Howdy - been doing some work on my 7.3 engine, and couldn't help but notice there is a massive bias on the engine location within the engine bay. One side has like 4 inches of room and the passenger side is touching. Image attached. I'm trying to get the engine moved over - and other posts I've seen say to remove engine mounts to do this, which will drop the engine a couple inches .... but the oil pain is only a quarter inch away from hitting the engine cross member. Not sure how in the world this could possibly help to make room. I tried removing the engine mount nuts and jacking the engine up - but the bolts in the engine mounts keep it from moving side-to-side. Only way to take out the engine mounts is to jack up a 1200lbs engine/tranny with some sticks precariously balanced on hard points on the engine block (not lifting this engine by the oil pan) and jack up by 4"

anybody done something like this before and have some tricks or other options? A previous owner literally cut a hole in the engine bay by the evaporator to access the injectors.... Don't wanna go that route.

 

You may or may not like this answer, but I'd do what Ford does and lift the body off the frame.

 

I see this as being the recommended procedure, but it seems slightly useless to 99% of people. I don't have a crane, and there is only one shop in my city that does. I'd assume only people who consistently work on heavy machinery would have this equipment.
My hope was for a trick that bypasses the crane requirement, so I can move my engine one inch towards the driver side.

 

Lately I have been thinking of replacing the broken exhaust manifold studs on my 4.6. There's no room for the stud drilling jig because the body is in the way. What I was wondering is if one could do kind of a temporary body lift. It would be time consuming but if you jacked it with some type of screw jack an inch at a time and when done it would be bolted to the frame with wood spacers. I'm thinking 6" or maybe 8".

 

Mike, are you servicing or replacing your injectors? I havent replaced any in the 7.3 vans but i have replaced glow plugs and resealed the plenums. This same work on the trucks is so much easier, sometimes i wonder why i had to have a 7.3 van. Its tight in there. From what i understand you remove the solenoid from one or more injectors on the passenger side. When i resealed my plenums i removed the turbo first. This got me closer to the "work".

 

Lifting the body can be done without a vehicle lift it just takes a flat surface, a bunch of jacking and cribs or stands. I know it's a bit of work but I really don't see a way around it with these vans... there is just no room in there. I looked at replacing some broken exhaust studs on my last van but there just wasn't any access so I gave up on the idea. I did manage to fit a turnbuckle to the back of the motor that all but eliminated the exhast leak.

 

Woah, that's a great point! It might be time intensive, but considering the alternative it's really not that bad. I mean everyone else who has an overhead hoist/crane in their shop seems to say it's not that big of a deal to unplug some wiring harness goodies and a couple bolts to the frame.

6" would be more than enough for what I'm doing. Sure it wouldn't help to replace the heads for a head gasket job, but it would be enough to make the injector replacement something less than a nightmare.

I'm replacing my injectors. I know about the trick on this side of taking the solenoid screws out - but when you can't even fit a tp15 bit in there, much less unscrew the thing it's a whole other problem entirely. I've done some plenum work, and it was easy by comparison because you can pop the turbo out and have free reign to all the stuff in there.
It's annoying because there is sooo much space on the driver's side that if only I could move the engine over an inch or two it would be comparatively easy. But I see now way to do that, and nobody else has either.
Based on the replies it seems like pretty much I'm SOL. by the time I jack up the body 6" I could have replaced the injectors the PITA way of squirming my body and arms into a pretzel while shedding engine bay liner chunks into my engine. Thank you all for your replies! Happy wrenching to you all!

 

Don't lift body or motor for injectors.

​​​​​​As for loosening the solenoid,use combination of bit with Hex in other end and reqular wrench.

 

Body lift is common for the 6.0 diesel vans. Its unnecessary for the 7.3

 

I don't know about the super duty vans, but my (non superduty) 98 body is pretty flexible. I would think you could remove most of the body bolts and then jack up only from the front. Brace appropriately. But removing the engine mounts is probably the key factor here. Take them out of the picture. This will allow you some lateral engine movement.

 

When I replaced my Injectors over 10 years ago I used a Bottle jack against he block with a piece of 2x4 to lift the engine off the mounts enough to remove the injectors on passenger side....I also removed the down pipe , removed the 2 Tranny mounting bolts on the mount , And Starter . I did not want to remove the Injector solenoid for fear of loosing one of those screws in the rocker valley of death....I think I also removed the filterbowl assembly just for kicks...I did it in my driveway....went back together nice ...started right up...Used a shop-Vac to suck the remaining oil out of cylinders after I bled the oil rails in the heads along with the Fuel rails...I replaced everything I could 0-ring wise along with the UVC's and glow plugs..Truck still runs great today after 100 plus K ...Good Luck