The start of the Winter Project!

[ScuttleRX]

Downpipe wise, i remember when I had to get under and tighten mine bac up, 1 nut completely rattled off and the other was loose, remember them all being a bit of a PITA to get to. Is it the one with the steering column in the way that your having trouble with?

[dandan]

if you are stood by the passenger wing looking into to engine bay, it is the top left nut that is the trouble, the large cast pipe joining the turbo\'s is in the way but it doesnt look removable from in situ. the other three look reasonably accessible.

[Bobfish]

You can remove the Y Pipe and get to the downpipe bolts. It goes a little like this:

Get under car, remove two bolts on back of secondary turbo and remove the pipe that the air filter connects to. Withdraw it from the top.

Undo all 4 bolts on the Y Pipe itself. The front two are easy to get to. The rear two you can do with a regular 10mm and a UJ. They are difficult to get to, but entirely posisble.

Now remove the Y pipe - its a bit of a job to get off, but fiddle it around and it will come off. You might end up breaking the gasket as it catches the threads of the studs.

Now you can undo the downpipe bolts. If the studs stay in the turbos, you will need to undo the engine mounts and lift the engine a bit to actually get the downpipe off. Just remove all 4 nuts and then remove the downpipe as you remove the engine itself.

I can 100% definately positively recommend removing the downpipe to remove the engine. Getting the engine in and out with the downpipe on is a BASTARD.

[Bobfish]

P.s MOVE THOSE AXLE STANDS!!!!!!!

STick them under the chassis rails with small blocks of wood on to stop them scratching the underseal. You should be putting them under the flat bit just by the guy in the photo\'s left hand. The sills are a bit fragile and definately not ideal to hold up a car on.

[ds2000]

^ I\'ll second that, my sills look they\'ve had a hard life

[StormBleeder]

Thanks for all the replies and the advice guys it is all much appreciated.  

I have to admit that I\'d have prefered to put the axel stands somewhere else, but when I looked up on where Mazdas jacking points were, they only recommended the side sills which I thought sucked.    
Will move them tonight and use the chassis rails, although it shouldn\'t be up on axel stands for very much longer as it was only while we were getting the engine out.    

The pic of me working is all lies, I was set up i tell you. lol

On another note...
Anyone thinking of undertaking this sort of DIY themselves should invest in a set of ratchet spanners as they have been a god send so far.

[nikp]

When we did mine, we half raised the engine in the engine bay with the downpipe still attached - we then had beeter visibility to the downpipe nuts and bolts, and better access too.

[ds2000]

invest in a set of ratchet spanners as they have been a god send so far.

The FDs best friend

[dandan]

I make that a shade under 9 hours work. :p

[StormBleeder]

Well as Dan pointed out, a little over 9 hours and the engine popped out.    

Although what Dan failed to mention in his last post was while he was playing around disconnecting a coolant hose, he had a little accident...



As Dan found out there was still a little bit of coolant left in the pipe.  

The engine is hopefully going to be stripped by me and Dan on Friday night ready for cracking the flywheel nut on saturday morning. :Thumbs-up
Although now the engine is out I\'m going to spend a few days tidying and cleaning the engine bay up a bit, and also removing the air con system.

Finally another pic of our success from the other side. lol

[dandan]

That picture doesn\'t even half show how wet I got! It\'s all I could smell on the way home, and now my van stinks of it. :spank

[dandan]

It\'s getting a bit cold to do this stuff outside now, brrr!
Well after tomorrow it should be in lots of tiny bits so we can take it inside, because tonight we went from this:



to this:

[StormBleeder]

As you can see by the DanDan\'s second pic the exhast port for the rear rotor is looking very damp....we\'re thinking waterseal failiure, also the sloshing noice coming from that rotor gives it away.

Has been fun getting it out and stripping it down....although it\'s definatly going back in as a single turbo because I really don\'t want to put the rats nest back in.   What a work of art and simplicity it isn\'t.

[Grizzly]

I had a simalr thing happen on my rebuild but it turned out to be Fuel

[dandan]

long story short:



No seriously corroded parts between the water seal channel and jacket, so may have just been the water seal itself failing and we caught it before it ate the metal.
Better get scrubbing rich!