131mirafiori forum

I cant seem to get at and undo the top two bolts that connect the motor to the bell housing and gearbox. Do you have to take the motor and gearbox out together or am i missing something obvious here...if i could move the motor forward i could undo them but i might as well take it out at the same time???

I use a thin Spanner and patients ;)

It may also be possible to undo the bolts on one or more of the Engine mount/support brackets slide them to one side and lower the engine a touch to gain more access.

Steve

You can don your butchers apron and cut holes in the firewall with a holesaw, plugging them with rubber grommets when you're done.
Or the way I've always done them is disconnect exhaust from engine, remove tailshaft, undo rear gearbox mount and lower gearbox. With a piece of wood on a trolley jack I lift the front of the motor, tilting the engine further back, until the camboxes are against the firewall. Then with socket, unijoint, ratchet and long extension the bolts can be reaches from the rear of the gearbox, over the top of the bellhousing. In the workshop I used to work in, we had a 1 meter extension specifically for the top gearbox bolts and Lancia Beta starter motor bolts. These days I put 3 shorter extensions together.

You need to remove the gearshift ext (4 bolts) and get the socket and selection of 3/8 bars and a cut up to 1/2 inch at the transmission tunnel end and fit 1/2 ratchet, this does work but you may need someone to put socket end on for you while you sit in the car and make sure you use good quality 3/8 socket and ext bars or they will break, once you have loosenened the bolts you can use 3/8 rachet as not a lot of room this method has always worked ? ? ? P.S. ? if you have a 3/8 ext with a bolt end you will be able to go straight on with 1/2 inch rachet and socket and leave out the cut up which is the weakest point.

Oh come on guy's!
Fiat never started cutting away bulkheads or holes into floors etc, just a thin spanner and patients works.
I forgot to add that its better to take these bolts out first leaving all others nicely nipped up.
Steve
PS: also normally cost you a bit of skin here and their ;D

I have never used all 4 bolts in my rally car. I just used 3 of them. 2 lower ones and one upper on the exhaust side(2.0l 8v dohc). It never failed and was much quicker to take the engine out. to undo the bolts use a ratchet with flex joint and couple of extensions- the same is for starter motor

You just need a 3/8 socket 2 x long extension bars and a wobbly joint  and get under neath
and slacken them off or use a thin spanner as mentioned above .

Guys -There is a special fiat tool for removing the bell housng bolts-I used to use it all the time in the garage  :o :o
As Tas 131 said - the workshop way to remove the bell housing bolts is too undo and remove  the gearbox mountings-jack the engine backwards off the crankshaft pulley with a trolley jack and block -and use the special tool -which was just a 1metre long bar with a UJ on the end and 19mm socket-a Sliding T bar about 400mm long and hey presto  ;D ;D
It still was fiddeley -but that was the official procedure  ;D

thanks guys...i will try one or all of the above!!!