As was recommended by most here - I dropped engine and gearbox down from the car as a single unit. It worked out well with a 4-post lift to raise the car and a hydraulic cart to lower the engine.
I took the exhaust manifolds off first - without really looking to see whether the engine drops with them attached. It's a tricky job with all the manifold nuts hidden by the 'overhang' of the heads. How tricky? I think this video illustrates it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTCRlvX-d48
First question then.. does the engine fit back in with the manifolds attached?
Rebuild is now complete but with a few remaining concerns. A few problems along the way - notably:
* oil-pump - bought new gears from Superformance because old ones seemed noisy rotating by hand. But... new ones equally noisy
and when assembled to front cover, oil pump completely locked up. So, went back to original gears and...still locked up. Complete mystery, ended up with it all at Dino-owning machine shop owner who preferred the look of the old gears and gently "lapped" them until it started turning again. Why didn't Fiat use silent helical gears like Alfa?* rod bearings - i had to go one oversize pistons after cleaning up the bores - therefore new set of pistons/pins from Superformance (made by Cosworth and very nice) but new pins were loose inside rod-bearings - ordered a set of bearings from Superformance and they didn't fit, completely loose inside conrod housing - bought some Maranello (UK Ferrari importer/parts business) and they were perfect, and cheap enough too. (Superformance also sent me a set which looked like got them from the same place..)
* valve timing - not too hard, had to make a tool to slide-hammer the vernier pins out. Despite best efforts to make everything it kept being one whole tooth out before I realised any slack in the 'tight' side of the chain makes the chain slip one tooth around the drive sprocket. After that..easy.
before and after shots:
http://www.fiatdinoforum.org/viewtopic.php?t=1713
I enlarged the holes in the new (Superformance again) pressure plate to accept 3 of the Dino flywheel pins and didn't refit the other 3, looks good.
But - the new pressure plate is "thinner" (smaller distance fingers-flywheel) therefore the clutch actuator lever engages the clutch much further back towards the gearbox - i think the cable/mechanism can be adjusted to make it work, but it will be at the extreme end. It's almost like there should be a different throwout bearing to compensate for the thinner pressure plate. But the new bearing in the kit is the same as the oem one.
Has anybody fitted one of these kits on a 2400 and can tell me how it went?
Thanks,