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Removing L60 engine on Chieftain?


sexton

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Hi, don’t see much Chieftain activity on here, but I’m short of options. We have to pull the main engine to replace the electric starter. At least, I think we do. It looks pretty damned inaccessible to replace it in situ. And it turns out the engine is well designed for easy removal. 
Question is, where should the turret be located to allow engine removal. None of the many manuals we have cover this for some reason. And we have restricted  turret rotation due to tank location. 

Malcolm

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Dear Malcolm,

The necessary direction direction to rotate the turret would be pretty obvious I would have thought.  You just need the clearance to lift all the decks and NBC equipment out of the way.  I would guess, this means gun left at 90 degrees.

Having to lift the pack for relatively minor maintenance is not unusual.

I am sure that the advice from everybody will be to have the manual (EMER or AESP) that covers lifting the pack.  There may also be a SEME Bordon precis on this.  There will be numerous special points that you need to be aware of.  For instance, on the cooling:  On refit, you need to bleed the quick release connectors by depressing the bit inside the connector. Don't put neat antifreeze in the coolant header tank thinking it will mix eventually.  I will not but it will go to gel.  The engine will not reach working temperature without driving it.  These are just a few points that I can remember!

 

John

 

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Thanks for replies, guys. 
I’m not going into this cold! 😎 I have all kinds of info, job guides, and procedures on pack removal and installation. It was the turret position I was wondering about. Couldn’t find any reference to it. 
As John said, I found gun left, bit closer to rear than 90 degrees might be ok. But it’ll be a tight squeeze. 
Another two questions:

(a) do I need to drain oil tank? The instructions don’t say to do this, but the return pipe from the scavenge pump goes into the tank well below the oil level, so draining would be necessary to remove hose. Or does it go above oil level inside the tank?
 I see the Pressure pump supply comes from the top of the tank so removing its hose just drains the small amount in the standpipe. 

(b) where are alignment shims? Under engine or transmission? 
 

Thanks, Malcolm
 

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If you have not pulled the engine yet consider setting up a camera to do time lapse of the process.  I did this years ago as a time and motion study of pulling and installing the engine out of CMPs here is one that I posted to Youtube 

At that time I had the process from start to engine on test stand down to 2 hours working alone.  The time lapse help me spot how to do it best.  Also helped with not missing steps either pulling the engine or in putting it back together.

Found that game cameras are good for taking this type of time lapse you can set them to take either one or multiple photos every time they see motion, or to take short videos each time they see motion.  The motion sensing is useful as you don't have to edit out the dead periods where there is no activity

 

Cheers Phil

 

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10 hours ago, paulob1 said:

ah we have all the lifting gear and a 434 as well so we are never without the means...where are you...

Sitting waiting for an engine stand to be fabricated by our in-house welder. We have a couple of spare engines so he’s copying the stands they are on. Looks pretty straight forward. 
Crane-wise, we have a nice donated truck-mounted boom crane but the operator  is a working guy and can’t make it down here at the drop of a hat.

We have a few Chieftain parts but I don’t think we have the nice lifting rig with the 4 turnbuckles. We may use 4 1-ton chain-falls instead so we can keep the engine nice and level. 

We’re not in a hurry. It’s a winter project. The weather here pretty well shuts us down, so we can’t do the tank days and battle re-enactments we do in the warmer weather. 

We have a 432. Not a large vehicle so I’m impressed the 432 can lift 3 tons! They are nice vehicles. Though a bit inferior to the M113’s we have, IMO.😎

malcolm

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Hi, Phil. Good videos!

I see you are a fan of headlights. I don’t understand why the other old coots here with poor low light vision like me don’t use them!

On the topic of CMP’s, we recently got a really nice welding version. Ford V8 as the main engine, and another Ford V8 in the back powering a big old Lincoln welder! 

We can’t find any documentation on the welding side, especially the unusual multiple governors on the V8 carb. Ever seen any? 

Thanks, Malcolm

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Yes, I volunteer there. Get to work on lots of vehicles! 
Glad you enjoyed the weekend. We squeezed another one in this September with somewhat restricted attendance. It was our best yet, I think. The outside reenactors and pyrotechnics were amazing.

malcolm

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hope this helps if still needed. As for the shims both the engine and gearbox are shimmed, the engine to make sure the twyflex will fit and the gearbox to make sure the quill shafts engage. Do not mix the shim packs up or you will have to start from scratch and shim the gearbox first and then the engine. We used to take the shim packs off as soon as an assembly was out and put them back on their own mounts with a couple of bolts through them to stop any mix up.

 

396FBD28-BE71-4E18-96F6-02D1A4024E38.jpeg

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  • 1 year later...
On 10/10/2021 at 6:43 AM, Bob Grundy said:

In the early 1990's three of us, not REME trained, had the L60 out in 50 minutes. 

I bet you never had 100 Ltrs of water , muck and oil and crap come out at you when you took the belly plates of to do the fly wheel bolts.

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