- Swapping your engine is one of the biggest
and scariest sounding jobs you can do to a car.
But is it really that hard or is it something
that a beginner could do?
Luckily, today I found a beginner.
- (laughs) Sup?
(crew laughing)
- So, James insists that he handled
the pulling of this engine on his own.
So, I'm gonna be here for guidance,
the bumpers to his bowling ball.
I pulled a few engines in my day.
So, along the way, I'll be given him and you guys
some tips and tricks to make sure this thing comes out
without any issue.
We're gonna get this engine out the right way,
but can James do it by himself?
Probably. I think, I hope.
- Yeah, I can do it, dude.
Again, we've got two days scheduled for this.
I'm gonna give everybody a day off.
(crew laughing)
We'll be done by lunch.
(lightning crashing) (upbeat music)
(lightning crashing)
- Big, thanks to Ridge Wallets for sponsoring this episode.
You know, when it comes to wallets, I like to...
Excuse me.
- [Robot Voice] Access granted.
- Kinda filming a spot here.
Anyway, wallets.
(phone buzzing) What?
(phone notifying)
I didn't buy that.
I didn't buy that. (phone bleeping)
My money, it's gone! (light crashing)
Big thank you to Ridge Wallets.
(air whooshing)
Jobe? - Nolan!
Nolan, what day is it?
- November 25th, 2020. - Perfect.
In a few seconds, you're gonna lose everything.
You gotta listen to me,
you gotta get rid of that typical old leather wallet,
and you gotta replace it with one of these.
- Wow! So, light and sleek.
But how does it protect me?
- [Robotic Voice] Access denied.
- Well, unlike those typical leather wallets of the '90s,
this wallet is built with RFID blocking technology
to protect you from digital pickpockets like that guy.
- Oh!
Wow! Thanks future Jobe, you really saved me.
- Anytime Nolan, but I think we can save a lot more people
if we tell 'em to go to ridge.com/donut
and use code: donut to save 10%.
But you gotta hurry because time is of the essence.
(Nolan laughing) Speaking of time,
I got James and a pizza to save.
I'm outta here! (lightning crashing)
- Walk-a-Walker! (beep)
- [James] What?
- what's wrong? - The starter went.
- [Eddie] Is that why we're swapping it?
- No, we're swapping it because every time it gets parked,
something else breaks when I go to drive it again.
And we're at the point now,
where I would have to pull the engine
to fix all this stuff, that's wrong with it.
But 20 valve, 40 GEs have independent throttle bodies
from the factory.
Apparently, it's pretty easy swap,
and they're relatively cheap.
So, win-win-win, we're just gonna replace it
with a fresh motor.
- Now, there's only one thing left to do.
- Let's get this engine out of here, boy.
- All right. So, let's talk about it.
Why might you want to swap your engine?
I mean, there's a lot of reasons that you might want to,
maybe you're looking for more power baby,
or maybe you just wanna swap some steezy engine
into your ride,
or maybe your current engine needs
a lot of work done to it like James',
and he just wants to cross off the entire list at once.
No matter the reason you're thinking about an engine swap,
it can seem scary.
Trust me, I've been there, I know.
But it's really, in most cases, not that bad.
Especially, in the case of the AE86,
this thing should come out
with really little to no problem, I hope.
The big thing is being prepared and making sure
you have the right tools.
(upbeat music)
- [Zach] Might as well get a couple.
Now, the truth is, even if James and I's processes
don't really match up, it's probably gonna be fine,
because the order in which you do a lot of this stuff,
doesn't honestly matter, you just need to get it done.
But I'll tell you the order in which I would do things.
First. I like to get some big stuff out of the way,
remove the exhaust, remove the drive shaft,
drain fluids, drain all your coolant,
remove any obstructions from the engine,
like the air intake,
or anything that connects the engine to the chassis,
like power steering or the throttle cable.
Then it's time to disconnect your electrical connectors.
And then once all your electrical connectors
are disconnected, that's pretty much it.
You then have to remove the engine transmission
from the vehicle.
So, it's time to pop the engine and transmission mounts.
Use your cherry picker and pick
that engine up on out of there.
In the case of the AE86, we are gonna be pulling it
with the transmission attached, but your mileage may vary
depending on what you're working on.
So, that's the basic rundown for us.
It's really not that many steps.
