Head Games: pushing coolant and then...

[scheides]

Just verified that i do have the right cas orientation!

[Halon]

Your pistons look purdy!

[Kracka]

It runs again!!!

[cmspaz]

Yay!

[Mark Leasure]

So is it possible to pull an IX head in the same way, leaving the cam gears engaged? It looks like you used a homemade cam tension tool. What is the thread size and pitch and how long does it need to be? I plan on pulling my head next week and it would save some time if I did not need to remove the timing belt. Good job on getting it back on the road.

[asshanson]

Good to hear its running again!

[scheides]

Whew! What a day. I spent as much time running around getting stuff for this project and studying up on what to do as I have actually working on the car. We hit a few small snags but overall it was not the most insane thing I've ever done on my car. Having plenty of time to just let the car be down and live life was pretty clutch. I ended up getting a spinny 3M pad thingy that went on the end of a drill (or die grinder) and used that to finish cleaning up the surface of the block. It worked awesome, but some spots just would not come clean, so I *gasp* did use a bit of 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper to finish it up.

Thanks a BILLION to Kracka for all the help and everyone else that gave me advice on how to do all of this! A MILLION BILLION to Shane @ DB, he gave me insane cool advice about every little question I had.

So yea, it runs, but I haven't test-driven it yet. We hit a decent snag when I dropped one small bolt down into the depths of the lower timing cover, necessitating yanking the tbelt stuff all apart *again* and re-doing it. Practice makes perfect right? The bolt was for the small shield that wraps around the timing belt tensioner tool. I was trying to get it into place and after a few awkward moments and it not going in, bloop! Down it went. I got it out once with a long needle nose but of course it fell again just as I was about to have it all the way out.

Anyways, the head did end up getting resurfaced, the new springs went in fine and cams fine on top of that. John Gosh, I offered him some extra cash to get it done quicklike and he totally delivered. I dropped off the head on Friday at about 3pm and he called me Saturday 9am and said it was done! Unfortunatly I had been at work until almost 3am so it was noon before I could get up and meet him.

Got about 2 hours of work in on the car Saturday and about 6 today, and it runs! I left the accessory belt and associated pulleys off for initial startup, but aside from the fuel line needing to be re-pressurized (I knocked out one of the injectors from the fuel rail :( ) it started right up. It wanted to rev pretty high, about 2500 rpms or so, need to figure out why but it never go up to full operating temp at all, so I'll address that as I get the car the rest of the way back together.

Stay tuned.....

[scheides]

So is it possible to pull an IX head in the same way, leaving the cam gears engaged? It looks like you used a homemade cam tension tool. What is the thread size and pitch and how long does it need to be? I plan on pulling my head next week and it would save some time if I did not need to remove the timing belt. Good job on getting it back on the road.

In all honesty you *should* be able to do it on an IX but the main snag I think would be the intake cam. You *might* have to pull that out of the head before you can pull the head off the block, I'm just not sure about the clearance with the mivec cam gear. See my note about dropping bolts though, that's the only possible snag in this scenario.

I did not make the tool, I got the AMS one. Kracka, hellomynameis, and I went in together on it.

http://www.amsperformance.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=22_649_658&products_id=794

[awd-drifter]

good deal that it is running again man. probably post videos of how the beast will sound like. great progress work man, wish i could do the things you can do, eventually i will though.

[Super Bleeder!!]

Shoulda gotten the JayRacing one. 15 BUX
http://www.jayracing.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=17&products_id=37