Yesterday I finished up the hg job on my truck. Took the better part of 4 days over 2 weekends. This job was a 'learning experience' one as I had an hg exhaust leak that sounded like a steam train, not to mention the whole leak part. Didn't have the time or money to do a refurbishment that I'd like to do, but got a good hg job done. The truck is my DD and she brought me into work today- nice and quiet, smooth ride, temps good, power seems down a bit but is much smoother. The job isn't really so much difficult as simply a whole lot of steps to take, in sequence. Lined all of the parts up in the order they came out, labeled the bolts and put them in Ziploc bags next to the parts. Cleaned things up once down to the heads. Cleaned parts and either PB blasted or anti seized bolts before installing. Had a few times where I missed a step and had to take stuff back off and get it done right. Only real hassles were a broken head bolt that came out with an extractor, and an exhaust manifold gasket that just wouldn't go on, but eventually did. The first couple of cranks sounded awful, then she turned over with a little tapping, groaning and screeching. Had a coolant line leak and had to replace worm clamp. Other than that, and blowing out some smoke for a few minutes, she was good. Used the Rave, Pauls P38 write up and some posts from the board here and got it done. Pretty awesome for a guy with little wrenching experience. Thanks to all who've contributed. Feels great to have that done.

 

congrats man on a job done. It fells good when your sitting high again especially for me being 6'2" and my other car is a Ford Focus!!!!

 

Great feeling, good job. Reset the clock now.

 

Did you loose any parts? I bagged and labeled every single part like you did. Even bagged and labeled the screw that fastened the dip stick to the valve cover and took special care of it. Sure enough, that's the one piece I lost lol.

 

ain't that the way things go sometimes. Only lost part was an exhaust manifold bolt spacer. And I can't tell you how many times I dropped something down between the radiators and had to fish them out!

 

thanks for your help with it. Yikes, the focus is a good car, but the disco has tons more space.

 

Yeah, was feeling great for a while. After some time it occurred to me that all the other issues still need to be fixed! But that was a big one.

 

Oh dude, I lost a good 30 minutes trying to fish a screwdriver from between the rads without destroying them... the rover life is a struggle lol.

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