You only need 2 of the old bolts to use as guides. Put one in each corner and the head has to fall in place, nowhere else to go.

 

Another question... When replacing gaskets such as valve cover and inner valley gasket, such I use gasket maker goo?

 

You need RTV for the valley gasket, not for the others.

 

I realized that right after I posted, one of those duh.... moments - you're only going to be putting one head on at a time.

The RTV on the valley pan gasket - it's not exactly clearly written in the manual but you can pretty much see where it needs to go and remember where it was when you took the old one off. The valley is just crankcase pressure and there is no pool of oil behind the seal.

 

Ok, so I have the lower intake manifold off. I noticed that the bolts securing the manifold to the heads were really easy to remove, less then 5-10 lbs of torque. Is this normal? I also noticed excessive oil leakage around the front of the engine directly infront of the lower manifold valley. Any ideas how to tell if the oil leak is from a loose lower intake manifold or the front engine cover/front main seal?

 

The torque spec for those bolts is 22 Nm (16 ft lbs), so yeah...they're "loose", but shouldn't be THAT loose.

How to tell if the leak is from the valley pan gasket or the front of the motor? Now? Unless you can see where it was seeping its a little late. But chances are good its the from the valley pan gasket. Was it properly installed to begin with (meaning RTV in the corners)?

 

thanks again guys!!! Need advice from members in the trenches....lol I'm down to the last 2 remaining head bolts! Yup the two in the rear closest to firewall on lower side of heads. The Motherf*#5$@ of all bolts. Any suggestions how to remove them? I've tried 1/2" drive 16mm deep/standard sockets but the breaker bar rubs up against the heat shield next to the firewall.

 

A u-joint is a bit too fiddly, but a wobbler will do the trick.

I didn't have one, and did some "modifications" to the firewall to get the clearance I needed.

Another option is to pull the motor mounts (not nearly as bad as it sounds - 18 MM gear wrench for the top, 18MM socket for the bottom, 4 nuts and done) and jack the motor down a bit. You can pick up a significant amount of clearance that way, and the upside is that if you leave it down until the top end is reassembled, it makes reassembly easier because you can reach the brackets, coils, and all the other junk on the back of the motor easier. If you decide to go that way, you'll need a pretty long travel jack, as you need to pick the front up several inches to clear the motor mount studs (i.e.: don't use a little bottle jack - think more like a floor jack and some cribbing, or a larger bottle jack on a 4x4 under the front of the pan with an appropriate 2x4 or so on the pan itself).

 

Thanks DarylJ, the wobbler did the job. Once I removed the driver's side head I noticed one cylinder (2nd from front of engine R side) was very clean, hardly any carbon build up. Could that be due to head gasket leak?

 

I'm thinking of replacing the seal on the front engine cover/timing chain cover. Since the motor is apart, I want to make sure I have no secret oil leaks later. Question...? Do I have to drop and re-seal the oil pan also?