Well I went to the AutoHobby shop to do the whole HG/ Timing Belt, water pump thing and put in a new piston and rod. My buddy came along too. Well let's say I didn't even get half way through the project. Took off the PS stuff was easy, even the crank pulley wasn't that difficult cuz they had the special "Chrysler Harmonic Dampner Puller" Thank God! The major pain was those darn motor mount bolts on the passenger side. Why does out car have to be so darn close to the side of the bay. I had to take off the front motor mount too. I got the first two off with a little motor positioning, but oh man that one closest to the firewall was a real SOB. I spent a good hour trying to manuever the plastic shield (which I will not put back on) and the motor mount to get that long az bolt through. It'd either get stuck on the A/C line or the pulley/ belt. Oh yeah, the removal would be so much easier for cars that don't have A/C cuz the lines kept getting in the way. The impact was real good help with the puller (I know, I know) but I used a cheater bar for others. There ain't much room to work in, but I got small hands (heh). I didn't drain anything yet except for disconnecting the upper radiator hose. I spent a good 6 hours at the shop and got to as far as taking off the cam gears. What do you think...bad for a 1st timer? Hopefully the head removal will be alot smoother since it's all from the topside. Got a couple of questions
-Do I need to remove the intake manifold or can I leave it on?
-I'm replacing my head bolts w/ ARP ones should so I need to take off the cams to get to the bolts right?

I have about 7 hours to make accomplish this. Foolish me I thought I'd get the wholthing done in a day, hah.

Any other tips to make this smoother would be greatly appreciated.
Alvin

http://www.cardomain.com/id/96rst

camp pendleton hobby shop? come pick me up! we'll have that bitchass thrown together with quickness

mine is at the hobby shop at SOI, camp pendleton

oh....Shoot, I wish. I'm up in the stumps...29 Palms. I might be getting stationed there next year though, are you in the Corps or Navy?
Alvin

http://www.cardomain.com/id/96rst

Leave the intake and exhaust manifolds on, less to put back on later. Yea the cams had to come out to remove the bolts.

Originally posted by 97xtc
Leave the intake and exhaust manifolds on, less to put back on later. Yea the cams had to come out to remove the bolts.

i was able to get my head off with my cams in last time :D but it all depends on the tools you are using

Originally posted by Semperboost
-Do I need to remove the intake manifold or can I leave it on?

yeah, you can leave it on, just remeber to unbolt the stupid cruise control box, before you try to pull the head off.

i take it this is your first time?
Once you've done it, its only like a 45min job :)

Nick
97RS

turbo8u> shut your SUCK
ZAO684: NIPPLE warning...maybe>?
turbo8u> yea i was a window licker on the short bus in junior high

Okay, so I left off with the cam gears off. So today I put the water pump on, easy a couple bolts. Took off the the valve cover and then removed the cam caps and placed in order, removed cams, removed head bolts (the snap it makes scred me a little, thought I stripped it). All this was easy until it came time to remove the head. I heard it's easy to 'open' the head like a backwards book. I unbolt the intake manifold bracket bolts, remove the downpipe from the turbine and remove the I/C piping. Well anxious about this I start to yank and lift the head, no go. Then I'm like lets remove some sensors, okay, now the oil return line, feed line, rubber heater hoses from the hard line, etc. So I'm like pulling stuff off while my friend is trying to tilt this mutha. So just F it unhook everything, not caring where it goes later then started yanking. Just stood on the bay and my friend and I pulled the head off. Inspected the HG and there was oil leaking though it, but the HG seemed in tact. Now time to pull the piston. I get an engine hoist and hook it up to the block bracket on the passenger side. Lower the jack and start to unbolt the oil pan. It was kinda hard to get to some of the boltsout cuz I still had the x-member bolted up. I unbolted the DP to Cat to drop the pan. Then I unbolted the #4 rod and pushed it through. Inspected the piston and saw a little crack between the 1st and 2nd ring. I picked at it and 1/2 the land fell right off, whoops. Then I stuffed a whole bunch of rags and paper towels in the cylinder to prep for honing. I used a flex hone and good ol WD-40, then after a good x-hatching (it looked like scaring) cleaned it with brake cleaner. Then I went to gap the rings, I got a set of these TopLine rings but the instructions do not have the gap sizes, but it does have something in spanish about .004" tolerance..?? The gap was like really big more than the stock gap. So I'm guessing I'll use the stock specs?
A couple other Qs.
-I also gap the (2) oil control rings?
-I have another set of new rings, should I hone my #2 cylinder (170 psi the others are 180) and put in new rings?
-How do you cover of the coolant passages when you scrape off the old HG or do you? I'm flushing the fluid out anyways so does it matter?
And one last question...

How in the heck do you some of you do all this work in one freakin day? I'm 1/2 way through and it took 2 days (6.5 hrs ea day) to do this.

Hey thanks again for the help and write-ups guys. I'll post again on Wed. when the Auto Hobby Shop re-opens.

dude, if you think about it. you could have pulled the engine in 2 hours. thats how long it takes me by myself, and pulling it by myself.