Replace Head Gaskets Steps - Motor in Car

Mike8675309

Registered User
I've looked around and can't see anything written out so I thought I'd ask.

I'm trying to replace the headgaskets on my 90 that blew the first day it was out of storage. I'm going to just swap the gaskets and install ARP studs to just get it up and running.

Anyone have a walk through on how they've done this in the past? I've gotten as far as pulling the blower and plenums and was about to start on pulling the fuel rail when I ran out of steam. Seems a bolt on the back of the driver side head is holding the rail.

Can I just unbolt the accessory drive brackets from both heads and lean them forward?

Any other tricky things to deal with? What order should I remove stuff?

Any ideas are helpful.

Thanks
 
you can just unbolt both drive brakets, the passenger side just move the ac to the side and pull that bracket out, as for the p/s steering bracket, that one can just be unbolted and pulled forward next to the intercooler, so you dont have to take of the p/s lines, you ca if you want but not neccesary, you will need to pull the lower ic tube if you havent, and thats all thats needed to get to the heads. as for the bolt behind the drivers side head on the fuel fail, yea there is a bolt there for some reason, its a tricky bolt but after you do it the first time, you just leave that in your bolt drawer. other than that, pull the lower intake off, and the heads are pretty much self explanatory. anyhting else you want to know?? oh also for your arp studs, i would find v6 camaro studs and put those on instead from arp, cause they are shorter and easier to get the head nuts on...do a search im not 100% sure on this but i've heard they work better.
 
First off, take your intake tube off, then your SC. Then take your intercooler out, then your intercooler tubes. Take off your accessory brackets and hang your AC off to the side. Like it was said earlier, you can remove the PS out of the car or just hang it off to the side, me personally, i just take it out completely. Take your intake off and then your valve covers and remove the push rods. What i did with my push rods was take an old shoe box, and turn it up side down, the just take your push rods and make a hole for them, and label them to make sure they go back where they came from, you can to the same with the rocker arms. Unbolt the heads and take them down to your favorite machine shop and have them milled flat again, this is a must!

While your waiting on your heads, go ahead and clean up all the gasket surfaces and parts. Remember, cleanliness is next to godliness or how ever that saying goes. After you get your heads back, but new gaskets on, and torque them down, i also usually put some thread sealant on all the head bolts and on the intake bolts. Next, lay down the intake gaskets and put a little dab of silicone sealant where the intake and the heads meet, i use the ultra black on everything. Might as well put in a new thermostat while youve got it apart. Everything else is pretty much self expanatory i beleive, if i left something out, them im sure someone else will point it out.

Also, might as well change the blower fluid while you have it apart, just go down to your local Pontiac dealer and pick up some for a GTP. Change your oil too.

Its really not that bad of a job, just time consuming, i just did a 98 ford f150 4.2 headgaskets, and i think it took me about 3-4 hours to tear it apart and about 4 hours to put it all together. One more thing, i do this occasionally to help be with things, take pictures of your electrical connections and of your vacuum lines. It usually helps with reassembly........

Derek
 
Thanks folks. I think the hardest part is going to be the exhaust manifolds just from the aspect of breaking something. I dunno if I'll have time to have the heads milled, but I'm going to try. Yes, I know if I don't get it done I can count on doing this again. But I already count on doing it again for a full rebuild after this season.

I'm getting the Chevy 2.8 arp studs.

helps to know that I can pretty much just move stuff aside. The P/S one will suck a little as that bracket is still there so I'll have to pull the pulley off to get the bolts loose to pull things forward.
 
Scotts article is tits for the install. I had never done a job that big and it worked like a charm. I have the mind of a gold fish , so if you have the same problem. Bag and tag EVERYTHING.
 
That's the one I thought I saw once before. It's printed.

I've created one bag of bolts coming off, one bag of bolts/nuts to be replaced. I.e. a few are worn enough I'm afraid to put them back on. Or the fuel rail torx bolts that I'll replace with cap screws.
 