It's just a lot of elbow grease you got to put in.
And I think James is gonna be able to put it in.
It's a little scary,
but I think we're gonna make it.
(air whooshing)
- I don't know if you guys have seen high-low,
but my style, I'm more of a morale guy.
You know what I mean?
I'm there for the jokes.
when you need a helping hand, your boy will step in,
but for the most part, I'm goofing off.
- But today the roles are reversed, bud.
I'm gonna be doing cartwheels all day,
and other such goofy (beep),
and a Pumphery is gonna be doing the work,
getting the knuckles good and greazy, I can't wait.
I think this format is gonna work well for me.
(upbeat music)
- There's some things that you literally,
physically cannot do by yourself.
Show me a guy who can take out
an entire hood off by themselves?
(wrench rasping)
And I will hire him to do this next time.
(crew laughing) (upbeat music)
- There's already a wrench in my hands.
- That's not my fault, that's your fault, man.
- It's really important to be organized.
Know where you store your hardware,
know where are you keeping it, where it goes,
where it goes back.
If that means putting it in the hood so you can't forget,
putting it in a Ziploc bag and labeling it,
putting it in a cup, or whatever you got to do,
label your hardware, organize yourself,
and everything will go much more smoothly
than it would otherwise.
- You see, it's really important to remember
where you put your hardware.
When you go to put your car back together,
you don't have your hardware,
you're gonna be kicking yourself.
You've got to go.
So, like one trick, is to put it in the hood,
or you can put in some Ziploc bags and label 'em.
Where did he put them over here? Yeah.
To that double layer spot.
- [Zach] Yeah, that's it.
- He can't help himself.
He has to jump in.
- [Zach] Hey, let the car down.
- Okay. - Nice and slow.
Okay. All right. (crew laughing)
- Now, that the car is up,
I'm gonna get in there,
and I'm gonna pull the drive shaft off,
and the back of the exhaust.
I'm so confident that I can do this all by myself.
I'm gonna up the stakes a little bit.
Every time I ask Jobe a question, I pay him a $1.
Every time he has to turn a wrench,
I've to pay him $10. - Wait a minute.
Let me get this straight.
You're telling me every time you need me
to turn a wrench today? - Yeah.
- You gonna pay me $10. - Yeah.
- And $1 to ask me a question?
- Yeah, I've to asking you a question, I give you $1.
- I'm walking out of here with money.
(wrench rasping)
- This (beep) is gonna fall on my face.
(wrench rasping)
(upbeat music) All right.
Rear section of the exhaust officially out.
R, S, O, E, O, O. (upbeat music continues)
For some reason, this bolt is smaller.
(crew laughing)
Did I forget a bolt up there?
All right, I'm calling in a hand.
(Zach laughing)
(laughs) This isn't advice,
this is just, I don't smash my noggin.
- [Zach] It's not disconnecting from back here?
- [James] Yeah.
- Ready? - Yeah. (laughs)
- [Zach] (indistinct) are ready check it
after it's done. - Noise.
Hell yeah, the old two piecer.
Exhaust out, drive shaft out,
engine out, I'd say in 10 to 15 minutes, please.
- You're doing great, James.
Keep up the good work, I'll be over here.
(upbeat music)
This is my favorite episode yet.
(upbeat music continues)
- So, we're done with the back of the car,
turn the jack up the front of the car,
drain some fluids,
take the rest of the exhaust off
'cause I couldn't get under there.
Start disconnecting stuff in the engine bay,
and pull this guy out.
My engine's a boy!
And these guys have been working so hard,
they've been shooting,
they shoot "Money Pit" like almost every day of the week.
So, as the OG, I'm gonna give those boys a day off.
I'm dipping the (beep) out of this boys.
(crew laughing)
- [Eddie] It's jumping out,
you wanna throw a bucket under there?
- [James] Oops!
- When you do any this kinds stuff,
you gotta be prepared for spills, it's gonna happen.
So, having some rags on hand,
some brake cleaner, all that's helpful,
but also draining the transmission first,
would have prevented this.
- I'm still doing it. (crew laughing)
I didn't say I would be clean about it.
- [Zach] I mean, it actually doesn't look too bad,
you can see through it.
- Yeah. It doesn't even look too bad,
you can see through it.
(upbeat music)
- And that jam, we can drain to cool it.
