Agreed with Chuck, all threads should be repaired or be prepared to pull threads out when torquing.

 

I'm ready to pull the heads, an aside was able to pull the harmonic balancer with a generic puller and longer bolts I got from home depot.

My vehicle is a 2010 range rover with 197500 miles, interestingly I got the m10 ribe/polydrive socket and it was too small. It looks like I have the m11x178 instead of m10x175 head bolts. So I ordered a kit with more ribe/polydrive sockets. I was not aware a 2010 would have the newer head bolts. Just an FYI

 

The M10 refers to the diameter of the shaft of the bolt, not the size of the bolt head or tool needed to remove it. There are M10 bolts that have various head sizes and types. That said, try a m10 hex bit like this. The poly drive is made to accept multiple drives, hence "poly".

 

The 10mm hex is a little loose, I don't want to strip the bolt, I'll try to find a 11mm hex head

 

First 5 inserts placed. No significant clearance issues so far. Would be easier with engine out but im not set up for that so I am making do.

The bottom row will work too, I may place a jack under the motor mount to tilt the block a few mm to prevent binding.

Driver side may force me to buy or borrow an angle drill for clearance.

Overall, the NS300L kit offered by Norm has worked well. The inserts themselves look and feel solid. Once they are all in, ill have peace of mind that I won't have any concerns of a pulled thread when the heads are torqued down.

 

Finished the last 2 of 10 inserts on the passenger side of the block tonight. I have a couple lessons learned that I will follow in the next post with a few photos.

Tip #1: Clean the block surface well and apply contact paper. Then cut the bolt holes out with a razor knife. I saw a few videos where people tried to cover the head surface with a trash bag but that just looked messy. The contact paper stays in place and worked excellent in keeping debris out of the wrong places.

 

Tip #2: Loosen the top motor mount bolt with an 18 mm socket and then jack the engine up about a 1/2 inch on the side that you're working on. Place a spacer in the gap created at the motor mount and then remove the jack. This will allow straight in clearance past the wheel well for drilling and tapping of the bottom row.

 

Tip #3: Flip a 3/8 drive socket upside down to drive the tap. With a 14mm socket reversed, a 14 mm hex bit inserts and can be kept in place by shimming with tape. Then it's easy to add 3/8 drive extensions to drive the tap with a ratchet.

 

Tip #4: The instructions provided with the insert kit suggest to blow the shavings out of the hole intermittently as you proceed with an air compressor. There is the recommendation to wrap the hole with a rag so the shavings don't fly everywhere. I found that even doing this created a significant mess where I didn't want shavings.

A better solution came when I saw a piece of scrap half inch thin walled metal tubing laying around. Duct taping this to the end of one of my shop vac nozzles proved to be a great solution. Enough air squeezes around the tubing within the hole to allow sufficient suction to remove the shavings straight into the shop vac. No mess.

 

Tip #5: The holes at the back of the engine block pose a tight fit likely for any standard drill. I initially thought I may try to borrow or buy an angle drill. But with the drill bit being a 1/2 inch, most of these drills were bulky and I was not sure they would clear in this area anyway. As an alternative I came across a great solution online that may save someone else a bit of searching, a Cowan Chuck.

https://www.cowanchuck.com

Essentially this guy developed a drill Chuck that can be driven by a 3/8 or 1/2 inch impact wrench. Honestly, my initial thought was to connect this to an air ratchet to make my own lightweight air angle drill. This idea was immediately struck down by the fact that the ratchet doesn't rotate fast enough to drill. Then I thought that I could just use the Chuck so that I could add 3/8 socket extensions to place the drill outside of the engine compartment. Since the jig provided in the insert kit already kept the drill bit straight this set up worked like a charm even when a universal was used to clear the firewall.