DIY: Raising the B5 drivetrain

[garytightpants]

Are you sick of panning yourself in the most inconvenient places?

Do you want to prevent your tranny pan from looking like this?




It seems like more and more people are asking how to raise the engine and transmission. It is a fairly simple process. I am nowhere near being the first to do this, just thought I'd document the process for others.

This write-up is on a 1.8t Tiptronic car, but it applies to manual cars and v6 cars also.

TOOLS:
Ratchet or air gun
Various sizes of extensions.
13mm socket
13mm wrench
15mm socket
15mm wrench
16mm wrench
17mm socket (optional)
Jack+jackstands or a lift
Engine hoist.
Pry bar

Materials:
About 10-20 x 5/16" fender washers
About 10-20 x 3/8" fender washers
2 x m10x1.5x100mm bolts
2 x m10x1.5 nuts
(Optional) new engine mounts

Procedure:

STEP 1: Lift the vehicle.

Obviously your vehicle is dirt-nasty low if you are looking to gain more ground clearance on your tiptronic or just move the oil pan up away from the ground. Figure out how to safely lift your slammed machine up how enough to work comfortably underneath it.
I used a lift, which required some creativity to get my car on the lift arms at 22.5" FTG.

STEP 2: Remove top engine mount nuts.

Pretty self explanatory. Lift up the heatshield over the engine mount(s) if applicable.

Using the 13mm socket, remove the upper nut on top of each engine mount.
Passenger side...

Driver side...


STEP 3: Remove the snub mount.

Now that you have removed the nuts on the top of the engine mount, lift up the vehicle. Using a 13mm wrench, remove the 3 bolts that hold the snub mount bracket to the engine. You won't be able to pull it out yet, but it will basically just fall out once you lift the engine up.
You must also perform this step before lifting the engine for obvious reasons.

STEP 4: remove the lower nuts on the engine mount.

STEP 5: Remove the transmission mount hardware.

In stock configuration, the bolt passes thru the mount from the top. Place a 16mm wrench on the top of the bolt to hold it from spinning and use a 15mm socket to remove the nut. Then just push the bolt up and out from the bottom.

STEP 7: Lift the engine.

There are multiple ways to do this. What I did was hook up the engine hoist the the stock lifting points and lift the engine up as high as I needed. You need to lift the engine high enough to remove the engine mounts. I needed a pry bar for this, as my engine mounts were kinda stuck in place on the aluminum pedestal they sit on. This is the part where the snub mount bracket just falls right out.

STEP 8: Install the washers.

Stack up some 5/16" washers and measure them until you have the distance you want to raise the engine. Mine was a hair over 5/8". This is the most you can fit on the top of the mount. You can also add washers under the mount for even more height of you choose. The use of fender washers means that you will have to trim a little of the rubber on the mount. Specifically these two protrusions


Just trim them flush with the stock washer that is there. If you choose to stack washers underneath the mount, there is a small alignment nub that will have to be ground off.
Once you have done all that, re-install the mounts with the washers. I chose to install my OEM rs4 mounts while I was in there.
Passenger side...


Driver side...


STEP 9: Raise transmission.

Now safely lift up on the back of transmission until you have enough room to install your desired amount of 3/8" washers. I again went with 1/2" worth of washers because it started to pinch my shift cable between the trans and the body.
Here's how not to safely lift up the trans


Now slide the washers in between the bracket and the mount.

Install your new m10x1.5 bolt in from the bottom up, so that the head of the bolt is up inside the washer and safe from being scraped off on the pavement. (My new hardware used larger 17mm hex heads


Passenger side...


Driver side...


STEP 10: Make sure that everything is tight and that there are no clearance issues with anything. Now take a step back and admire your work. You have now potentially saved yourself the headache of replacing a oil pans or transmission pan.


One last thing, while your under there is to remove the drivetrain stabilizer bar if it's still there. It will eventually get ripped off if it already hasn't.
















Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Nollywood]

Good write-up.

Just keep an eye out for engine-to-hood clearance.

[Eddie_b5]

You are the greatest doing this ASAP!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[walky_talky20]

Or 5MT swap and Evo Thor skid plate. Just teasing ;)

Nice writeup. I would just add that it would be ideal to use a single thick spacer instead of stack of many washers. With so many imperfect surfaces stacked, it increases the chances for the fastener to come loose at some point. Mcmaster.com has aluminum or steel spacers in a variety of thicknesses from 2 to 50mm.

And that Laser Red, tho!

[nynoah]

Word of caution. This may not work out well with a manual car due to the shift linkage.

[garytightpants]

Word of caution. This may not work out well with a manual car due to the shift linkage.

That lazer red B5 has this done to it and is manual, along with my last manual B5.

[garytightpants]

Or 5MT swap and Evo Thor skid plate. Just teasing ;)

Nice writeup. I would just add that it would be ideal to use a single thick spacer instead of stack of many washers. With so many imperfect surfaces stacked, it increases the chances for the fastener to come loose at some point. Mcmaster.com has aluminum or steel spacers in a variety of thicknesses from 2 to 50mm.

And that Laser Red, tho!

That lazer red car smashed the pan through the Dieselgeek plate.

This was his drive height though. All the skid plate is good for is to scrape on everything from hanging too low.


And don't worry, if a deal hadn't fallen through, my car would be manual already. I'm just looking for the right parts car again.