[ERA174]

I went the same route as DanEC and will elaborate further. If your cherry picker is a 1 ton unit, you probably will not be able to position the picker in front of your car to remove/install the engine. If your picker has a long enough boom to go in from the front of the car without overloading it, it’s easier from the front. I wasn’t able to go in from the front with my 1 ton picker without fully extending the boom and then I was on the precipice of it toppling without counter-balancing the picker, not a recipe for success. I retracted the boom to the ½ ton location and positioned the picker on the driver side facing the engine bay. The front of my ERA was on jack stands with the rear wheels chocked front and back, e-brake on and left front wheel removed to allow clearance for the picker. If you go in from the front you may need to raise the front of the car a little to keep the picker from hanging up on obstacles under the car. I didn’t have any issues with the transmission removed and bell housing installed on the engine, I did use a leveling unit between the picker and engine. If you raise the front of the car and secure it with jack stands, be careful where and how you position them, it’s easy to push the vehicle off the jack stands, especially after the weight of the engine is being supported by the picker. Realize that if you do position the picker at the side of the engine bay, you have little or no front to back movement like you do when you go in from the front of the vehicle. When positioning the picker on the side of the vehicle, it must be more or less over the center of mass of the engine with the leveler centered, then use the leveler to drop the back of the engine to gain the clearance needed to then lift the engine with the picker. It takes a little back and forth with the cherry picker and leveler to keep the engine going in the right direction so it doesn’t slam into something you’d rather it didn’t. I did it with the cherry picker facing the engine bay from the side of the vehicle without any help and had no problems, now I’m not saying it’s the best way, it’s just my way, good luck with whatever path you choose.