The MV6’s poorly Y32SE and its accompanying AR35 transmission have finally been extracted from the car thanks to a day of frantic spanner-wielding from within the confines of my garage. My good friend, Seweryn Sidor (a fellow Omega nut and the proprietor of Cambridgeshire Vauxhall service and repair specialists, SOS Automotive), popped over to assist with the proceedings, and we took the opportunity to relieve the donor MV6 of its X30XE engine and R28 manual gearbox at the same time.
This is where things get a bit complicated; I now have four V6 engines sitting on the garage floor, all of which are in various states of repair. There’s the Irmscher car’s faulty lump, a remanufactured 3.2 that I planned to use as its new powerplant (but have since decided isn’t up to the job), the donor car’s 3.0-litre engine and yet another Y32SE that regular readers will recall seeing pictured weighing down the back of my Saab estate. That’s 12.6-litres of GM grunt awaiting some action!
To cut a long story short, the latter 3.2 will be inspected, refreshed and rebuilt before joining the five-speed manual gearbox from the donor vehicle. Both will be bolted into my ever-patient Irmscher MV6.
With Sew on hand to help, the engine and ‘box of each car was removed as a single unit. I’d already pulled the bumpers, bonnets, wiring and radiators in a bid to speed the process along, and we were able to withdraw the guts of both Griffins in a little under three hours. There were, of course, a number of stubborn bolts to contend with along the way, but that’s pretty good going in my book.
It helped that the Irmscher-kitted motor’s previous owner had spent thousands of pounds on a brand new exhaust system and genuine GM catalytic convertors a short while before I grabbed its keys. This made removal of the pipework a straightforward affair and demonstrates how well looked after the ol’ bus has been over the years. In fact, until now, the car has returned to the very same Vauxhall dealer that originally sold it whenever there was a service or repair to be undertaken.
I collected the car from the same dealership (it was chopped in as part-ex against a new Insignia) which meant that I could get a comprehensive service history printout detailing every nut, bolt, fluid, and repair that it has been subjected to since new. I was amazed to see that it had even been wheeled to Vauxhall for the supply and fit of brake light bulbs! I’m not sure that was £85 well spent, but I’m not complaining about the new suspension, brakes, timing and cooling components that were thrown at it in the run up to my name appearing on the logbook.
Not that any of those parts are staying; every aspect of the Dark Destroyer is in the process of being overhauled and upgraded. I guess that I’d better crack on with this engine then, eh?!
THANKSSOS Automotive
01480 700655
http://www.sos-automotive.comAnd so it begins...
No engine? No problem!
Time for the donor MV6 to undergo open heart surgery:
Sew steadies the donor MV6's 3.0-litre engine and manual gearbox. It's not as big as it looks, honest! :lol:
Both MV6 engines and gearboxes plonked onto the garage floor (front: 3.2 auto, back: 3.0 manual). Note how much shorter the manual gearbox is:
Oh, and this was a tool that proved itself to be useful on the job ("two out of two mechanics recommend Mini-Ductor II"
):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=litvs7yX7RQ