More Head Gasket Chronicles

Anybody tired of working on cars yet?

Maybe it's just me.

I am not spending as much time working on it as I need to, but luckily, there isn't a real deadline to get it done. 

Back at it. 

How many days now?

So, let's get back to it.

I am taking this a little haphazardly at times.  Since I really don't know what I'm doing, I have to figure out the best order to take things out.  Right now, that decision tree boils down to what do I have to take out to reach the bolt that takes out that other thing.

There are lots of things to take out. 

With the additional room at the front of the engine bay, I can reach some things I couldn't before.

This is how we start the day. 

Our first goal was to pull out the alternator bracket/tensioner pulley

A couple of bolts and out it comes.  Easy.

Noting the wiring harness here. The corrugated black thing in the center of the picture runs down and has two clips that plug into the front of the engine and one tiny branch runs underneath.

Right there.  Passenger side, forward.

Next up, on the driver's side, the power steering pump.

Bolted to teh front and side of the same bracket that holds the AC compressor

 On the write up I read, the guy just used some baling wire to suspend the pump out of the way. I am not that well organized and a little short on baling wire.

I disconnected the hoses and pulled out the pump.

That was all I had time for. Off to work. 

Day 9. that's what that means.

Back again the next morning.

The wiring harness is in the way. Like really in teh way and I want it out.  So, the plan for day nine was to get it as far out of the way as I possibly could.


Starting on the passenger side.

The glow plug wires are the far end.

I labeled everything the best I could and just went for it.

A close up of the wires mentioned earlier

Peeling back the monster. 

AS I got over to the other side, I noticed the wiring harness wrapped around the fuel lines and I couldn't figure out how to disconnect one of the connectors on the glow plug controller. It got all tangled and messy in there. 

So, with frustration mounting.  I decided to call it a day. 


It occurred to me that some of you out there in internet-land might think I am in this large shop with all this space and tools to work.  Well, you would be half right.  The garage is large.  Just barely large enough to put the truck in. 

I figured I would post a few pictures to show the working conditions. 

There used to be a work bench there.

We weren't planning on extensive car repairs yet. We still

See, it fits. With about three inches to spare.

Then it was off to work.

Suddenly, a challenger appeared.  Instead of getting right back to work on the truck, I had to do this.

Because there wasn't already enough to do.

The Subaru had the right front wheel bearing go out on it.  I spent the morning working on that and went back to the truck after lunch.

Day 10?

Yeah, not tonight. Election results are coming in and I just lost all my will to do anything.