ok, i went to the desert for a bit, and my room mate blew my head gasket. he tried to fix it, and it didnt work out so well. hes got the valve cover off, the exhaust off. what else must i do the get the head off?

Drain coolant from motor. Remove spark plugs then turn the motor over so that #1 piston is at TDC on the COMPRESSION STROKE. Make sure the crank pulley '0' mark lines up with the pointer. Remove valve cover. Make note of timing marks on sprocket and chain. What ever you do, make sure the motor is NOT turned from this point on or your cam timing can get screwed up.

At this point you need to install a wedge down between the two sides of the chain so that the chain doesn't drop down and disengage from the bottom crank sprocket or it will lose it's timing position. The wedge should have a wire attached to it which will hang over the edge of the timing cover so that it can be pulled easily; you can use nylon ties instead to hold each side of the chain up. Remove cam sprocket.

Disconnect intake manifold at head. Disconnect exhaust manifold at head. Disconnect all remaining electrical connectors/wires going to head and mark them. Disconnect all vacuum lines attached to head and mark them.

Remove head bolts in the correct order as follows:

2 8 10 5 3<== front of motor 4 6 9 7 1

Head bolts should be loosened in two to three steps.

While you have the head off, this would be a good time to regrind the valves/seats and to install new valve stem seals if you've got a lot of miles on car. Check head surface for straightness.

Tighten head bolts in the correct order as follows:

9 3 1 6 8<== front of motor 7 5 2 4 10

First time around tighten to 22 ft-lb. Second time to 59 ft-lb. Loosen all bolts completely. Tighten to 25 ft-lb. Tighten to 62 ft-lb.

You really need an FSM as a guide to do it right.

thanks alot man, i realla appreciate it.

So I've been trying to get off the intake manifold collector, can I pass this step? Can I just unbolt the intake and exhaust manifold and remove the head?

Also, I heard the wedge idea, but is there a really good way to ensure that I don't drop the chain?

Krypt

TheKryptKeeper wrote:So I've been trying to get off the intake manifold collector, can I pass this step? Can I just unbolt the intake and exhaust manifold and remove the head?

Also, I heard the wedge idea, but is there a really good way to ensure that I don't drop the chain?

Krypt

Just unbolt the intake and exhaust manifolds from the head; no need to separate the intake manifold from the collector.

Before removing the cam sprocket, use nylon ties to run them through a chain link on each side; now run each nylon tie through a top hole in the timing cover, then snug up. This will hold the chain up.

omg, i hav a leaking head gasket i boght a new gasket thinking i could replace it myself but after reading all this i think i might hav sum 1 do it 4 me. Im sum wat of a noob

how do you make sure the engine is at TDC on the compression stroke?

TedStickle wrote:how do you make sure the engine is at TDC on the compression stroke?

Remove spark plugs then have someone tap the starter while you have your thumb over the #1 spark plug hole. Once you feel compression, insure that the block timing pointer at the front pulley is pointing to the '0' mark on the pulley; if not, manually turn the motor clockwise or counter-clockwise by hand until it's pointing to ZERO. Remove distributor cap and insure that the rotor is pointing to #1 firing position. The #1 piston is now sitting at TDC COMPRESSION STROKE.