well i finally pulled my engine today took about 6-12 hrs my first tme taking my time.. and it was a PITA. took me not even an hour to pull an entire 12a from a 1st gen but boy these FD's are packed! i have searched for tips and tricks but most the links are dead. iam thinking baout doing rebuild myself. i have watched bruce's vid many times and have taken apart a few 12'a so far what do you guys think?

 

Do you have the time and the money to possibly rebuild it twice?

The reason I say that is without the experience of putting one together, its VERY easy to make a mistake. When those mistakes happen, you don't usually know until you've put the engine back in the car with all the accessories and try to make it run. In some extreme cases, a mistake can cause internal damage requiring replacement parts for the second rebuild try.

This is what you are paying for when you have someone else rebuild the motor; you are paying for their experience. I'm not saying you will have a problem, but its always a possibility even with the rebuild video.

 

Mahkij gives some good advice concerning the money to rebuild again.
Go slow, read/watch many time, assemble once.

 

money really isnt a concern though every dollar saved is a plus. i have alot of time though i have many projects and just one cant take all of my time. i might rebuild the 12a i have and drop that in the first gen run it and see what happens before i reuild the 13b-rew. i really would like to do the rebuild myself

 

ok so now iam finally at the bare block stage took awhile. i didnt really get to work on it everyday.. sometimes just a few parts a day. i still havent got the 19mm front hub bolt off yet. i cant. tried a few things i need a 19mm socket for my big air gun. plain and simple the rats nest really wasent all that bad people make it out to be alot worse. i mean sure if you look at it its a total mess but take it one at a time and its nothing to get it removed. the hardest thing to remove was the water pump housing because of the bent water pump housing studs. it didnt make it easy to remove it. i had to first remove the studs than the water pump hosuing

 

lol, the rack is easy to remove when the engine is out of the car. Heck, everything is easy to remove when the engine is out of the car.

FWIW, I used a breaker bar for the e-shaft bolt. If you have the flywheel on, you can use a flywheel stopper and then a breaker bar for the e-shaft bolt.