Sorry no pics yet. If you guys saw how dirty/greasy everything was, you'd understand why I left all picture taking devices inside! lol

We pulled the crank pulley and opti today, but we didn't remember to mark the direction of the arrow on the pulley (doh! >.<) relative to the hub. What do we line it up to? The 'hump'? the 'dot'? or the 'flat' side?

 

arrow goes straight up when the number one piston is top dead center.

 

I figured the current position wouldn't actually matter since we'l be altering the cranks position during drivetrain adjustment anyway. :P

 

I had to work from 4-9 today, so my dad and I worked from about 11-3. Got a fair bit done, mostly prep for the real work of removing the heads/intake. Even got the passenger side manifold off! lol

But that's not all. After I left for work, my dad and older brother dove in, and surprised me when I got home with an engine bay missing a driver side head, an intake, and essentially ready for a passenger side head to come off! I was extremely happy about it! I was disappointed that I wasn't there for such a major step, but in the interest of time it was definitely a smart move.

So now what's left is: remove passenger side head, drop oil pan, remove timing cover, remove timing chain/assembly, pull cam, and putting everything back together.

In your opinions, is disassembly or assembly the longer process? I really hope the answer is disassembly. :P

 

Here's some pics for ya!
The first is of the whole engine, but focusing on the timing chain. Got a towel keeping debris out.
The second is the passenger side head (Still in). As you can see, the bolts have come out, and we're working on the ones inside the head.
And the last one is the ridiculously clean cylinder, after 157000 miles! :O I haven't gone over all of them yet, but if they all look like this...I'll be extremely pleased.

 

putting it back together always takes longer. if u do it right.

 

i could see it going both ways...with disassembly, you're working with all the old parts which are brittle and can break, etc. with assembly, you're using new parts, but you have to be more careful to get everything set up perfectly. if i'd guess though, i'd say assembly takes longer, but would be easier

 

I suppose that's more of what I meant. Turning all the bolts would be easier/quicker. :P

But it looks like we've hit a big road block, that's gonna set us back a lot. We were hoping that we'd be able to get the headers in with the heads off through the top, since the block is essentially bare right now. Well, it didn't work. So now we've got how ever many hours it's gonna take to figure out a way to get the car up high enough, unbolt mounts (do we need to get at both, or can we just do the passenger side?), get the dipstick tube out (it's kinda stuck....), and get those in.

We were hoping to get all the assembly done by wednesday, since I leave for school on thursday, and then my dad could drive it over to the guy who's gonna do the exhaust on it and I'd be able to drive it up to school with me on labor day weekend. Well, it looks like labor day weekend is now the estimated time of completion, and whatever my next chance to come home is when I'll get the car back. It was gonna be two weeks of wrenching, and two weeks until I'd get the car. Now it look like three weeks of wrenching, and however long it'll be for me to come home again...

Anybody on here near southwest michigan, and feel like helping a fellow CFer out? haha

sadface.

 

IMO I'd leave the headers off until you torque the heads, take a look at where those bolts are, and imagine getting a torque wrench in there with your headers on.

 

This is very true clyon, good catch! :P


Possible very important question. If I were to have hypothetically broken the temperature sensor in my passenger side head, what would be possible repercussions of driving like this? I dunno if I want to hypothetically spend 40 dollars for a new one, plus the heads from Lloyd have a plug in that spot right now. :P

So what do you say? Will my engine explode without a temperature sensor in the passenger side head?

And Labor Day Weekend is the estimated time of completion!

EDIT: Nevermind. 40 bucks isn't too bad. :P