Engine out!

The engine hoist has arrived, so let's get our hands dirty!

First step was to suspend the engine with some straps (some chains would have been better) and disconnect it from both the transmission and engine mounts.

After disconnecting the engine mounts and do some wiggling around, the engine was finally free from the transmission and I could start lifting it up.

The engine is not that heavy and I could almost lift it a little bit by hand -- I only tried it once it was safely on the ground! :)

After disconnecting the coil and some more coolant pipes, I ended up with a nice, clear engine bay:

Next step is to remove the fluid from the transmission and take that out too, so it's easier to measure and test fit the adapter plate -- which is not done yet.

I also thinking about how I can secure the new electric motor. I see some examples on the web with the engine fixed just by the adapter plate. However, I don't like the idea of having all that weight on the transmission, especially since this is an offroader that will get some bouncing around. I also prefer to secure the controller just above the engine, to have a neat, compact solution with minimum HV cable lengths.
As such, I'm planning to fabricate some sort of engine craddle and secure it in the same points as the engine mounts.

All this work will take some time because I don't have previous experience. But it's not rocket science and I can probably have some support from a company located right next to my office. Let's see...