| Nice and pretty... |
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| The flywheel-to-crankshaft bolts (nine of them) are captive within the flywheel. |
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| Edge view of the flywheel - the upper band of teeth form the starter engagement gear, while the square-ish teeth in the middle are used by the Crankshaft Position Sensor to track precisely the position of the crankshaft within each revolution. |
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| Prior to starting work - this shot merely serves to note how things are assembled. Note in particular the routing of the O2 and Lambda sensor wires. You want to be sure to duplicate this on re-assembly to prevent the cables from being tangled in the driveshaft. |
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| The first part to be removed - the exhaust crossmember. Four 13mm bolts, one 13mm nut. |
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| Splash guard for O2 sensor connectors.
One on each side of the car - there are two connectors inside servicing that
side's O2 sensor harnesses.
Two 8mm nuts to remove, on captive studs in the underbody. In this pic, forward is down. Both sensors' harnesses enter from the front: the harness for the front sensor exits the back of the box then wraps around and passes back thru up to the sensor. The harness for the rear connector simply passes straight thru. On reassembly it's easy to tell from the harness lengths which side is which: you can tell from the way the harnesses are "bent" which is for front/rear. Later cars only have one set of sensors (I think). |
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| You can either go down to your dealer and purchase special tool #31 2 220, or use your floor jack to support the exhaust at the resonator while removal is in process. |
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| This is the driver's side header collector. As may be
seen, the inner joint uses two 12mm thru-bolts, attaching to captive
nuts on the upper flange. On my car, one of these nuts had broken free
- they are 14mm square nuts and are accessible with an open end wrench if
necessary. The outer joint uses two 12mm bolts and nuts, passing from top to bottom. |
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| Same thing, but on the passenger side. Pic is really for reference and doesn't add much information. |
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| Once you've removed the header collector bolts/nuts, it's time to move aft to the resonator. Two 12mm hex nuts hold the suspension bracket to the body of the car. Make sure you're supporting the resonator - the exhaust system is heavy (> 100 pounds), and will probably not treat you well if you let it sag. |
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| I happen to have a SuperSprint muffler installed on my car:
now is the time to disconnect the suspension bracket (which is in the same
place on a factory equipment). Once you've done this, you'll probably need to whack the collector joints a couple times with a rubber mallet to get them to let go. Be gentle - you don't want to break anything. |
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| Exhaust system has been removed from the headers aft - now
it's time to get after the heat shields. You must remove three along
the central tunnel, two on either side of the transmission, and one small
one up on the aft, left side of the front crossmember. 10mm and 8mm nuts and screws. |
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| Just another pic showing a couple of the screw locations for the central heat shields. |
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