Almost overheated the other day, and come to find out having fixed my coolant leak caused a head gasket to blow between coolant and oil. My car being from Connecticut is very rusty and can be difficult to remove parts without breaking them. As I'm stripping the engine, I'm currious what if any parts I can remove or bypass to clean it up a bit.

My first issue I've come across with teardown is this little I think coolant line going from the intake to the right side head. I can't get it to turn. I soaked the nut in pb blaster last night with no apparent effect. Since the heads are i thought supposed to be interchangeable, I'm currious if I can just remove this entirely.

Edited June 29, 20169 yr by zmarrott

Update: got the line off with a few whacks on a firm bite with vise grips. On teardown I just have to drop the exhaust and then the heads come off. Still would love to use this as a perfect opportunity to remove surplus hoses and such from the engine. I'm not worried about passing and inspection as I'm out of my home state, and as soon as I get back its getting vintage registration

Edited June 29, 20169 yr by zmarrott

Search "emissions delete" or "weber swap" or "simplify hitachi", etc. TONS of threads.

That tube you argued with is for the EGR feed. Routes some exhaust gases to the EGR valve, EGR valve then adds it to the intake stream.

Supposedly, it helps with exhaust emissions.

Something I discovered a while back - when you are ready to disassemble an old engine, run it to normal operating temperature. Then immediately start working the bolts and fittings loose that are likely to be stuck. Alternatively, use a heat gun and a space heater and a cooking thermometer to monitor heating the block.

So basically I can trash that hose and plug it. Gonna do as much emission delete as I can while this far into my engine. My question now, is it have one head off, and I can see some damage to the gasket, so that's easy, but the other head will not budge any way I try. I've taken my small sledge with a punch and given it a few sharp whacks in non critical spots, full over head swings from my deadblow hammer, and sticking my sledge handle in the exhaust port and trying to pull it off. All to no effect. There's even still coolant filled up to the level of the intake port on this side, so I obviously haven't even budged it at all. One thing I noticed is that the center head bolt seems to have a bunch of rust around it filling the excess space in its hole. The rust is also dry, so it's been pretty much hermetically sealed in the head for 30 years. Do I need to pull this head off if it appears to not be the one that leaked coolant to the oil? I'm also afraid that if I leave it, I may have another problem come up before Im back to my other car at the end if the summer.

Wow, that sounds stuck. I have never done only 1 side. I figure whatever stressed one likely damaged the other.

 

I have used old shop knife blades as wedges to get hEads or whatever to separate. Use 3 or 4 of them around the perimeter, tap them into the gasket to avoid hitting the metal.

If I wasn't in such a time crunch, I'd spend the time to get that head off, but I still can't get it to move. I think the center stud being filled with rust is what's causing this. I've had other bolts be stuck due to the hole being packed with rust, but this being a stud, I don't have a good way to twist it to start moving the rust. Gonna cross my fingers and reassemble the engine.

Is there a good way I can scrub the head surface clean? I've never had much luck with plastic scrapers as the just get marred on every stuck thing on the surface. Milling isn't an option right now due to my time crunch and lack of funding.

Oh, yeah, they had studs! It's been a long time since I have been into one of those. Yes, that could be a problem.

 

A sheet of thick glass, glue wet sand paper to it, slide the head on it to resurface. You have to get the marks from the old headgasket fire rings out. Search for post apocalyptic head resurfacing.

 

For the gasket chunks, I have always used a shop knife blade carefully to scrape down to metal. The the resurfacing.

I assume a nice fine grit, but what specifically would you recommend? Also, among the rusted bits included was the large vac line to the item in the included picture. What is it?

Looks like the Anti-After-burn Valve, (AAV), judging by angle of that pic.

The part is mounted on the DS strut tower, large hose runs to back of intake to a metal tube, then a short section of hose to the EGR valve. All of which can be removed.

 

The AAV can cause issues itself. And the short section of hose at the EGR likes to crack causing one heck of a vacuum leak.

Loss for words.. I go to put the pushrods and rockers back in, and of course the head I can't get off has coolant gush out of the bolt holes when I push the bolts in. I don't know what to do now cuz I don't have the money to have a shop take the head off

Still mulling over how I'm gonna get that head off. My uncle suggested soaking the thing in pb blaster after I've got the engine out, then tack welding a nut to the stud and turning out the stud. Not sure how well that will work though. I've snapped a few bolts that were packed with rust, but those were also much smaller than the head studs. Another thought I had was after I've got the engine on the stand, attach a jig of sorts to all the accessory bolts on the head that sticks out in line with the cylinders, then use that to beat on to hit the head straight off vs hitting the head itself perpendicular to the studs