We start pulling engines. (upbeat music)
The last of the fluids.
This is some dirty stuff.
Oh, gross, oh, gross! (upbeat music continues)
(lid opening)
- Oh, God! - Oh, God!
What the (beep)?
(crew laughing)
- [Eddie] Yeah guys get a mop?
- Nope. There's some in there.
- Sure did, sure you did.
(upbeat music continues)
You gotta make some messes?
You know, you gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelet.
(mop scratching) (upbeat music continues)
- [Zach] Is that 10 bucks?
So, the cooling's out, engine oil's out,
and the transmission fluid is out.
Now, he's probably gonna go top side
and start fiddling with some things in the engine bay.
He probably gonna wanna pop them, radiator hoses off before-
- I do that? - Yeah.
- That's free, that's what she called free advice.
- That's right?
I was, you know, I was thinking about trying
to wrench some money out you,
but I figured I'd just give that one to you.
(upbeat music)
All right. That didn't count.
James doesn't have to pay me for this help.
I'm just helping him,
'cause he can't be down there and up here at the same time.
So, this is just good friends stuff.
- [Eddie] Lots of stipulations in this game.
- Well, listen, I'm not gonna charge my guy $10
to have me help him out to pop a hose
off the radiator. (James growling)
- It got my nap. (crew laughing)
Nolan, can you get me like a glove or something?
- [Eddie] Rubber bands,
or maybe it's the plug thing.
- Radiator.
Hm, hm, hm!
- Wow. - Out!
- Wowout!
Beautiful.
Got all this room for all the activities.
- Radiator officially out.
- Boom!
- Woo! (laughs)
Okay. Moving forward,
I'm gonna check stuff more
before I get excited. (laughs)
- Hey, that's learning, you know?
- All right. So, now, that we're getting into the electrics
of the engine bay, and we have stuff
that I need to save
for my new harness,
I think I might start racking up some questions.
But I'm predicting at least 9 to 10.
- Dollars worth of questions?
- Worth of questions. Yeah.
- Yo, I'm gonna eat tonight.
(upbeat music) (James laughing)
- Maybe we start on that side. (crew laughing)
(ambient instrumental music)
This is the part I'm really nervous about.
All right, Jobe, dry question.
- [Zach] What's up?
- What's everything you would disconnect?
- Well, I would disconnect- - that's one question.
- That's one question.
What's everything you discon...
How do we take out this engine?
- Yeah.
- So, I would disconnect everything
that connects to the engine and then to the chassis,
so that this thing can just come right out.
And as you do, you can just put some tape on the connectors
on each side and label them with a number,
or a letter, or a drawing,
just to get it out of your mind,
so you can freely disconnect stuff,
and then know what it went to.
- [James] Nolan, you wanna assist me with the tape?
(Nolan laughing)
- The (beep), is that an N or a two? (laughs)
I'm so (mumbles) in it. (crew laughing)
- Needs organization, James.
- [James] Thanks Jobe.
- Woo, woo, oh, oh!
Getting disconnected.
- [Zach] Yo, spaghetti coming out.
(upbeat music) (James inhaling)
(upbeat music continues)
- We're deciding whether or not
he should take off the headers, take the engine out.
It looks like the headers might run into the sub frame
as we try to pull it out, but they also might not.
- Let's pull it off. - Let's pull it off.
Well, that'll definitely work.
(funky upbeat music)
That's it, that's it, it's done.
- [James] That's it.
(Zach blowing)
- [Eddie] All right boys, so where we at?
- Looking pretty close.
- I'm gonna wash my hands,
take the shifter out, and unhook the ECA.
And then I'm gonna pull this whole harness out
through the firewall.
- Which is not necessarily necessary for removing an engine,
that's just a thing we're doing.
- Yeah.
Oh, that is... (crew laughing)
look at me. (laughs)
- Wow! - An engine harness.
- Woow! - Snake King. (shouts)
So, everything under the car is done.
Everything is unhooked.
Engine harness is out.
The only thing holding this engine in are the mounts,
they're gonna put the jack under the trans,
we remove the trans mount, remove the engine mounts,
pull the engine out. (upbeat music)
Bing-bang-boom, boys get a day off.
- All right. So, James has probably,
wisely, paid me 10 bucks
to install the engine lift onto the engine.
This is kinda one of those places where you can get hurt
if you don't know what you're doing.
