Milano Motor Swap ??'s

[Jason Ball <madmac@xxxxxxxx>]

I recently acquired an 87 Milano Silver that has 174,000 miles on her
ticker.   I bought the car as a project car and as I got into my project
I found the problems more extensive (and expensive) than anticipated.
(I always end up buying cars with my balls not my brains)  Now it looks
I bought a hobby not transportation.

The big problem is that the motor blows a bit of smoke.  It has good
compression (185-195) so the local Alfa mechanic believes that it is the
valve guides.   My intention was to pull the heads do most of the work
myself but............. after doing further research I believe that  it
would be a major pain and probably beyond my ability.  (I swapped heads
on my 2002 in high school but the alfa V-6 is a different beast).

The Local Alfa Shop will replace the valve seals for about $1000 or "Do
it right" by rebuilding the heads, replacing the water pump and all
relevant seals for $1500.   They said I could expect the motor to last
as much as another 50k with rebuilt heads.

I am definitely hesitant to drop this kind of $$$ into such a high
mileage car.   The project has been paralyzed for a while, because I
didn't want to drop that kind of money into a car with other problems.
It didn't make any sense working on the other problems if I was going to
get rid of the project.

Now, I have the opportunity to buy a wrecked Milano with a good power
train.  An engine swap seems a more straight forward procedure and it
would give me a motor will far less miles on it.   I have a two car
garage, a nice floor jack, jack stands, a workshop manual and an air
ratchet at my disposal.

So here are my questions:

1) Can anyone tell me approximately how long it takes to swap motors. (
Pulling 1 motor and replacing it with another.)

2) Do I need special stand to put the motor down on or can one be easily
rigged.  (I am concerned about damaging the aluminum oil pan when
setting it down)

3) Is it much easier to swap steering racks with the motor out?

4) Will I need special tools to drop the transaxle from the donor car?

5) Can the entire rear end be dropped as unit?  (Transaxle, brakes, half
shafts and De Dion tube )


Any advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated!


Jason Ball- madmac @domain.elided
87 Milano Silver
85 Subaru 4wd Wagon (An SUV that doesn't SUCK)
91 Novara Arriba  (21 speed and zero emissions)

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