98 with 2.5 liter. Pulled the four housing bolts and the 4 inside flywheel bolts as well. I can't separate the motor from the (automatic) transaxle. Is there a trick to doing this? I lifted the motor to clear the pins and lifted the tranny and I can't separate them. Any help appreciated.

xwesx

I imagine you have it figured out at this point, but they can be stubborn. You need to make sure you remove the brace that connects from the top of the transaxle housing to the firewall, which will give you more play to get the units up and out.

Aside from that, if you have all those bolts pulled, they shouldn't be connected by anything other than their alignment pins. Perhaps a bit of wedging would help start their separation? Mine tended to come apart with a bit of flair; maybe a little more encouragement is all it needs.

charlieml

Thanks. For future reference if anyone has this problem here is what I did. The two were bonded by scale or something and wouldn't separate no matter how much I shook it. I took my little Dremel and cut a small notch in the top center seam where I could fit a screwdriver head in and pried them apart. Happy to say it was a head gasket problem (and not cracked head or block.) Got her back together and she's running great. Very helpful videos on Youtube guided this first timer to success. Happy motoring.