Can anyone tell me if there is access to the rear engine from underneath/behind the plastic cowl cover?
Also, where that aluminum transfer tube from one side of the engine to the otehr is bolted to the timing cover case is that a blind hole/boss or is that a gasketed surface?
I was looking to do something similar to get the cam guide frame off with engine in. The pipe is a hard coolant line. There’s a gasket on the flange. It looked possible to remove this line after removing the valve covers and/or IM. I just couldn’t tell if the lower bolts on the timing cover were accessible from the top and didn’t want to pull all those parts to find out that I couldn’t get them off. I definitely couldn’t see getting to them from the bottom or side.
As some additional info, was told by both Justincredible and JimmyBones that it would be much smarter to pull the engine. But that was in regards to the cam guide frame removal (which would require timing cover removal and timing chains to be slipped off cams after pinning the tensioners). Maybe they would have a different take on just the timing covers and getting to those bolts.
^indeed removing the cam carriers woudl be best done with engien out of the car, as big of a job as that is…sometimes It jsut is much better and you are time/frustration ahead to just drop the engine. The most annoying part of this is having to evac and recharge the AC, everything else is hand tools, match marks, hoist and hydraulic lift table + time.
Good to know the surface is gasketed. I have not though about removing the IM to access the back of the engine, that would net a ton of room. But like you said…do you really want to do all that just to find out you cant access those lower bolts anyway? I sure dont. Its one of those things for me…a small leak almost doesnt warrant being down for 2 weeks in my garage pulling and reinstalling the engine + the money I have to pay a shop to evac and recharge the AC.