Oh my husband is from Michigan and did his post-grad studies in Iowa, so I've seen plenty! I still remember the first time I was overtaken on the Interstate by a pickup that must have been doing 80+ where you could visibly see the body bending in the middle where the bodywork was clearly holding the chassis together...3xpendable wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 12:57 pmI very much enjoy VGG, and he now lives not too far from me, but yeah I'd never drive home some of the stuff he does It IS easier to get away with it over here though, you'd die if you saw some of the wrecks being driven around here.Zelandeth wrote: ↑Tue Sep 28, 2021 11:47 pmYes it will be delivered. I know it's technically MOT exempt, but I'm not about to go all Vice Grip Garage on this...I know the front brakes are shot, there's a bulge in the nearside front tyre the size of an egg, we're missing part of the exhaust, and it's been sitting in a shed for at least 11 years. Plus there may have been an unresolved running issue prior to that. If I was still in the back end of rural Aberdeenshire, maybe if I changed the tyres, made sure it actually ran well and sorted the brakes...Down here...not happening!
-- -- --
Back at it this afternoon.
Step 1 I decided was to label the handful of wiring connectors which would need to be removed. Have to admit this is one of the reasons I love K-Jet injection systems...so simple electronically.
IAC valve is hiding just out of shot above the frame.
Checking it with a straight edge the spare head appears to be flat. Once it's had a good clean I'll inspect it closely for any signs of damage. Being used to relatively tiny and not performance focused OHV engines those valves look positively huge. I guess that's the real bonus of an oversquare engine with a crossflow head...more room for big valves.
I'll be transferring my inlet manifold complete with fuel distributor over, but I'll be removing it from the head off the car. Both as the inlet manifold will give me something to get hold of to help lift it and because a couple of the retaining bolts are a real pig to get to with it in the car.
Definitely want to use mine though. Assure from it being filthy it looks like the plastic housing on the fuel metering head has started to fail on the spare.
A vacuum leak there could cause absolute mayhem with regards to fuelling. Hoping the one currently on the car is better or I'll need to come up with some sort of repair.
Let the strip down commence!
A huge surprise arrived midway through this when I went to tackle the part of the whole job I have been dreading the most. Removing the exhaust manifold.
I have never had to remove one on a car which has not been an absolutely horrible war of a job.
Right up until today. This just unbolted from the head without any drama whatsoever. Okay, was a 50/50 mix of the nuts unscrewing and the studs winding out of the head but that's irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. I have never known a manifold come off that easy. Ever.
So...this brings us up to here:
[] Rocker cover, camshaft carriers/rocker assemblies and camshaft removed.
[] Exhaust manifold clear of head.
[] Coolant drained (block drain is hidden behind exhaust manifold, hence choosing that sequence). Oil had already been drained before we started.
[] Throttle cable and gearbox kickdown cables disconnected.
[] Various electrical connectors disconnected and de-threaded from the vacuum pipework they wound their way through before.
[] Vacuum line to brake servo disconnected at manifold end.
[] Engine earth strap disconnected from inlet manifold.
[] Fuel flow and return lines disconnected and moved clear (after discovering the hidden 10mm bolt holding them to the fuel distributor.
[] Disconnected heater hose from rear of head.
[] Removed half a dozen small bore vacuum lines, not forgetting the near invisible one to the gearbox.
[] Unbolted the thermostat housing from the front of the head.
[] Removed the top alternator mounting bolt.
[] Removed head bolts ( including the sneaky ones right at the front and the *really* sneaky one over by the warm up regulator masquerading as a plugged coolant sensor hole.
Yeah...to put into perspective how filthy this head is, this is how much gunk I had to scoop out of the head bolt heads before I could get the bit into them properly.
That is probably the best part of 1 X 2 cm.
After a certain amount of swearing we got to the point where the head has split from the block.
However I haven't so far been able to get it to separate around the full perimeter quite yet. I've also realised that due to the design of the timing chain tensioner that I need to faff around with that first before I can fully remove the head. The tensioner has a pin which passes through the middle of the loop of the chain...so either than pin needs to come out or the chain needs to be split. Apparently the inner of this pin however is threaded so you can wind a bolt into it and then pull it out of the head... we'll see if that's true tomorrow.
Kinda feels like a failure that I didn't get the head fully out today, I had really hoped to. We're about 95% of the way there though.
I can't start rebuilding things yet anyway as I'm still waiting on the head and inlet manifold gaskets (exhaust ones are of a type which should be fine to reuse) to arrive. Depending on what the weather is up to tomorrow we'll hopefully either get the whole head off the car or start stripping down and cleaning the spare one.
I'm telling myself to stop being bloody lazy and lap the valves in, though I can't for the life of me tell you where my valve spring compressor is...
It's a bit of a strange engine to work on...a lot of it is really well thought out and easy, but every now and then there are just a few bits which are seemingly needlessly complicated or awkward. The non-resettable timing chain tensioner and chain guide you need to use a puller/slide hammer to remove from the head immediately spring to mind.
I have checked the measurements of the head bolts and they're all well within spec so should be fine to be reused. I can't see any evidence of this head ever being off before so far so not a huge surprise.
Just need a really good clean as like everything, they're covered in sticky black tar.
As is now about 3/4 of my toolkit, the garage door, my hair and the side of the van.
Hopefully we'll have good progress to report tomorrow.
Of course just to add to the fun the heavens decided to open just as I was tidying up...and immediately stopped about the second I closed the garage door.