peterwells
Active Member
- Joined
- May 13, 2005
- Posts
- 35
- Reaction score
- 22
Finally got around to reassembling the car and it's back running again. I'll try to keep this brief, ended up removing the passenger side head, but never found a clear cause for the low compression, quite a few of the lifters were bad and I did lap the valves but nothing obvious. Reinstalled head and low compression was gone; haven't repeated the leak off test.
Besides not trusting what the dealer said here are the key things that either worked well or I'd do differently... (i) get a good OBD reader and get what info you can before disassembling (got Forscan only after disassembling), (ii) clean the engine before starting the job (didn't), (iii) take plenty of pictures of wiring harness routing (didn't), (iv) remove radiators (did but only when part way through job), (iv) remove camshaft before pulling head (head + exhaust manifold is heavy enough), (v) made bumpers that allowed aligning the head without damaging the gasket (did- see pictures, high density polythene with some wooden dowels) (vi) in many areas the tape on the wiring harness was in poor shape, looked but never found a really good tape, (vii) you'll need a good impact wrench to torque the pulley bolt on the front of the camshaft, (viii) I used a deep swivel impact socket and a few extensions on the upper of the two large nuts on the exhaust manifold to cat connection, it wasn't particularly tight but difficult to access, (ix) I used a few dozen sandwich sized poly bags to organize fasteners, etc, (x) I numbered the caps that hold the camshafts but didn't allow for them being reversible, (xi) used cardboard boxes to organize items such as timing cover bolts, valve gear (just stab holes in the cardboard to hold items).
Although the car has a lot of miles the engine was not worn, I didn't change the phasers as I wasn't sure I'd found the problem and didn't want to spend an extra $400 on what might turn into spare parts; after running the engine I can hear they're worn so will go ahead and replace while it's all still clean.
It's difficult to justify this job given the age and value of the vehicle however besides the odd bit of cursing I enjoyed the work and if it's reliable for the few years it will have been worth it.
Best wishes for the New Year,
Peter
Besides not trusting what the dealer said here are the key things that either worked well or I'd do differently... (i) get a good OBD reader and get what info you can before disassembling (got Forscan only after disassembling), (ii) clean the engine before starting the job (didn't), (iii) take plenty of pictures of wiring harness routing (didn't), (iv) remove radiators (did but only when part way through job), (iv) remove camshaft before pulling head (head + exhaust manifold is heavy enough), (v) made bumpers that allowed aligning the head without damaging the gasket (did- see pictures, high density polythene with some wooden dowels) (vi) in many areas the tape on the wiring harness was in poor shape, looked but never found a really good tape, (vii) you'll need a good impact wrench to torque the pulley bolt on the front of the camshaft, (viii) I used a deep swivel impact socket and a few extensions on the upper of the two large nuts on the exhaust manifold to cat connection, it wasn't particularly tight but difficult to access, (ix) I used a few dozen sandwich sized poly bags to organize fasteners, etc, (x) I numbered the caps that hold the camshafts but didn't allow for them being reversible, (xi) used cardboard boxes to organize items such as timing cover bolts, valve gear (just stab holes in the cardboard to hold items).
Although the car has a lot of miles the engine was not worn, I didn't change the phasers as I wasn't sure I'd found the problem and didn't want to spend an extra $400 on what might turn into spare parts; after running the engine I can hear they're worn so will go ahead and replace while it's all still clean.
It's difficult to justify this job given the age and value of the vehicle however besides the odd bit of cursing I enjoyed the work and if it's reliable for the few years it will have been worth it.
Best wishes for the New Year,
Peter