Using the impact wrench I zipped the driver’s side transmission mount loose. This was a 17mm I think. 17 or 14… I expect it will be pretty obvious when you start wrenching on it.
This is the modified celica mount used to keep the passenger side of the motor connected. I highly recomend to anyone using a 2zz in their Spyder to get a custom mount. Modifying the celica mount will let you get by, but the other three mounts tend to twist a little because its impossible to elongate the bolt hole enough to sit correctly.
I forget what this looks like on a 1zz, on the 2zz its just a 17mm bolt on the body side, two 14mm bolts on the motor side along with two 14mm nuts on the underside of the bridge mount toward the motor.
I used an old engine stand and laid a board across its legs. Then I placed two tires on the boards to let the motor and transmission sit on. This worked pretty darn well. Once I had the drive train sitting on this, I removed the two 17mm bolts holding the crossmember to the subframe rails and also the 12mm bolt that was holding some kind of bracket for the brake lines. Ignore the detail of the rear sway bar being disconnected. It was not necessary and I put the bolt back right after I took this picture.
Each side of the crossmember has two 17mm bolts and a 12mm bolt that need to be removed.
This is a pic of me lifting the car up from the drivetrain. I don’t recall moving, but apparently I was having some sort of epileptic fit when I pressed the button. Notice how I twisted the motor a bit to better clear the passenger side frame rail. It was at this point that I disconnected the throttle cable. If you forget about the throttle cable you will embarass yourself in front of your friends when you lift the car from the drivetrain.
Another pic to illustrate the twist I put on the drivetrain to clear the passenger subframe rail. BTW – something not pointed out during this is that the 2zz’s have a ground wire connected to the body above the valve cover towards the pullies. If you forget about this, you will embarass yourself in front of your friends when you lift the car from the drivetrain.
This documentation in no way replaces the Toyota MR2 Repair Manuals. The purpose of this content is only to provide supplementary information to fellow MR2 enthusiasts. Midship Runabout and its contributing authors will not be held responsible for any injury or damages that may occur as the result of practicing any of the methods or procedures described within this website. Article and photo submissions are property of the contributing author.
You sir are a star! i have to do this job in a week or so and this write up will help no ends. your right about the best tool being common sense, i didn’t use mine once to do a small job on a fiesta, you know how it is” i’ll just nip under this car without axle stamnds as its only a quick one” then the car falls off said jack. A night in hosptal and resulting brain damage tends to make you think twice about stuff lol lesson learned me thinks.
Thanks again for the write up. wish there were more people who took the time to do great work like you with the photos and so on.
Tony
I cannot believe I go online to find a tutorial to re-install a motor in a spyder and I find my car used in a step by step picture guide! I recognize it by the tape pulled off mark behind the license plate, the stick welds on the modified header, and the way the wire was poked through the firewall grommet next to the main harness wires! Out of curiousity, why was the motor dropped for this tutorial? Was that when it was opened up and some of the rod caps not installed back onto the correct rods? I would love to know some more history for this car from before Brad owned it!
-Jared
Thank you. I’m glad the write up has proven to be handy. I had originally hosted this document on my own personal web site and was not aware of this site until I was looking for other 2zz related details and stumbled across it. Just as a reference for anyone who finds this document instead of the other; I totally glossed over the disconnection of the coolant lines. I imagine it would be fairly obvious to someone performing the work, but just in case, they get disconnected after the coolant has been drained from the car.
Hi Jared, I apologize for missing your post. I don’t recall it being there when I posted my response to Tony several months back.
I dropped the motor for this tutorial because I needed to weld some coolant ports for the 2zz swap. Truth be told, this engine may as well been installed with a zipper because I removed it so often for various repairs/modifications after the swap. I had rolled the car during a Fall Dragon Run and the 1zz started using oil afterwards so on a whim, we decided to swap the drivetrain while I was visiting Little Rocket. This was David’s first 2zz swap and we didn’t know to weld the ports at the time. We used rubber coolant caps as I recall and they failed which was allowing coolant leak hassles. Sadly, those aren’t stick welds on that header. I just had no idea what I was doing back then.
If you’re curious about finding more of the car’s history, my username on SpyderChat.com is dmc-4359. I owned it from 2001 until I sold it to Brad in 2005. If you still have the car, and are ever interested in selling it, please hit me up on SpyderWeb or on SpyderChat.