wow...the back was actually easier than the front, the cassette pretty much popped right off, i had to pry on it a little, but NOTHING compared to the front, why this is i dont know.

i did rotate the engine, im not sure by how much, i think i changed the angle of the engine more than i did move it forward, which in itself helped ALOT, i tried to take before and after pics but they look the same in a picture, youd just have to see if....

i also have 2 short vids that demonstrate oil flow inside the engine at cold start and at operating temperature, there is a...cam chain cover? underneath my oil cap, over which oil flows and its really neat to see the difference, ill get those up at some point, but its just not an option on dial up.

and now the pics!


this is the front igntion cassette...thingy

rear for comparison, i also believe this is after the engine has been rotated

engine mount removed

bottom view of the ignition cassette

side view of same

plug with boot still on

boot removed....also my elaborate boot removal technique can be seen

spark plug

same

the tool necessary to remove such a thing

THAR SHE BLOWS!!!.....i wish i wouldve had an O2 sensor while i was doing this.

also in some pics youll notice that the black area looks a little oily, you can also see some oil in the spark plug area in one of the pics....i at first thought it was coolant, because it appeared somewhat orange/brown on my finger...but then i smelled it and it smells like oil, and i just changed it not long ago which would explain the color, it also had the consistency of oil

why there was oil there? i have no idea, i dont remember any being on the front...but i think its better to not question it because the car is running just fine and its not losing any oil at a fast enough rate to cause problems, and isnt burning any.

wow. that'* crazy.

So how exactly do you tilt the engine forward?

Good pics LittleHoov!!! Helpful for anyone else with the 3.5 who wants to do their own.

BTW, I know I'd still be curious as to where that oil came from if I were you. It'* just me.

basically you remove the top wishbone engine mount (which you can see in the above pic)

then there are several methods outlined in the Chiltons.

one method is to use a small turnbuckle between the the two mounting points of the wishbone mount and pull the engine toward the mount..does that make sense? its hard to describe i have a turnbuckle but it was way too big for this project.

they also mentioned using a chain and lever...which would be difficult to do by yourself and would be hard too hold once you pulled it forward and things like that, also the risk of body damage is quite excessive.

so for me, i parked the car close to a post that is concreted into the ground and attached one end a come-a-long to the post and the other to the removal bracket just above where the engine mount attaches to the engine, you can see it in one of the pics but its difficult to tell what it is...then i just cranked away on it, im not sure how far you can move it exactly, so i just moved it a little bit, i didnt want to damage anything and even the Chiltons is very vague on how far it will actually move, using their turnbuckle method they got it too rotate forward about 1 1/4 inches.

the fun came when it was time to release the engine....i didnt want to just let it go all at once, and this come along doesnt have the gradual release feature...so i decided to get in the car, put it in neutral and slowly roll it forward...worked just fine.

like i said i dont really know how far you can move the engine forward without damaging something, nor do i know how far i moved it, i just know i did, after the slack was taken out of the transmission i could visibly see the engine moving.

ahh. good work. THe Aurora doesn't have the dogbone mounts so I'm not really sure if you can tilt it forward like that or not. hmm. FSM doesn't really say. :(