A good nights work although short

Got all the exhaust manifold bolts out without any drama
Removed the alternator, an annoying job that thing is really in there
Removed the Air condition compressor those bolts make the very scary I am going to break noise for about a turn. I took the approach of a little bit of a turn then went around to each of other bolts. Then tighten around the compressor and an another round of loosening finally they turned freely.


Then I rebuilt my shelter too much water pooling up there

Brackets and fuel rail hopefully lower intake tonight.

No engine pics but my shelter is nicer - I may have a garage addon by the time I am done at this rate

 

Shelter looks great, I love the inginuity.
And, next time I see a good black headrest at the junkyard, I'll grab it. I'de say yours has had it, lol.

 

@Sixpack577 The yellow on the passenger lower is a couple of quick ties holding pouch with printouts of VHF repeaters and some other docs

 

Short night tonight done by 7:30 rather than 8:30:

1. Cleared the all the pulleys
2. Removed the Alt bracket
3. Removed the Compressor bracket
4. Removed the 2 cooling system pipes from the lower intake - they are a mess literally someone went to town with sealant
5. Removed all the fuel injector wiring from the injectors
6. Loosened several of the lower intake bolts man those were easy to turn 3/8's ratchet and no real effort

Realized I will have to remove the damm aluminum secondary air pipe to get the coil packs out easily and the one rubber hose does not want to release

I have the day off tomorrow and hope to have the heads off by the end of the day basically I have

1. Remove the coil packs
2. Clear the wiring harnesses
3. Clear the remaining cooling system hoses on the right side
4. Remove the fuel rail
5. Remove the upper intake so far seem like the easiest thing
6. remove the valve covers
7. remove the rocker arms
8. remove the heads
9. remove SAI pipes from the head
10. Heads to machine shop with luck

Seems doable in 12 hours

Any weirdness in there other than the fuel rail connector

Any recommendations for a valve grinding, seals will be done
Where to find head specs re decking (truing for us old timers) max limits etc


Note the remains of the old wiring loom lots of that to replace

RTV was the last guys friend

Valley gasket has seen better days

 

Fast update heads at the shop at 4:00 8:00 to 4:00 with about 1.5 hours of break/tool runs.
No drama getting bolts off etc, a bit of a twist in an SAI pipe.

The gasket fault -this is a wild *** guess appears to have been the left front. When I loosened then removed that lower bolt water started leaking out of the bolt hole, no other bolt exhibited this issue. Due the the gasket issue noted below it is impossible to tell for certain.

Looks like a spray gasket seal may have been used on the head gaskets - they came off wrecked - pics and full update to follow.

 

Thursdays saga cue nordic music

I took the day off work to get the rest of work done to get the heads off

Remove the coil packs - I have mentioned how much SAI makes everything harder. 1st order of business was cleaning up the wiring and coolant pipes on the right hand side so I could remove the SAI aluminum pipes.
Once those were out of the way I discovered a breather line that was tucked downward beside the transmission - not ideal
Got the coil pack up top but while removing spark leads several ripped the ends off bad words were said. but I got it off and into the garage.


4 out 8 ended up this way very annoying, it took pliers in the end to remove them

1. Clear the wiring harnesses
2. Clear the remaining cooling system hoses on the right side

These were very straight forward and just required suitable use of zip ties and a bit of thought but lots of repairs to do the wire wrap is pretty rotten.

1. Remove the fuel rail
2. Remove the lower intake so far seem like the easiest thing

Removing the bolts from the lower intake was very simple as all the inner bolts were just over hand tight, they were also covered in a white pasty substance almost like a grease, You can see it in the image below.
I decided to leave the fuel rail in place, but disconnecting from the fuel feed was dead simple.

Slide the lower intake forward a tad
Compress the silver metal tab push slightly forward then pull back
And done


Weird white pasty stuff


Remove the valve covers - no drama here but I did have to go and buy a 12 point 8mm socket and the covers are some filthy. And the passenger gasket was starting to crack.
Picked up a set of NKG spark plugs while I was at it.

Remove the rocker arms once again zero drama, 3/8 drive ratchet and 14mm socket and off the came -with mandatory creak that sounds just like a bolt before it breaks.
A tip here start at one end give the bolts about a quarter turn, then do the other end followed by the center 2, repeat until they spin freely worked really well for me

Remove SAI pipes from the head
While I was out buying a 8mm 12 point socket I picked up a 27 mm wrench a cheap one.
I liberally hit the unions with penetrating oil the night before.
27 on the big nut and an 18 on the inside hard whack with the palm of my hand to get it moving 3 out of 4 not problem 1 twisted a bit - picture below.
What makes this such a pain is there is almost no room for the 18mm, pulling the exhaust manifold completely would give you more room but not much what you really need is a short open ended 18mm


18mm slipped as I was turning should be ok

 

Removing the heads - this was not hard all the bolts came free without issue. A couple of whacks with a rubber mallet freed the heads, BUT the gaskets were stuck to both the heads and block and it took a fair bit of pulling and wiggling to free the heads.

When loosing the bolts take your time it is only about a 20 minute job to get them out.

• Print the torque diagram from the the RAVE - you are going in reverse order outside to in
• 16 mm socket deep and standard as well a a good breaker bar a 3 footer is a good size
• When 1st breaking the bolts loose 1.4 to 1/2 a turn only to start
• Then keep going in 1/2 to 3/4 turns following the reverse torque sequence until everything spins frees
• Then pull them out
• I found some the inside ones in particular very easy to get turning as compared to the bolt on the end
• As noted above you may need to give the head a whack or 2 with a rubber mallet to get moving strike the end and the intake side

While pulling out the bolts watch for water /AF leakage there should be none until you free the head enough to start lifting - I had water from the drivers front lower bolt as soon as I had 1 turn not a good sign
@Brandon318

Fault diagnosis is difficult as the head gasket lost a lot of material during the head removal process and got pretty bent as well. However I did find a hairline crack all the way through the gasket from fire ring to the cool passage on the drivers side front cylinder.
This crack does not appear to damage from removal as it goes right through the underlying metal. But here are some images


The crack is at about 4:00 where the fire ring is bent

As well the gasket on this side was starting to fail between cylinders

Not ideal for diagnostics but note the discolouration between the 2 right most cylinders

Left side shows the same discoloration

Left side came free in "better" shape

 

Dang. This is interesting. Thanks for posting all this.

 

the removal of the head bolts is important as I just started removing bolts and didn’t follow a pattern which would explain why I had to drill one of them out

 

Bad news heads are shot 15 thou out - anyone know if the block is likely to out ?