Today I got around to re-installing the Nogaro’s engine.  This was a longer pain in the ass than usual on account of the bone headed decisions made by some of the prior owners of this S4 and the donor car that I obtained the exhaust from.

I’ve never needed to install the engine with a stock set of downpipes so the extra long driver side pipe was a new challenge.  I imagine that on an unmodified exhaust the flex joint may give enough to allow the engine to be hoisted with the tip of the downpipe touching the ground, but still bending enough to not put too much strain on the downpipes or turbo’s.  In my case the genius who owned the exhaust before had it welded so that that it’s a single ridged piece.

To get the engine into the car I stuck a floor jack under the transmission and lifted it along with the engine.  Then once the engine was going into place I began to lower with the hoist and floor jack simultaneously.

Eventually it was time to connect the axles.  I then realized that one of the prior owners had gone with a rubber gasket on the driver side axle.  Lacking the adhesive that the cork style gasket uses this rubber gasket was now out of place, and encased in grease.  That thing staying in place during the effort to reinstall the axle was unlikely.  Fortunately I had a cork gasket on hand so I cleaned the grease off the axle and stuck the cork gasket into place.

When I got over to the passenger side I discovered that one of these prior owners had completely skipped putting the gasket on the axle.  Some people should not be allowed to do work on S4’s.  I pulled another cork gasket from the parts box and stuck it on the passenger side axle.

After some more maneuvering the engine was in place.  Getting this far had taken much longer than I had anticipated, so I stopped once the engine was on the mounts.