I finished taking the passenger side head tonight. Weird. Yesterday I had a hard time finding the right extension and swivel combination to get to the lower back bolt. I felt I'd had enough and took a break. Tonight I started with a short impact socket, a 4" extension, a breaker bar and a 2 feet tube. it worked well and used that combination for all 10 bolts.

Toughest part 'til now was to get the nuts off the pass.side manifold to exhaust flange (I 'm also changing the manifold cause it's cracked).

 

The little thing in the pass valve cover is called the oil seperator. It is a little plastic piece that looks like a string of black pearls. Droplets of oil collect on it and drip back into engine, fumes go into the intake. There is one is pass side none in dr side.

I wonder if tightening any bolts much earlier could have stopped that front coolant leak? Yours does look better than any I have seen so far.

In the rear portion, was coolant getting into the combustion cylinder and being steamed off?

 

Ahhh, brings back such wonderful memories!

When you take your heads in take the valve covers and anything else you want cleaned too. They hot-tanked everything for me at no extra charge. Have fun!!

 

Thanks everyone for your support and info.

I still wonder why that this oil separator is only on one side.

As to the leaks, there was a bit dripping out at block ends, and i figured the rest got burned.

Looking at how narrow the sealing surface is at the back where the coolant flows, i guess
The situation can become pretty critical very fast...

Now off to bring the heads in the shop on my way to work.

Cheers

 

The oil separator is on the "return" side. Filtered air from the throttle body passes into the driver side valve cover, circulates under the valley pan gasket, and out the separator on the passenger side (NAS). From there it is slurpped into the intake plenum and burned along with the fuel. Under certain conditions it can flow backwards and is sucked into the throttle body and intake and burned.

 

Thanks. Your explanation helped me find it in RAVE (p187 workshop manual) with a nice illustration.

Things will get moving again today. Just got my heads back . One needed a .007in correction as it had a twist in it (two opposite corners up).

 

How much did you pay for head work by machine shop?

 

Paid 257$ (before taxes).

39 for cleaning
68 for the valves
68 for the valve seats
82 for the resurfacing.

The tech told me to make sure all bolt holes are clean so that no oil or coolant gets pushed up to contaminate the gasket surface. It was good advice.

2 of them had lots of oil and 2 other lots of coolant. Was well worth cleaning them all. I also used a clean bolt to chase the threads. I've spent a couple of hours making sure the mating surfaces as well as the bolt holes were perfectly clean, finishing with denatured alcohol.

I' getting the gaskets and heads on after coffee break!

 

You'll be done just in time for warm weather. Be sure to check over the cooling system, if it was marginal before (like partly clogged radiator) it could have been ready to overheat. Don't want old gremlins to work on new HGs.

 

It ain't over yet. Heads went on well torquing was straightforward. Had some trouble fitting the intake while keeping the valley pan gasket in place. Also had a hard time getting and keeping the seal clamps in place. The last bolt I'm putting on the driver side exhaust manifold won't go in it's the second from the front on the top row. It always wants to get cross-threaded. I'll have to take all others off again and redo those threads, but they don't seem standard. I wanted to clean the threads of the bolt and couldn't find a die that would fit it. I'm thinking of tapering the end of a bolt to try to get it in straight. Anyone knows how to deal with that? Any hint would be appreciated.