Christmas Eve

Too busy to take the day off.

So, off to work. Did I mention it was 31 degrees and the garage has only one oil heater we keep in there to keep the cat from dying? 

It was cold.  And iron engine parts stay cold.

But, time's a wastin'.

Bur first, did I mention I wrote a book?

And for a glorious moment it was beating Jenny McCarthy.

 Sorry, I'm easily distracted by shiny objects.

The engine. Got the gaskets in, heads back, new injectors.  Time to rock.

See, this looks organized.

 I took a few days and cleaned everything up as nice as I could make it.  As per the instructions, I installed all the head studs and went to install the gasket.

Ohhhh, progress.

 Short lived progress.

The gasket wouldn't go on. The down pipe for the turbo was in the way and I couldn't get the gasket on without bending it all crazy.  That didn't sound like a good idea, so I pulled all the head studs back out and only left the two in where the dowels go to hold it in place.

Better, now to put the rest of the head studs back in.

 Then, I grabbed the heavy-ass, cold, and obnoxiously unwieldy head and fought it into position over the studs. I started to slide it down and it stopped.

It refused to go any further. It didn't want to come back off either.

This can't be good.

So, I let it go and looked. It was catching on this accordion folded part of the exhaust pipe.  I imagined all the terrible things that were happening to the threads on the studs. 

Curse word.

So, I pulled it back off.

The dreaded horror pipe is to the left.

 About this time I was pulled away to go to a neighbor's Christmas lunch. It is Christmas Eve after all. And, I like these neighbors, so I went.

For about an hour, then back.

I loosened some bolts and tried to wiggle things out of the way and I came to a conclusion. Either the whole exhaust manifold had to come off, with some very difficult to reach bolts, or the heads needed to go on before the head studs.

Oh yeah, and to reach the bolts to remove the exhaust manifold, I had to remove some of the head studs.

So, the head studs came back out except for two just to help with alignment.  Then, the head studs went back in... For the third time.  Did I mention it was cold metal? My fingers were starting to go numb.

But...

Got that sucker on there.

 To make sure everything lined up, I decided to get the driver's side head on before torquing down the passenger side. And, I had learned a few things.

I knew the driver's side would be more difficult because the lean in is more awkward due to the steering equipment and the firewall was in the way. If you recall from tear down, the far right, bottom bolt had to come out with the head as there wasn't enough room to pull it out any other way. So, it had to go in with the head. 

Talk about a pain. It is hard enough holding that heavy, oddly-shaped, and cold head out at full extension and trying to line it up with the block. Now I had to hold a bolt in place too? 

So, I tried braining it instead of muscle-ing it.

This was the result.

 I left the studs out, except the one held in place by the two rounds of electrical tape holding it up, and set the head on.  Then, I screwed in the studs. 

Ta-Da!

 Then, Sarah sent Max out to inform me she had hot coffee waiting for me.  My numb fingers and nose told me it was too good to pass up. I could come back out after and torque everything down.

But, she also gave me a Christmas Eve gift. 

The torquing will have to wait.

Merry Christmas everyone.