I am about to pull the heads (which I figure is going to be a real pain in the a$$) and so far this job has not been the total nightmare I expected. I was pretty surprised to find that some of the manifold bolts were just a hair more than finger tight. I was also slightly surprised how much build up there was on the rockers and valve covers ( bolts on valve cover also hair more than finger tight). I could not find a 8mm 12pt deep socket so I used a 5/16 12pt for the valve covers and it worked fine. The exhaust manifolds are unbolted and I am going to attempt to work around them when pulling the heads but I will see in the morning. I will update this post with more pictures along the way if there is any interest.

 

Wow, I am amazed on how dark the valves and tops of the heads are. What type of lubricants have you been using? Synthetic or conventional? How often was the oil changed? You may want to drop the oil pan and make sure that things are clean down there, ie no sludge buildup or clogged pickup. Phil

 

Yeah it is pretty bad. I have the pan gasket ready to go and planning on tackling that while the heads are getting looked over. I have had the truck for a little over a year and have changed the fluids at every 3k ( conventional). I bought it from a single lady so I just assume that she, well you know. If you think the heads are bad you should see the inside of the valve covers!

 

just got mine off the other day. A 1/2 impact wrench at 120 psi wouldn't break the head bolts loose (although it wasn't a super quality air wrench), I needed to use a long breaker bar. Make sure you have a impact quality "wobbler" or angle joint to get at the rear 2 lower bolts, they are the toughest (I snapped a regular angle ratchet one.) Also, it's not in the manual (or I missed it), but there is a 3/4 inch long bolt at the far rear of the left head (by the firewall) that holds a wire connector. The head won't come out (or move much) without removing this bolt and clearance to get to it is slim. I left the exhaust manifolds unbolted in place and was ok. I needed to remove the 2 per side air injector couplings from the heads because they each block the top part of a head bolt. They are slow to unscrew because you have to use a regular flat wrench behind the threads. Good Luck!

 

Thanks for the tips on the breaker bar and impact joint, looks like I will be hitting Sears again in the morning. You mentioned the air injector couplings, your truck must be equipped with secondary air injection? I saw a section for that in the RAVE but since I do not have SAI I figured I would no have to mess with the plugs. Were your heads pretty nasty? If you have started reassembly how is that going? Any problems/snags?

 

I pulled my heads last weekend, plus worked with a friend to do his in January.

The bolt at the rear of the LH head holding the wiring harness was very difficult on my friend's truck but not too bad on mine. That said, I don't know why it was engineered to be so long since it is just holding down the wiring harness clamp.

That bolt is mentioned in RAVE, but in addition there is a bracket bolted to the LH head below the bolt mentioned above that holds a plug and connector for the crankshaft position sensor (I believe). My friend was able to unplug the plug and then slip the connector out of the bracket (it is open-ended), but I ended up unbolting the bracket. Not difficult, but a surprise because this one is not in the RAVE.

As for the head bolts I strongly recommend using an impact socket for all but the LH, lower rear bolt (which, as others have said, needs a swivel socket). I suppose there is no reason you can't use the swivel socket on all the bolts other than the cheater bar setup you'll likely need will be more stable to handle without the wobble of the swivel socket. A 5'8" socket works just as well as a 16mm, maybe better (it's slightly smaller than 16mm).

An impact socket holds the bolt head better because it holds on the flats rather than the corners. Plus with the amount of leverage needed to break loose some of the bolts the stress on the socket is pretty high. We learned that lesson the hard way on the friend's truck (broke 2 Craftsman chrome sockets). With a 3 ft pipe slipped over the end of a 1/2" Craftsman ratchet the head bolts came loose on mine with no trouble, although it sounded kind of scary when some of them broke loose.

 

yes, mln01 is right. I did use an impact socket (5/8) even with the ratchet setup. The bolts make a squealing noise that sounds like you are twisting the bolt head off when you remove them!The bolt that got me was the one mentioned above for the crankshaft postion sensor connector, if you can slip it out of the bracket that's the way to go, for some reason on mine it was really tough to get a wrench on it. My heads actually looked pretty clean, my vehicle has 65K and I usually run only mid grade gas. Picking the heads up today from the shop (only 1 shop within 100 miles and I got hosed on the cost!) and will start putting it back tomorrow, so any reassembly tips from those who have been there appreciated!

Not to hijack your thread, but i figured out in the head kit from AB the blue spring cups are for the head valves, what are the big flat o-rings and the flat black o-rings for?
I think the set small round o-rings are for the injectors, anyone know if any reason to replace these while the engine is open?

 

You got me on the gasket kit. I have no idea what some of them are for. Finished pulling the heads today and your tips made it a very smooth job. I included a pic of the failed gasket.

 

Every shot of the valves on a DII that I have seen pretty much looks the same, dark varnish. Mind you varnish is mostly cosmetic and is really not as bad as it looks. Also aluminum is porous and also looks worse than it is. Now if you have sludge that is another thing all together but dark varnish like that is not necessarily the end of the world.

The OP should think about using a good synthetic HDEO like Rotella 5w40 or M1 TDT 5w40.

 

Clean all the oil holes in the rockers. Some of mine were clogged.

Willie