After pulling the radiator out, I discovered a considerable amount of
garbage that probably was reducing the radiator's cooling capacity. It's
evidence that you should consider pulling the radiator and cleaning it ever
couple years
Even after vacuuming the radiator, there's still a lot of stuff on there
that I'll need to remove with a power washer...directed from the back through to
the front.
Pulling the engine created a fair number of obstacles that
needed to be overcome. Most signficant were the 19mm bolts securing the
bellhousing to the engine block. The top bolts are positioned so that it's
pretty hard to get at them without an offset wrench. Even then, it's hard to
generate enough force to break them free without causing the wrench to slip off
the bolt. After wasting several hours without success, I decided that the
bellhousing was going to come out with the engine. That meant I had to
disconnect the bellhousing from the torque tube. That was much easier. Once the
bellhousing was free, I finished disconnecting everything else and tried to lift
the engine. It came up about 6 inches and started bringing the whole car up with
it. After a few more hours of trying to figure this out, I saw that the
transmission cable that runs along the top of the torque tube was holding the
engine. The metal bracket securing the cable to the bellhousing was actually
strong enough to lift the car. Again, the fact that this bracket is in a hard to
reach spot and it's being frozen in place for 20 years made removal difficult. I
ended up using a Dremel to cut it. The engine came up a few more inches and got
stuck again...this time on the fuel injection wiring harness. I couldn't push
the harness through the firewall, so I needed to disconnect it from the various
locations on top of the engine. With that done, the engine came out: