No, those are drains for the high pressure oil rail for the injectors. If you pull those out, smack them with a hammer first, sometimes they are tighter than Dick's hat band! I broke the end off a hex socket in one and couldn't get it out. Probably really no need to remove those unless you were tearing the engine completely down and getting it hot tanked and such.

 

That WP should have a rubber gasket, not silicone. It looks like it used to have one that half gone. I think the oil galley drain plugs don't have O rings, IIRC. Pipe threads????

 

Huh. Maybe it was removes and put back on by the PO? Or it was salvaged one? There've been several questionable things done to the truck this engine came out of...

As for those plugs. Sounds like 2 votes that they're staying untouched. Good enough for me. If they are pipe thread, they're prob loctite'd or otherwise sealed in place. No need to mess with that :-)

 

Justa FYI. The factory did NOT(nor should you) use RTV on the water pump O-ring. That is why there is an O-RING

 

Yeah, pretty sure it was the hack PO that used the RTV. There was actually some stuck in the old tstat -which is prob why it wasn't working. I think I'll pull all the block plugs and make sure to flush it real well before putting the new pump on to make sure to get any old RTV bits out.

Guess I should inspect the oil cooler real well before reassembly as well. No sense in putting a plugged core back in...

 

If dropping the oil pan, inspect the oil pickup for cracks and RTV on the screen from another job of the PO.

 

If you pull the oil pan check the piston cooling jets too to make sure that they're all firmly attached. They're known to come off occasionally. Also plan to turn the engine over upside down to reinstall the pan. That is really the only way to get the oil to quit running down onto the mating surfaces so that you can get a good seal with the silicone.

 

good call - I'm definitely dropping the oil pan, but thorough inspection for cracks and extraneous RTV is a good call, for sure, Glenn.

yep - I plan to turn it over to remove, repaint and reseal the pan - but only after I strip off as much weight as possible. this sucker is heavy! i'll add the checking of the cooling jets to my to-do list, though - thanks for the info, Nate!

 

I would pull the pan just to replace it. God knows it is rusty as F#*K

 

I was thinking I'd put the work into cleaning and repainting it as long as the rust isn't too terrible upon closer inspection - it doesn't actually look all that bad.

my thinking was that the paint (or e-coat, whatever they use) on a new pan is going to be pretty cheap stuff, and I'd rather put several coats of good high-temp paint on there myself. so, new or old, it'll be similar amounts of prep work.

...again, as long as there is no major rust that I'm not seeing at present.

 

Enough POR15 to hit the pan, crossmember, and whatever else you normally can't access in that area shouldn't be too outrageous. A gallon is like $150 but they make a couple smaller sizes too.

 

Well, its been a few weeks, but I was able to spend about 3 hours working on my engine disassembly this weekend and made pretty good progress. So, here comes a long post with lots of pictures. I do have a few questions at the end, though, so feel free to skip to there if this sort of work is old news to you :-)

The bulk of the time was spent removing the passenger side exhaust manifold, then extracting the cutoff bolts from the head. After breaking a socket on the front manifold bolt (I started with it since it looked least rusty), I went to sear to pick up some new (guaranteed) sockets. While there, I noticed these sockets that I had never seen before – kind of like female versions of easy-outs:



Let me tell you – I’m can’t imagine removing rusted manifolds without these things! (more on this later)

So, using these tools, I could get the frontmost and rearmost bolts loose. Everything else just rounded over, so I busted out the sawzall with an abrasion/grinder blade on it and cut the remaining bolts between the manifold and the head. I should say here that I had been spraying down these bolts with PB blaster for months now and was pretty convinced that the main sticking point was the head of the bolts being rusted solid to the manifold itself. I whacked each one real good with a hammer and even went around under the head/flange of each bolt with an old chisel trying to break up the rust, but no luck!

After cutting the remaining six bolts the separated parts looked like this:





Now, the main reason for taking this manifold off (besides wanting to clean up the rusty mess real good) was a suspected leak at the rear port. Without touching anything, here are the two mating surface of the rear port.





Now, I don’t know about you, but the head port doesn’t show any clear signs of a significant leak, and its kind of hard to tell on the manifold port. Maybe the clicking/tapping I was always hearing on that side was just a poorly sealing valve cover – as evidenced by the RTV used in that location by the PO? or maybe it was a leak where the manifold meets the uppipe - those rusty bolts are necked down to almost nothing. I still need to cut them apart and inspect that joint though. the donuts at the collector all seemed in fine shape though - not soot escaping anywhere, so probably no leak there - but i'll def do bellows on the rebuild regardless.

Anyway – regardless of this leak or not, I now had the remnants of 6 headless bolts to remove from the block. Back to the bolt extractors/female easy outs. Two more of them came out using the #4 bit and just hammering it on real good.



The remaining 4 – which were the inner-most ones – the ones that see the most heat, I guess – still didn’t want to budge and the #4 bit just spun on them. after cutting a slot in one of the cut bolts and hammering on the #3 size bit – which failed miserably (see to the right in the image below), I tried just grinding a hex into the cut-off bolt (to the left in the image below) and that worked great. Hammered on the #3 bit, put the cheater pipe on my 3/8” drive breaker bar and out they came.



