Engine lifting advice needed

[William C. Brown #33787]

Gents,

I have a 68 L-89 with aluminum heads. I have pulled many an engine in my time but never one with aluminum heads. Can anybody give me some advice on how to safely pull the motor without screwing up these heads? That is, on iron heads motors I used to just attach a chain to several intake manifold bolts and hoist away. Knowing that aluminum is more fragile I just want to be really careful about pulling this motor. Should I remove the heads while the block is still in the car, or is this overkill?

Thanks --Corey

[Joe L.]

Re: Engine lifting advice needed

Corey-----

Your engine originally had lifting brackets when it was shipped from Tonawanda to the St. Louis Corvette assembly plant. One bracket was attached to the left front of your manifold and secured by the two endmost intake-to-cylinder head bolts. This bracket was probably removed at St. Louis to facilitate the installation of tri-power carb components. The other bracket was attached to the right rear of the manifold and secured by the rearmost intake manifold-to-cylinder head bolt. It should still be there unless someone removed it along the way.

In any event, I would add one or both of these brackets, which are available in reproduction, and use them as lift points for your engine just like Tonawanda and St. Louis did. I'm quite sure that the GM engineers carefully evaluated and approved of these lifting points. After re-installation of the engine, you can remove the front bracket if you wish.

Lastly, when you install the brackets, make sure that you torque the fastening manifold bolts to specification which is 30 ft/lbs.

[Jerry Clark]

Re: Engine lifting advice needed

Hi William:

Nice ride, L89. Joe, of course is right on, it was safe enough for GM it will work for you, however if you are uncomfortable with what they did you have the option of removing the valve covers and using head bolts to lift from,

jer