dropping the VW engine

I'm naming this, dropping the VW engine, cuz that was the search phrase I used to find some info about pulling this engine out. I learned, that most people refer to it as "dropping the engine" on a VW, cuz that's actually what happens. You lift the bug, you undo a few nuts and bolts, pull a little and the engine drops outta the back. You wanna be a little careful not to bend the drive shaft that comes out of the transmission, cuz you need that later. And it would be quite difficult to replace that later. 

Oh wait, I should say this: I'm not much of a mechanic. I have a good deal of carpentry experience, as I rebuilt my kitchen (after tearing it all out) from scratch once. So I can do stuff. But most of what I do is write songs, record, run a business that (when I'm going good) uses some of that creative energy. So a gearhead, I am not. My mechanical skills (using that term sarcastically) come from keeping an 82 dodge 15 passenger van on the road while I was on tour with a band. And I really felt like that was a crappy experience. But I'm turning on a new attitude about cars. I never did much 'maintenance' on that old van. never took in interest in things like 'changing the oil', 'inflating the tires', crap like that. But no more! Before I get the electrical stuff in there, this bug is gonna be "cherry"! I dunno what that means, but heard someone use it in a context that seemed to indicate that this was not only good, but also meant tht the car was in a very clean condition.

Back to the grease: So I dropped the engine. I didn't plan it as well as I wanted to. Without getting into too many details, suffice to say that with the car up on jack stands and jacked up a little further with the floor jack, I quickly (or slowly) realized that in order to finish this process without braking that drive shaft I mentioned earlier, I was gonna need another floor jack. Crap, another floor jack. That's about $40 i don't wanna spend. Or break the drive shaft? $40 more? Break the drive shaft? Okay, okay, I'll drive up the street and get another one.

Whew, that did it. The floor jack went up and held the car a bit higher (pushing up under the tranny bell), while the engine was sitting on the first floor jack (are you getting what mistake I made now?) I pulled on it a bit to get it off of the bolts and drive shaft. 

[Insert brief scene where I ran next door to get my neightbor to help me pull the engine away from the tranny and help me drop it. We did that, only to realize that it wasn't gonna move without taking off  the exhaust system. Okay, many of you will say, DUH, I figured you already did that. Well, I'm a songwriter, following instructions I got off of google searches...what did you expect? So I pulled off the exhaust while my neighbor went home for a while. Now back to the scene, taking place after I had removed the exhaust system.]

Okay, by myself now (neighbor had to leave to deal with screaming children), and wrestled the engine away from the bolts and drive shaft enough to get all of the weight on the floor jack and start slowly 'dropping it down.' Success! Yes! I felt like a wrestler after beating Hulk Hogan or something, cuz those aren't such real fights, and I knew I was gonna win eventually. All those directions from the google searches couldn't be wrong, could they?

Anyhow, here's a pic of the tranny without the engine. I did feel a great sense of accomplishment.