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04 Aveo Hatchback getting new engine!
hello everyone. I just joined this forum today and decided to document my engine replacement. I recently traded an 04 Aveo for a minivan. The Aveo had a broken timing belt and I was told the engine needs replaced. The car is in pretty nice shape, other than the engine. It has 91k miles and no rust so I think it will be worth fixing. I want to document as I progress through this project much like this post: http://www.aveoforum.com/forum/f103/...epaired-10191/
I would love to shake this guy's hand because this post convinced me to attempt this project. I really appreciated all of the information he provided. I am NOT a mechanic so this is going to be a bit of a challenge for me. I am a computer programmer/systems analyst by day, and a "fix whatever the kids broke" dad by night. So please be kind with your comments as my lack of professional mechanical ability will be obvious. But my skills as a computer programmer usually allow me to figure just about anything out.
So here are a few pics of the car... I will post more as I progress and I look forward to getting to know some of you guys on here and hopefully will get some helpful tips. Thanks!! JP
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Started disassembly; battery, radiator, air box, valve cover...
OK, so I started disassembling some of the engine components. The 1st thing I did was remove the battery. I also removed the battery tray to give me more room to work. There are 4 bolts that hold the battery tray in and they were pretty easy to get out. The nice thing about this car is that it is only 7 yrs. old so the bolts seem to be coming out pretty easily. What I hate most about working on cars is rusted bolts!
Next, I removed the airbox and hose from the throttle body. The hose has a tear in it so I'll have to replace that. I removed the valve cover unplugged all of the spark plug wires. I took some pics of the plug wires to make sure I hook them back up correctly. I started disconnecting the wiring harness. I have learned to go slow and be patient when disconnecting wire plugs because they all seem to have different type connectors and they break easily. So far so good, none of them broke. I also labeled them with some masking tape to make it easier to hook them back up. Most of the connectors only fit in 1 place, but it can still be confusing when you have 15 disconnected wire plugs so marking them will just help it go a little smoother for me. I have only ever pulled 1 other engine and that was from an 87 Ford Tarurus 4 cylinder about 18 yrs. ago. I'm just going to take my time and try to make this go as smooth as possible.
I also drained and removed the radiator. The drain is on the bottom left. TIP: I figured out that if you just slightly open the radiator cap it will drain out slowly and not make a mess! I found couldn't get the radiator out, so after about 10 minutes of fiddling I removed the left fan shroud. After doing that, I was able to wiggle it out. I'm going to attach some of the pics I took for my reference so maybe they will be helpful to someone else as well. JP