Hi Gang

It's that horrible time when you know you are going to have to bite the bullet, and change the head gaskets. Is there anything I need to know in doing the job.

I have done a lot of EA81 heads, but this is my first EA82. Any advice would be most appreciated.

Cheers

Pete

leave the disty bolted down, if you can, and mark the timing belts somehow, to avoid being 180 degrees off on your timing when it goes back togethere. and change the belts when the heads are off, 20 bucks at napa. have fun =] look for big cracks.

dont worry about the cracks between the valves, but DO worry about cracks in the EXHAUST PORT

 

make sure you follow the torque sequence, and use graphite faced gaskets and also if u like copper gasket sealer. if you are NOT replacing the belts you can ulbolt the cam sprockets and later slip the belts back on without loosening the tensioner(if using the same belts)

 

there is an 0-ring in the head gasket, make sure your set has them and dont forget them. also replace the o-ring on the cam towers where they meet the head.

 

use a anaerobic sealer for the cam towers, permatex ultra grey is what you want, or any other brand of the same nature

 

install the cam tower with tehcam as 12:00 position, the little pin would be UP, and use bearing grease or break-in lube to 'glue' the rockers to the lifter/valves, to hold them in place

 

its much easier to do head gaskets with the motor out of the car,(do both of them at the same time) it will save you more time than the time it takes to pull the motor. it sucks to do them in the car to realize that one of the rockers fell out when you were trying to put the cam towers on, after you start it up!

I have done head gaskets on my ea82turbo and if you have a dremel laying around with a snake attachment I would advise porting the heads since you have to take them off anyway. I have done this myself and would not recommend it if you need the car back on the road immediately. It took me about 6hrs each head to port them. slow and time consuming. watch out for cracks in the exhaust port as they will leak coolant and burn it off in the exhaust. cracks in between the valves are normal so don't over-react and junk the car when you see those, it's all good.

 

I will soon be doing head gaskets on my loy-a as preventative maintenance with 200,000 miles on stock head gaskets and will port those heads as well.

http://www.warpthree.com/milesfox/87rx/rxbuild/rxbuild001.html#row1[/url]

 

here are some pictures of an engine teardown of an ea82 mpfi tirbo down to the heads. also is the porting work with the dremel