Head Gasket Chronicles - Nearing Mordor.

So, it was busy.

Really busy.

I worked, did ACLS, PALS, worked again and managed to get a little done on the truck.  Yesterday was a day off and I just shut it down.  I tried to do stuff and "Nope"ed instead.

Oh yeah, and building a wall.  Don't forget building a wall.

Our house is a manufactured house and as such, is up off the ground. The skirting that surrounded it and kept our air was mostly rotten and partially ripped off. We had 600 cinder blocks delivered a few weeks back with the intention of building the skirting wall out of them.

Then the truck broke.

And here we are.

I was going to put up a picture of the wall, but even I have some pride.

Winter was coming too fast and I just stacked the blocks next to the house.  I didn't have time to make it all nice and neat and level.

Sigh.

I know, I know, on to the truck pictures.



With the wiring harness out of the way, things are a little more accessible.

Took off the fuel filter bracket.  Long overdue.

I have stacks of parts labeled with electricians tape like this.

Over on the other side, I finally got the glow plug controller free.

 That one took a minute. I couldn't figure out how to get the larger connector undone. I slid the exterior of the body of the connector out from under the plug and toward the driver side fender. 

Behind it, I found a bastard.

The glow plug controller bracket... Bastard.

Took off all the bolts and discovered another one.

Yeah, there's another bolt on the left, inboard side behind the bracket and snuggled up near the firewall.  It's a 12 mm for those of you playing along with the home game.  The space is too small for a ratchet. So, the only option I could see was a box wrench with my hand sliding back behind the bracket. 

Didn't work.

This stupid bolt frustrated me to no end. I actually didn't get if off until I had lots more off. I got it after I got the fuel rails and fuel lines off the top of the engine. I crawled up on top of everything and used the closed end of another wrench over the open end of the 12 mm so I could push it down.  Finally came off.  I called that thing several names unpronounceable in any language.

Anyway.

After struggling and failing with that bracket for a while, I moved to the passenger side and pulled off the little bracket up at the front.

For some reason, the picture won't upload.  Don't worry, it is easy to remove, one allen wrench and thirty seconds.  That's why I chose it.

Now, on to the fuel lines.

I pulled all the fuel lines going across the top of the engine and the lines going from the fuel rails to the injectors.

Oh NO!  It looks like the head gasket is shot here.  I hope that's all it is.

Sans fuel lines

Seriously, that's disgusting. 

Then, I pulled off the big tube there in the middle, the exhaust gas recirc maybe?  Big funnel, that's what I'll call it.

Big funnel, right in the middle.

Yeah, more disgusting in there too.

Took it, took the fuel rails and brackets, all of it.

I finally even got the bastard out.

And that is where I leave it. 

Now, I have to figure out how to get the y-bridge out without pulling the turbo. They say it's easy, just unbolt the 4 bolts.

Yeah, guess where two of those bolts are?

Some more research is required. Nothing tomorrow though, kid's flag football party and then off to work.  Maybe Sunday or Monday. 

Yeah, a little much.

Sometimes I just get a little overwhelmed.

So, I say to hell with it and take the day off, mostly.

Where were we? How many days? 

I've decided it doesn't matter anymore. Crediting a whole day when I got to spend thirty minutes or an hour working on the head gaskets is depressing.  It will take how long it will take.

As an aside, one of my co-workers laughed and asked if I knew how much the mechanic was going to charge to fix it when I couldn't get it back together.

He laughed, I laughed, I cried a little.

On we go.

One last pointy finger, for old time's sake.

Beginning the day.

I had a couple of things I wanted to get accomplished, and I almost did.

I got one.

I needed to disconnect the fuel lines to get the ignition wiring harness off. 

These freaking things. They don't come off, no matter how hard you pull on them.

Yes, my level of ignorance is borderline dangerous. 

I live this way. Don't judge me.

So, it turns out I needed a special tool for that.

To Harbor Freight!

Add $14 to the repair total!

This is how it works, push it in and pull the hose off.

Then, I went underneath and disconnected to the glow plug wires and fuel injector leads just like the other side. I disconnected the glow plug controller by pulling the bottom part of the bracked toward the driver's side and it came off.  I thought I had a picture of that, but I can't find it. 

Then, I pulled it out.

With that out of the way, it was going to be easier to access and pull out the fuel injection lines which would be near to end of the tear down. Things should really speed up.

Of course, real life intervened. 

Work days, then a cold snap that required me to try to build some of the skirting around the house to keep the pipes from freezing. Oh yeah, and I had to recertify in ACLS so I could keep working. 

None of this helped the truck

So, I have to work tomorrow and I have to recertify PALS on Tuesday. I will get back to truck stuff and hopefully get the heads off soon.  There are a few more tools to buy. 

