Who here has changed their HG themselves?

[Superjustin13]

i'm currently doing mine for the first time. it's not that hard if you have pasiants... which i don't.

take your time, breath, don't through shit and make it a learning experiance.

p.s: should i rebuild the head myself or have the shop do it?

You Cant rebuild the head yourself.

im not being a dick, but do you Honestly know what your talking about and doing?

lol

and by "rebuild" do You mean a valve job, Resurfacing, and I know for a Fact you dont have enough Mechanical Experience to do the shims Properly on the head. lol


and Doing the hg is easy. Just get the block prepped right, i.e. scrap the block, wire brush it get it clean, get the head Shaved, use brake cleaner or some sort of cleaner to get the surfaces as clean as you can, put the hg on, torque the studs, hand tight , 15,25,40,55,60,70,80,85 you dont have to do it in that order, but the point is dont just hammer on them got to do the torquing in steps if u want it done properly.

 

[Disced]

The first time I did my HG replacement it was all me. My dad is a pretty big asshole sometimes and just watched me do everything; didn't ever help.

The one big piece of advice I can tell you is to label all of the bolts you take off by putting them into a baggy and then taping the bag closed and taping it to the part you removed.
Why, you may ask?

I have probably 20 nuts/bolts which don't go any where... Yes, thats right.
No where... But they did come from the engine!
:lol:
And also, follow the torque setting for the intake manifold.. I stripped out one of the god damned bolts from the upper plenum to the lower plenum.. Talk about pissing me off when you get close to being done(in fact you don't even need to take those apart but I didn't know and wanted to **clean** everything)

In the end you just want it back together, running.

I would go over the timing probably 30 times, as that is what took me the longest to get done. Trying to get that damn spline lined up perfectly into the side of the head... Bullshit directions from the manual!

 

[Disced]

Oh.. I think it cost me $150 total to get the head machined like .001, clean it up, and put back in the valves and such.

However, my machine shop made me removed the valves and such before I took it in; you will have to have someone show you how to do that shizzle, it's interesting to say the least and those little half circle lock things just fly all over the damn place!

 

[americanjebus]

ive done it.

i dont know why i laughed when you said this.

 

[JimR]

The easiest thing with all those nuts n bolts (and you're probably thinking ddduuuhhh) is to screw them back on as soon as you get the part off. Then you only have to worry about the ones that you can't do this with.

 

[lagged]

i dont know why i laughed when you said this.

hah.

once youve done it a couple times you wont need to label anything. just throw it all in a bag so you dont loose anything.

 

[miggles]

ive done 4 so far. Only 2 bhg's and 2 head swaps onto new bottom ends.

 

[monkihead]

i've done it twice...

it was wonderful..(spaceballs)

 

[SacoMan]

Something nobody told me...

if you want to do the head with the engine inside DONT BUY STUDS!!!!! I had to put the studs after droping the head and use fingergrip of death and a very basic preasure tool to torque the studs properly then using the dynometer wrench to torque it to 75-80 cant remember.

Did it in 3 weekends slowly since its not my dd

Take pictures of everything you do with a digi cam, use plastic bags with labels on it.

 

[thesandymancan]

You Cant rebuild the head yourself.

im not being a dick, but do you Honestly know what your talking about and doing?

lol

and by "rebuild" do You mean a valve job, Resurfacing, and I know for a Fact you dont have enough Mechanical Experience to do the shims Properly on the head. lol


and Doing the hg is easy. Just get the block prepped right, i.e. scrap the block, wire brush it get it clean, get the head Shaved, use brake cleaner or some sort of cleaner to get the surfaces as clean as you can, put the hg on, torque the studs, hand tight , 15,25,40,55,60,70,80,85 you dont have to do it in that order, but the point is dont just hammer on them got to do the torquing in steps if u want it done properly.

it's true, i'm mechanicaly retarded... but i'm learning! i'm having a shop do all the head work so all i do is reassemble everything, i.e. replace what i fucked up.

 

[boost fiend]

the cleaner your engine bay is, the easier it is to replace it.