lol as long as it seals and lasts for a year or so im happy

well i went to pick a part for a new head
and after searching and searching had a pot luck pick of a head that looked really clean and looked to have new manifold gaskets.
so pulled it off and sure enough its been recently decked and had a brand new looking head gasket!

so any thoughts on the condition of this one? lol
i got there 45 mins before they shut, so got the head off in half an hour and didnt have a chance to look at others!
the inlet valves are a lil bit burned, but the exhaust valves look to be in great condition and there is very little to no corrosion, where as my last head was fooked!

so yah, any thoughts?
have i just wasted $50 lol

well i got the head on and 99% all done
but stuck on the tensioner
is there anyway i can put it all in, in its extended form?
i cant get the 2 outer bolts undone from each other!
gotta love it lol

no..
you need to get the bolt out to re-set the tensioner and release it..
if you force it in in its extended form you will probably brake the chain guide and shear the bolt holding the sprocket onto the aux shaft..

lol s**t!
i guess ill be getting those 2 bolts undone then..
cheers

I'm about to do my head gasket tomorrow. will be interesting to see if I get it done in a day.. I've done them before.. but that was xflow XC not one of the alloy heads.

have a mls gasket here and new bolts etc... and repco is walking distance.

anyone know any good tricks for getting the bottom bolts on the intake manifold off when the engine is in the bay? I just striped my ratchet spanner trying to get one of the bottom middle ones.

can't get a socket in there... how have you guys been doing it?

tips?

cheers

Frank

Best is to remove the complete air filter assembly box if you haven't done so. Then just feed your hand with a ring/open ended spanner onto the bolts and basically do it all by touch. If not, jack the car up and work from underneath to get middles ones out. The rearward ones are the harder ones, but I assume you already got them out?

phong =P~

yeah,, the ratchet spanner did those before it stripped..

just went out and got a better one for 30 bucks form repco with a lifetime warranty.. if I strip this one I can just take it back.

also got a bunch of different lengths of thin extensions for 5 bucks from supercr@p.

giving it another go now.

It's off... now onto the head itself.

Took the rocker cover off and the whole lot is coated with white/brown water/oil also when I took one of the hoses off it shot water 15 foot even though it had only been running for about 20 seconds.

Anyway, I took off the top chain guide bolt and took a look.. it's been snapped about 2 inches from the top from a very long time as the place where it is broken is old and not a new break.

Funny thing is that it didn't make any rattles or anthing that I've heard.. not sure if It's worth worrying about.. might just put it back as it was before when I'm done.

Very odd... I have both the gregories and the ford manuals here, and I was expecting all sorts of trouble getting the chain tensioner out...

Turned the bolt under the power steering pump and the whole thing came out.. stuck my fingers in and pulled out everything that the manuals said would be in there.. chain was loose by this point..

now I'm confused as to where I was supposed to stick the tube with 3mm alan key?

anyway, down to the head now... just have to borrow a decent 14mm as mine is missing and 9/16th's won't cut it for head bolts.

I have two other good clean lowish km EL motors here..

If this one dies, it'd be easier just to swap motors..

The tensioning chain guide isn't broken, only the back one that stops chain slap has a problem and it can't move out of alignment as it hits the back anyway so I think this was broken last time they changed the gasket and just never replaced.

Had to give up for the evening as I couldn't find my half inch drive 14mm socket and broke two cheapies on the 3/8th.

will buy a decent 14mm at repco tomorrow and pull the head off.

As for cleaning it.. will probably run some diesel though it first then cheap crap oil, followed by decent stuff abit later... always worked in the past.

Got the head off... cyl 4 has a bit of water in it.. just a few mm.. but no rust or anything.. fairly clean.. no big lips on the bores, no glazing that I could see... head gasket was in a really bad way.. and was a composite...

now for the cleanup and checking.

the head bolts on exhaust site 4 and 5 from front were full of crap.. is that common?
Snapped a 1/2 inch drive Sidcrome extension getting the buggars out.. good fun.

Yeah id say its normal to have crap inside the headbolt holes, if the gasket blew on that side hear the holes. Mine blew on the exhaust side and a few of the bolts on that side were rusted and were very tight, probably due to water/coolant leaking out into the holes and corroding. When i got the head off to clean it all up, chucked the airgun nozzle inside the holes and all the broken bits of rust and s**t came out

OK.. all is cleaned up now..

before I pulled the head... I started the motor for 30 seconds and sprayed a mist of water directly into the throttle body to steam clean things..

When I pulled the heads, the pistons are almost shiny and the combustion chamber is pretty clean too. It didn't remove all the gunk.. just loosened it so that when I hit it with carby cleaner and then degreaser (while trying to loosen the old gasket gunk.. all the carbon came off with a gentle wipe.

Did the old slot cuts on a head bolt and then stuck it in the drill and cleaned out all the holes in about 40 seconds... used 2 full cans of export degreaser but both the head and block are spotless and smooth.. head measures pretty damn flat so I might not have it faced.. if it was any worse I would, but if it blows again I'll just swap the whole other EL motor in (I have two complete spares). so not that fussed.. time is my main constraint now as I have to have this over the pits in a week or two and still got lots to do.

Took about 50 photos and 3 or 4 videos as well.. so might be useful in a docco... I think a doco of it in the car is better as that is the way most people do it..

Incidentally, to all falcons have double valve springs?

yep.. except el hybrid and au...
the inner spring is a dampener spring

Cool, thankyou mr Troyman...

Head is back on.. lost a hla shim but found a box of them and lifters in the boot of this car when I got it so had spares.

putting the rockers back in now, want to have the rocker cover back on before it gets dark to keep crap out of there till I can finish it.