Help it's stuck!

[whitty]

Winter project was to do the exhaust manifolds, after much Plus Gas and blow torch still broke them blasted bolts, so now heads have to come off, I've removed the plenum, rockers and torx bolts from the head but the damn thing wont budge, had the car jacked up with a piece of wood under the exhaust port, didn't even flinch.

Am I missing something, I've never had one this stubborn before but never done a V6 before either, I don't want to bust anything.

[s3swiss]

I know you probably already have, but is it worth another check ALL the bolts are out?
When I did mine, the head lifted fairly easily once the bolts were out - just needed a gentle tap sideways with a mallet to break the gasket seals. You've obviously got the distributor out as well?!...

[whitty]

All the Bolts definately out, however I have still got the dizzy and the inlet manifold in place, as neither appeared to interfere with the head and neither the bible, haynes manual or other documents make any referance to needing to remove them, I was kind of hoping not to have to take the dizzy out to save haveing to do the timeing again, not a problem but one less thing to worry about. Think I'll remove them both and see what happens.

[GreenV8S]

whitty said:

however I have still got ... the inlet manifold in place

Traditionally, the inlet manifold is bolted to the head; this would lock the two heads together making it rather difficult to shift either of them.

[intrepid]

Yep, did mine last year - the inlet manifold and distributor had to come off.

[s3swiss]

Aha - that will make it sooo much easier! If you get a V6 top gasket set, you'll need to use just about all the gaskets including the inlet manifold regardless of whether you remove one or both heads. For info - my new head gasket seemed a bit tight over the guide studs I was using (cut-down used head bolts), double and then triple check it is the right way round! Having 2 head gaskets increases the likelihood of fitting the wrong one the wrong way round. I left mine 'dry' assembled overnight (not torqued down) to make sure all fitted fine.
Re the distributor - mark the flange on the base of the shaft and put a matching tell tale mark on the engine - this will save loads of grief when refitting as you need to offset the shaft to allow the gearwheel to engage. I then adjusted mine with a strobe to match the readings in the bible, but might pop it into Ford dealer at some stage just to fine-tune using their FAST tuner.
Take your time over the re-assembly as once or twice I nearly completed the wrong step out of sequence which would have meant another strip-down!

[whitty]

Cheers for the advice guys, you confirmed what I suspected, 1. I am a numpty, and 2.That you need to read the haynes from cover to cover before starting, I'll have a little bash later this week and see how we go. This whole distributor removal sounds a bit technical in the book. I am well used to marking flange and block, but then it goes on about setting to No 1 quadrant and then removing without a twist and marking rotar position when removed, I supose this is all to do with the gears meshing on removal and refit.

[clarenceboddiger]

whitty said:

This whole distributor removal sounds a bit technical in the book. I am well used to marking flange and block, but then it goes on about setting to No 1 quadrant and then removing without a twist and marking rotar position when removed, I supose this is all to do with the gears meshing on removal and refit.

If you mark the flange and the block and also the position of the rotor with the Distributor body (tippex works), as long as you dont move the crank when the distributor's out it should be a 1 or 2 attempt job to reinsert in the correct position.If your out by 1 gear tooth it will be obvious.I wouldnt worry too much about its position when its out, the logic of that is so that you should get it back in right first time,however if you dont mark its position against the dist'r body before you take it out ,how would you know for certain.

[whitty]

Got it finally shifted the N/S head, still took some doing, water galleries are not in a good state some almost completely covered at the head gasket point, will be looking to give it a good clean out before reassembly. Thanks for all the advice, now to drill those pesky bolts out the manifold mounts, carefully does it.

Thanks for all the advice, never know I might have back together for Rockingham!