Pulling Head?

[Seanh]

Well, I blew out a headgasket today, so I need to change it this upcomming weekend. The car still runs, but leaks water out of the right side between the head and block. How hard is it pull off? Can I just leave all the intake attached? How do I need to line up the timeing chain? I'v never pulled a head on these engines so I don't know. Thanks

[SMW]

I wrote up an article about removing the cylinder head in the "tech articles" section a while back.

Here is the url:

http://www.240z.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1504

In regards to removing the intake and exhaust manifolds, I suppose you could leave them attached, and only detach the exhaust manifold to pipe connection. However, removing the entire set up would be unwieldy, and you are probably going to want to remove the manifolds anyway so the head can be checked for warpage -- nothing worse than going through the work of changing the gasket just to have the new one fail because the head is warped.

For the timing chain:

If you aren't going to mess around with the short block, what most folks do is set the engine to TDC before removing the head, then secure the timing chain with the special plastic tool (from MSA or elsewhere), or with a block of wood. This way, you won't need to reposition the chain on reinstallation.

If you don't secure the chain, or it moves, you generally end up having to remove the front cover to get the chain tensioner system back into place.

HTH,

Steve