So, we're gonna go through it together and do it safely.
First thing we got to do,
is get the engine attached to the crane.
So, we've got this fancy dude out here,
and this is a leveling bar.
And you can see we've got a handle here.
And depending on which way we thread this,
kinda changes the balance point
and it'll tip the whole load one way or the other.
So, that means, we need to get this thing
attached to the engine at two points, at least,
and I'm gonna go with the front and the rear,
so that when I adjust this bar,
it tips the engine and transmission like this.
Pretty much every engine ever has a spot
that it's meant to be picked up from.
So, we could just use the hook and hook right to that,
and then work this thing out.
But I'm gonna take the hook off
and replace it with one of these L brackets
that is on the bar,
and then that's pretty much it.
We'll use the bolts that are already in the engine,
'cause I trust them to be strong enough.
And that's about it.
Then we'll start jacking this thing up
and we'll just work it out.
Just being careful the whole time
and making sure you go slowly,
rather than rushing it and busting,
well, your feet, or your body, or anything.
- Or your engine, or your transmission,
or the front end of your cars.
There's a reason that this is so daunting.
And I am glad to have my friends working with me.
(wrench rasping) (upbeat music)
- Now, this can get a little tricky,
especially, when you have a cherry picker like we have.
It's really not that long,
the boom is not that long.
So, you can see, this is a pretty short front end car.
And our chain is already pulling this way
because the boom isn't quite long enough
to sit over top of the engine.
So, the problem there is that when we go to lift this thing,
it's gonna wanna pull the boom itself
into the front of the car.
I'm gonna be pulling back on this whole unit
while Pumphrey operates it.
I'm just trying to keep it off the bumper
because this thing's kind of short.
And if I don't pull back,
it's gonna wanna pull this thing into the bumper.
We don't wanna do that.
Nolan's gonna be down there operating the jack
and just kinda doing whatever we need him to do
to help this thing come out.
We're gonna go slow,
we're gonna take our time and look as we go,
make sure we don't mess anything up,
and it should come right up.
- Wait, do we got to pull these bolts up?
- Which ones? - The mounts?
- No, they're good. (laughs)
- We only get one shot of this people, let us do it.
As soon as I start pulling,
and you start picking up, I'm stuck.
- All right, I'm picking up.
And then here we go.
As soon as we get out of the mounts,
we'll come forward, which means we should be good up here.
Great news, we're about to hit firewall
- You got? - Some space.
So, then- - I'd start tipping.
- [Zach] Yeah, baby. (upbeat music)
- Yeah, boy, yeah boy! - Tip the girl.
- [James] Tip is due.
- Okay, that looks nice.
Nolan start picking up.
(James picking)
- [Nolan] Keep on, keep on!
- Beautiful.
Now, you should be able to move back a little bit,
and then, Nolan you should be okay
to not have to do too much work.
- [Cameraman] That's awesome, man.
- [Zach] Yeah, dude.
All right, let's go. (upbeat music)
Well, James, you caught fish.
Got the motor out.
That is a car without a motor.
- Thank you. (crew laughing)
It was so much easier than I thought it would be.
It's such a daunting thing.
Once we had made the decision
that I would have to rely on my own brain,
and I did, it was relatively straightforward.
You know, I did maybe an hour and a half,
two hours of research last night,
figured out what I was supposed to do,
and then I just kinda did it.
And I got stuck every once in a while,
but that's a time when you can call a friend.
Up until the very end,
most of those questions and everything
could have been taken care of with a phone call.
- 100%, or just a Google, or whatever.
I mean, everything you ran into here was no big deal.
The fact is there's just a hundred, no big deals,
that you got to do before this happened,
- Right.
- There's a lot of work, a lot of elbow grease,
but none of it's that difficult.
So, as you may have noticed,
we removed an engine and now this AE86 has nothing in it.
Don't worry, we're gonna put an engine back in it.
But before we do that,
I got a turbo kit for that car.
So, we're gonna do that next.
Starting next week, we are turbing the Miata.
Finally, we're gonna make some boosts,
and I hope it makes you guys happy.
So, thank you guys for watching it.
We had a great time making it.
Don't forget to follow me on Instagram @zachjobe,
and follow James @jamespumphrey,
and follow "Donut," @donutmedia.
And I'll see you next week.
(upbeat outro music)