Sigh.

I try.  I really do.

Just have to keep at it.

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.

The Head Gasket Chronicles.

When last we left, I had just finished a productive day off from work and was looking forward to getting a few things done in the hours before I had to head off to work. 

Wouldn't be much perhaps, but with small nibbles, whole meals are consumed.

How did I do?

Last finger on the hand

 There was something holding me up.  And it looked like this...

That thing, there in the middle.

In order to access many more parts, I needed to get the fan clutch off.  That required a tool I didn't have.  So, there would be a trip to the auto parts store.  Time was limited that day, so I looked around for something big to take off and found.

Something little instead.

 Yeah, that wire was sitting right on top of the AC compressor.  It wasn't hooked up to anything, just sitting there.  This, of course, means it is vital to the operation of the vehicle and will certainly be my doom.

Sigh. 

What can I take off?

Pretty blue color. Get rid of it.

The lower radiator/turbo intercooler, whatever it is. Came off, no problem.

Upper radiator hose. Comes right off there at the radiator no problem.

This is what never seems to get mentioned in shop manuals and write ups like this.  Something simple, like pulling off a radiator hose, will drive you batty.  No matter how I pulled, pushed, twisted and tugged, it wouldn't come off the other side. The hose clamp is one of those types you have to squeeze with pliers instead of unscrew and it was also built in to the actual hose, so I couldn't just move it up or down past the ridge on the pipe underneath.

I sweated, struggled, cursed and spat at that damn thing for an hour.

I wanted to cut it off, but had visions of it being some specialty radiator hose for a hundred million dollars or something. Besides, it should just COME RIGHT OFF!

It didn't. Thus endeth day five.

Yeah.  Take that radiator hose.

I returned the next day, in the few hours before work for...

HA! Didn't have to take off my shoes.

And I brought reinforcements.

I got the fan removal wrench as a loan-a-tool from Autozone (thank you Autozone.) I also got a breaker bar for the serpentine belt tensioner pulley. And look right there.

A replacement radiator hose.

DIE MOTHE...uh, sorry.  Much quicker that way.

Then, I attached the wrench to the fan clutch and turned. 

And the whole thing turned with it.  I had left the serpentine belt on because I heard it would keep everything still when I turned the nut, but alas, no. 

Again, I appeared to be short a tool.  However, the universe occasionally makes up for things like radiator hoses that don't come off.  Right there, in front of the truck, something caught my eye.

Something that was sitting there acting as a lock on a sliding window.

Is that what I think it is? Nah, couldn't be.

No way that happens, right?

Way.

Holy Cow look at all that room.

Probably best if I remember how that goes on.

 Then, it was off to work.

The next day, I gave the whole truck the finger and just rested before my shift in the ER. 

Yeah. 

Then, on my first day off, I went back at it.

But, I forgot to take a picture of a seven so,

7

Day seven started with a bang. I took the AC compressor off and pulled it out of the way. I read on a diesel forum that I could just take it over to the passenger side battery tray and didn't have to disconnect the pressurized hoses. YAY!

Then it was a bunch of fiddly little wires and connectors that I hadn't been able to reach or needed to get out to get at things.

Such a pain in the butt.

And yet, these pictures will be vital to putting it all back together.

Yeah, that connection right there needs to be made.

That looks hard to reach.

I got tired of chasing down wires and realized there was this thing that straddled the whole engine that was blocking access to so many thing.  I think it is called a crossover tube. 

It is the black tube just to the left of the blue hose. 

And, of course, it has a little hellish rubber hose.

The little freaking thing took forever to get off.  But, I'm improving.

Then, I took off the pipe that goes into the blopck from the radiator. The two thermostats were in it. I took a video to remember which one goes in which position. It seems important. If anyone is interested in seeing the videos, I will post them. Just ask. Otherwise, I'll save the time.


Then, it was the big fu*(&ng metal thing.  I don't know what it's called, so that will have to do.  It can be seen best in an older picture as I didn't take a good picture when I pulled it out.

Looks different huh? It's the big downpipe in the center.

Came right off. Then I started working on the alternator and the brackets holding the alternator and the ac compressor.

Note the lack of a big fu(*^&ng metal thing

And this bracket.

 As I took the bolts out for the AC compressor bracket, I noted the bottom hole had a much longer bolt than the rest. It is the bottom hole.

Pointy finger!

And pointy finger at the bolt!

And that was about all I got done on that day off.

Today, I was primed for more.

Not really.

I was tired. It was a beautiful, sunny day. We decided to say to hell with it and take the day off. 

We went for a walk in the woods.  We found mushrooms. 

It was good.