Head gasket change - 97 4.6L

[chrmar]

Greetings, campers! New to the forum but I have a rather large challenge ahead of me and I'm looking for advice.

I'm in the process of acquiring a 1997 Expedition XLT 4WD with a 4.6L engine that has a bad head gasket. Don't worry, I'm not paying much for this truck (actually, may potentially be trading a complete 351W for it ). I don't have any aversion to changing head gaskets after sucessfully doing a gasket swap on the rear bank of a 3.8L V6 in a Windstar... now THAT was a PITA!

For other vehicles I've managed to get FSM for doing maintainence but I haven't been able to find one for Expeditions/F-150s yet. I'm looking to know the proper order for dis-assembly as well as the proper torque specifications for re-assembly and timing procedure. I've read in older threads (did some searching) that it may be possible to remove the heads with the exhaust manifolds intact... is this possible?

I thank everyone for their time and information and look forward to spending more time here with this truck!

 

[ELVATO]

They have Ford service manuals on ebay. It's where I got mine, and mine included from 2000-2003. I'd post instructions, but they'd be for a 2000. Not sure how different the 97-98 are compared to the 99-02 Expys.

 

[chrmar]

Well, I was looking on eBay for said manuals and they have them for 97s. The only thing is, shipping for them is something like $60 to Canada!

And in my experience with Mazdas, year-to-year differences aren't that large unless there's a major wiring change. But I would imagine that, if the 4.6L was a 2V in 2000-03 as well, there wouldn't be much difference.