So after deciding that the cradle would have to go in separately from the engine/transmission, Bob and I set to that task on Sunday. We began by getting the struts into the strut towers and indexing the studs to the strut tower holes (the three studs are offset in such a way that they can only be installed in a specific orientation). Then we got the lock nuts secured onto the studs to hold the struts in.
With the struts bolted back into the car, the cradle was fully supported. We reinstalled the brake calipers, then centered the rear cradle bolt holes to the frame and bolted them in place. Then we reattached the steering rack and secured the boot over it. Then I installed the front bolts, and we put the wheels back on. I positioned the jack under the rear of the cradle to lift it and get the supporting jack stands out from under the car so it could rest on its own four wheels for the first time in two years. I cranked the jack up to the cradle’s height and started trying to lift the car.
Nothing. Every pump would lift the car and then lower it back down when I released it. The jack had failed.
We tried bleeding the jack, topping off its hydraulic fluid, bleeding it again, but nothing worked. This left only the hoist to lift the car.
While the hoist was certainly capable of lifting it, the place I usually used to do it was the strut towers using a high-strength bolt and nut with large washers to spread the load from the chain. Since the struts were now bolted back into the strut towers, that was out. So we both stared at the cradle for a while, looking for a way to attach two ends of a chain to a car without an engine to lift it with a big hook. We decided it was time to break for lunch.
We came back to it after lunch and after staring at it some more found two holes in the cradle that would work for attaching the chain. We did it and lifted the car off the jackstands, and finally set the car down on its feet. Then I noticed that the steering rack had come uncoupled from the column.
Which meant the car had to go back up again. And get supported on jackstands again. And the wheels had to come back off and the cradle had to come unbolted. Again.
After fighting with the steering rack for a good hour from inside an empty engine bay, I finally got the rack reattached properly on both ends so that it wouldn’t come out again. It had detached itself while I was working on the front end of the cradle with it unbolted. After all that work I was firmly convinced there would have been no way to do that with the engine in place.
So we re-did all that we’d done before and got the car back down on the ground. And called it a day.