Hello to all.
I am new to the community and have an extremely difficult problem. I'm hoping there is an easy answer (besides "junk it").
My daughter owns a 2002 Sebring, and was involved in an accident. It will cost more to fix cosmetically than to just buy the same style car with blown engine (which I have found). I had looked at the labor involved, and I see no way to remove the engine from the top. Is there any seasoned mechanic types that can tell me the best way to perform this daunting task without removing the whole sub-frame from the bottom? I have done swaps before, but the more current the vehicle, the more difficult these jobs appear to be. Thanks in advance!

Jibba

 

this was told to me...I wonder if the swap is even worth it now..."I work at Chrysler as a service tech. You can never fix a 2.7. They are flawed by internal engineering.
Mainly, oil return passages too small and need to be enlarged,timing chain puts too much vibration on the water pump making it fail,head gaskets blow easily from the shape of coolant passages on the block,heat from the engine cooks the oil and destroys the oil pump,crank and rod journals are in bad locations. Dude , I can go on and on. These engine come to us from 40thousand mile on up, even after rebuilt, failures! We would even instal new chrysler long blocks, later on failure the next year. This engine about put our small dealership out of business,and we lost GOOD MEN, GREAT MECHANICS TO THIS 2.7,so we stopped working on them." :/

 

I don't know about that. I've had two of them, both went over 100,000 miles. First one, bought new, went about 130,000 and then the car was stolen/totaled.
I still have the second one, about 105,000 miles.

Changed oil pan gaskets and coolant outlet manifolds on both. Spark plugs, regular maintenance. No serious issues.