Which leaves me with that one last one to drill and easy-out out. that'll be step 1 next weekend.

So, with this manifold off and looking like it maybe wasn’t leaking at all anyway, I think I’ll leave the driver’s side one it place and just blast as much rust off of it as I can and paint it up real good. any thoughts on that plan – agree/disagree?



Then, with the uppipe and collector out of the way, it was very easy to get the turbo off – I can’t imagine how its done with the up-pipe and collector in place, though!



I had taken the fuel bowl out a few weeks ago, so here’s a pic of it then:



And one with the turbo and fuel pump gone - man, it sure looks great without all that crap in there:



as for the old fuel pump hole - its a 7/8" freeze plug that goes in there, right? anyone have a good place to buy loose freeze plugs? everywhere I see wants to sell me a big variety pack.

Finally, to confirm Glenn’s comments (I think it was Glenn) about removing all stock fuel lines when doing efuel since there is rubber within the factory fittings, here is the photographic confirmation:





Definitely some old, beat-up rubber in there!

So, next weekend (hopefully), I’ll remove the HPOP, harmonic balancer, LPOP and old engine mounts and maybe be ready to turn her over for the oil pan removal.

As for the HPOP and balancer – any advice on removing them? I should be able to figure out the HPOP, but there are probably some tricks. As for the balancer – is it as simple as jamming the flywheel on the other end of the engine? That’ll be putting a lot of torque on the crankshaft, but I guess that’s what its designed for, huh? I’ll give the manual a read beforehand, but I’m sure it’ll say to go buy special tool Rotunda FXZT-HKOEF-HEIVE-………..

 

Wow, good pictures JP! No, that wasn't me who said about the rubber on the stock fuel lines but it is good your getting them 'gone'. I know you don't want to do another exhaust manifold but I've done two drivers side one's in the truck. I don't know if the drivers side is more likely to leak but if it was me, I would do it. It surprises me that after a month of soaking they still gave you that much trouble! I soaked mine for a week or so before attempting to get the bolts out and still only a few came out so I soaked some more. Have you tried Kroil (sp) penetrating oil?

 

Thanks, Glenn.

I haven't tried Kroil, but have read about it. maybe this is the time to do it. I searched a while for it about a year ago, but couldn't find any local dealers. then, I noticed it somwehre recently and thought, 'oh, that's good to know that these guys carry it.' now I can't think of where that was!!!

and yeah, I'm torn about the DS manifold. you have to remove the oil cooler to get to the bolts, right? and it'll certainly be much easier to do out of the truck than in at a later date. but then, again, 'if it ain't broke....' right?

and sorry about falsely attributing advice to you :-) it was a month or so ago now and I though it was you - oh well :-)

EDIT: maybe this is where I found it: http://www.mcmaster.com/#1463k13/=q8g8p3 $20 a can aint cheap, but from what I hear, its expensive wherever you cand find it, and for quick delivery to my door, I'm happy to pay - unless someone else knows of somewhere common that has it cheaper...

EDIT2: found it for $26 at Eastwood and on Amazon for the same 16oz can. McMaster, it is, I guess. in looking around I came across CRC "Freez Off" anyone every tried that. some reviews say "better than Kroil" not sure if I believe it, but at $10 a can, maybe its worth a try.

 

Looks good JP!

I would second the advice of Glenn and recommend you do both exhaust manifolds. As tough as it is with the engine on the stand can you imagine trying to do that with the engine in the truck? The only question I guess I have is what you plan to do with the heads. If you're planning on pulling them then I would have the faces machined on both the heads and the manifolds and then fit them back up. If you're not planning on pulling the heads then I think it is a toss-up whether to mess with the manifolds. And since you mention teh oil cooler, I would recommend pulling it anyways and putting new o-rings in it. They're a messy job when the engine is in the truck and it's bound to leak sooner or later, you may as well remove that chance when it's easy. It will be $70 well spent.

For what it's worth it seems to me that every PSD I've ever heard seems to have a tap or knock on the #7 cylinder. I have heard from some that it is because that injector doesn't get as much HPO supply as the rest and that a HPX will help, but I don't know if that's the case or just snake oil.

For the Harmonic balancer, the easiest way to get it loose is to use a big impact wrench if you have it. Otherwise, I think what you're talking about with blocking the flywheel is probably the best way to go about it. The crankshaft is more than durable enough to take the torque, believe me.

For the HPOP, it's pretty doggone straight forward. Pull the hoses off the head, pull the little cover in the front and remove the bolt from the gear, then pull the bolts off the pump(from the back), separate it from the gear and off it comes. It's not too tough really. The only caution I would give is to go really easy on the bolts when you put it back together. They just thread into the aluminum front cover so it's relatively easy to strip them out and if you do then you have to drill, tap and install helicoils (right Glenn?).