Still can't get the fuel rail off. Have the nut off but the stupid bracket seems very solid. Anyone with an idea? Can I just pull it off the injectors and wiggle it back off the stud? The stud doesn't seem to have a hex end on it (according to my fingers, can't see the thing) to back it out of the head.
 
Pull on it. The best way is to try and hold the injector and pull the rail off of them. This way you dont risk cracking a pintle cap down in the cylinder. They get all shmegma'ed up and stick. Make sure you wire wheel all bolts. Use vise grips. I still have tore up fingers from trying to hold them while cleaning them. Unless you have a vise. Thats better but I have a shady tree garage (driveway)
 
Mike there should be four torx head bolts holding the center of the
fuel rail.Two torx head bolts of each side of the fuel rail.

Then one bolt holding the fuel regulator on the back of the
drivers side head.Its very hard to get to.

There are clip holding each injector to the fuel rail. I also remove
them when trying to lift the fuel rail up.

Once you get the fuel rail off. You will need to tie the rail up
and back out of the way the best you can do.I use a peice of wire
tied to the hood.

When you get the four torx bolts holding the fuel rail .And the one
bolt that holds the fuel pressure regulator to the back of
the drivers side head. You just need to wiggle, pull, and pry, the
fuel rail off. Some injector may stay in the rail,and some may stay
in the heads.

I hope this is the answer your looking for.If your asking about the
fuel regulator bolt in the back of the head.I do not put this bolt back in.
I have had no problems with the fuel regulator not being bolted down
to the back of the drivers side head.

I leave this bolt out because I need more clearance between my manifold
pleum mounting flange and the fuel rail.

I have been doing the same job.AS far as removing the heads .
Havent desided weather to put it back together or not.I started about three or four weeks ago. I blew one head gasket because of detonation,
going & coming home from the 05 shootout.So I don't know how
much damage I did to the bearing on the crank.Looks like I may half to replace the motor on my first inpections.

I am going to fix some motor.I havent desided weather to freshin up
the stock motor again ,or finish my modified motor.Can't afford to do both.

Good luck to ya.Its really a fun job to do.if your not in a time crunch,
money or need the car for a daily driver..I take my time when
working on mine. Because I can't stand and lean over very long at
a time. and only have one good arm to work with.My wife helps me
with lifting some parts off, And place's that my hand is to big to fit into.

It seems like I spend more time cleaning and moding parts. So they will
be easier to install and take off again when need be.Than the actual
head gasket swap takes to do.

Randy

P.S. I think Paul of BTM sells stainless steel allen head bolts to
replace the fuel rail torx bolts if you do not like the torx bolts.
 
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Time crunch is right. Gotta be back together by the 28th of April.

I got the torx ones off. just the stupid one behind the driver side head. I got the nut off. It holds a bracket attached to one of the cooling lines which is over top of the bracket for the regulator/rail. It's very tight and the cooling lines don't give much. I may just try to get a vice grip back there and turn the bolt out of the head. (that just came to mind after reading the suggestions thus far)

Thanks for the caution on the injectors. Forgot how fragile they are, especially if they are original. The harness is stiff enough as it is.

Most painful part for my back so far was wrenching to get the p/s pulley off, hold this bolt, crank that one, hold this one, crank that one. One point for those doing such. At least get a propane torch and heat the snout of the P/s pulley up a bit before cranking on it. Third time taking such a pulley off and used heat first. It came off much...much easier than if you just try to muscle it off.
 
Yes that is a stud back there Mike. If my memory serves me right there is a very flat head, part of the stud but its behind the fuel rail. Once I get that off I just put a normal bolt back in for next time.
 
Can't get it off. It's very tight. Found one on the other head, both are used to hold up the line that runs from the water pump to the throttle body. Thus cars without the throttle body heating system don't have that.

Oh well. I'll figure out something. slashed my thumb when taking a different bolt out so I called it a night before I damage something else.
 
I am not for sure ,it been to long ago the first time I did this job.
.But I had to remove the windsheild wipers to get back there.

