I have just a early 90's gm 350 motor and i am going to be taking off the heads in the next week. i have been reading up and it is some process taking off the bolts in a set order and what not. can anyone please give me some knowledge or maybe a site that shows the patterns on taking off and putting on with the right torque settings and all. thanks all.

 

best bet is to spend the $15 for a haynes or chilton manual. that way its with you in the garage and you dont have to search for it online.

 

yea i didnt even think about that. thats a great idea. the only problem that i may come across is that i have an 84 z but the motor is a 350 pulled from an early 90's firebird i believe. should all the numbers and settings be the same?

 

Hey I dont wanna sound like a wise ***, but pulling heads is no novice job......installing them correctly may even require torque to yield bolts and a TTY gauge. If you dont know what sequence to put them back on, you are going to need (at the very least) a chiltons manual and a decent torque wrench. Pulling heads is no small task, and its not a job you want to do over again because you didnt clean a mating surface right or forgot to torque those bolts an extra 15'.

Why you pulling them?

 

yea the more i been talkin to people and readin up on it i see how much is involved, between takin the distributor cap off and all. the engine has been sitting for some time and is in need of valve stem seals. i have heard it can be done with the heads still on but i wasn't sure if that was easier or not.

 

You can replace the seals with the heads in place, but you will need an air compressor to pressurize the cylinder and keep the valves from falling in. Or.. you can do it the red neck way by stuffing clothes line into the cylinder through the spark plug hole until the combustion chamber is full.

 

This might help if you take the heads off

 

oh wow thats awesome. yea i thought about trying with them on but was also thinking that taking them off would be a good time to put a few new things on them. maybe port and polish them and what not.

 

if the engine from the bird was 92 or older, the manual will have the info on that. all engines from 82-92 are covered in there, with each idividual specs for each engine if there are any differences

 

Dude, if taking the distributor cap off is worrying you, then you most certainly do NOT want to pull those heads. Pulling heads involves a complete tear down of the entire engine (except the pistons, crank and cam) And some may disagree with me, but pulling heads on a 3rd Gen is 100 times easier when the engine is OUT of the car. BUT, once you get it torn down that far, all you have to do is unbolt the tranny housing and motor mounts and the engine is ready to come out. Like I said, this is no small task. On a "do-it-yourself" degree of difficulty of 1-10, Id rate this a 8.5

Given your limited experience with this car, I suggest you have an experienced mechanic determine if you need valve seals or possibly more. IF you just need the seals, you may choose to go the compressed air method, its not terribly difficult, but you will have to reset the load on the pushrods, which is a art all to itself.