The pickup project has taken a back seat since I suddenly found myself with a third Previa AllTrac that needs a new engine. I'm taking the JDM route and dove in. I used to work a lot on air-cooled VWs, so pulling an engine out from below is a concept I'm comfortable with. But those old VW engines are a lot lighter and easier to deal with than the Previa drivetrain.
Looking over other threads I saw the Harbor Freight lift table in use. Something similar is shown in the FSM, but in the context of a shop with a vehicle lift as well. I went to Harbor Freight and studied the two offerings along that line. One has a 500 lb rating, the other double that. Both are rather tall when collapsed, but the bigger one is REALLY tall, plus it's much more expensive. I figure the smaller of the two is more likely to be something that I could use during the 99.99% of my time that I'm NOT exchanging Previa engines.
Anyway, I pondered the height issue, and came up with a way to avoid having to hoist the car a foot higher than I'm comfortable with. I used the lift table inside to lift the engine from above. Here it is holding the engine up, extended near the upper end of its range with an old nylon tow strap wrapped over it, and under the engine below:
The strap makes two loops around the engine. On the left, the strap goes down near the oil filler:
You can see in the picture above that I removed the front two wheels and placed the table on a pair of 2x4 chunks to stabilize it onto the floor/carpet.
And on the right, I removed the header so that the strap wraps around the valve cover:
The strap goes above the oil tube:
And I put a chunk of 2x4 on top of the lift table to spread the lift points out so that the straps go essentially straight down:
Next time, I'll take that rubber sheet off of the top, so that it's easier to knock the 2x4 fore and aft to shift lift.
I put my conventional floor jack under the transmission:
After hoisting the engine a bit with the lift table, and lowering the trans a ways, it was easy to pull the whole deal back to clear the front motor mounts:
I lowered the engine onto a sheet of plywood setting on a pair of maple dowels. The lift table has plenty of range:
I set the trans down on another collection of 2x4 chunks which I broke down to get the trans onto one that it could slide on. So then the whole business was easy to roll out on the dowels:
This trick involves several dowels, of course, moving the ones that roll out to the other side as needed.
Once out in the open, I can manage the lump with a conventional hoist. I found that the engine and trans sit nicely on my ramps.
That was today's project. Putting it back in will be another adventure, I'm sure. Stay tuned.
So far the hardest part of this was finding and disconnecting of all of the hoses and wires and such that tie the engine/trans assembly to the body. Whew! Good thing I have another Previa on hand to use as a guide to get it all back together!