I never did replace the fuel regulator bolt. And my windsheild
wiper motor was burnt up.So I never reinstalled it. I never
drive my car in the rain.So I don't need the wipers.And I
leave the plastic cowl off.Because I work on it so much.
The wipers and plastic cowl are always in the way.

Maybe you can go ahead and unbolt all the parts needed
to finish your project. If you take the head bolts out.
MAYBE you can slide the head forward a tad .And this
will give you another inch or so clearance to get to
the fuel regulator bolt.

On the water heater line that gos to the throttle body.
On the drivers side where the throttle body hose starts.
I cut the small metal tube off the larger heater hose tube.
Then weld the throttle body small metal tube off. Then you can
reroute the large heater hose dirrectly to the dash where
the heater core comes out.

This makes it easier to get to the sparkplugs at alater date.
and cleans the motor up. Hope the throttle body delete makes
since to ya.And rerouting the lager heater hose from the
thermostat area to the heater core coming out of the fire-wall.
It is worth doing this mod .unless this is a SC Bird your tying to
keep stock.

For cut fingers I use band-aids with stars on them. :p
I have some with superman printed on them to. :D

Randy
 
Liquid bandage works good.

Cut the finger when pulling the ABS acumulator to maybe make room to get a wrench in there on the side. Can't pull one intake manifold bolt with that on there. Already thought about just unbolting things with it on there.

Next steps.... unbolt rear heater line to try to get that out of the way to allow a deep well socket to fit Then pull the wiper motor to make more room for my hand. With the motor out of there I may even be able to fish the socket wrench handle through that hole and allow me to put a bigger bar on there to get the nut loose.

I did fish a pry bar up there from the driver side of the trans and bent the tab for the coolant line out of the way... but it's got a nut on there and my box end wrench in the little space I have to work just couldn't budge it. I'd love to cuss at the Ford engineer that came up with this cluster... but I've seen worse. (bypass hose on the water pump for my Durango comes to mind, or rear brake wheel cylinder on a cavalier...GM fools)
 
Mike, not sure if this'll help, but when I took my fuel rail off I found it much easier to get to the FPR bolt with the cowls and wipers off. I actually left them off to tune as I could then reach the FPR easier if it needed tweaking. I remember using a small wrench and contorting my body enough to get it on the stud head of the FPR. It was one of those things were you couldn't see what you were doing and hoped to God the stud didn't fall into the engine once it came loose. If you crack any spindles I have a used set of 30lbers here and we could meet up in Bloomington.
 
Got a spare set of injectors and a rail hanging in my garage, but thanks. They look o.k. if a little filthy as I yanked them. I already pulled off the cowel and the wipers. Getting the wiper motor out of the way may help me.

I'm tellin ya, these nuts are tight in this head. The one on the passeger side I tried to get with a long, long, long extension run along the transmission, over the converter up from the back of the engine. Hooked it to an impact wrench and ran it until my ears rang. Didn't move. (yes, i'm turning it the right way). Figure the impact doesn't have much impact left after going up through two extensions and a wobble joint.

So I figure I need to get a socket on there, with a wrench with a beefy handle, then slip a piece of conduit over the handle and break it loose.

Worse case I'll dig out the dremel, a pack of cutting disks, and cut the mounting bracket for the fuel pressure regulator.... come to think of it, since i have a spare rail...worset case may mean I just take a hack saw to it and cut it apart enough for me to get the intake manifold off.
 
Yahtzee! I got it.

Pulled the coolant line, ran a 6point 13mm deep well impact socket back there from the passenger side to the bolt on the driver side with a 1/2 drive wrench and a piece of conduit that I could slide out for extra leverage. Broke it loose.

Finally. Got the driver side exhaust manifold unbolted, got the intake manifold off. Tomorrow will be passenger side manifold, valve covers, then the heads.

Now if I can just receive my parts by Friday I'll be happy.... until I have to put it back together.
 
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