Wow. Very impressive. Rep points headed to ya!

 

Hey forest, I don't know if I would spend the money on the shop manual. The two hardest parts for me where 1)removing the fan and 2) removing the heater/ac box. This was because I just did not know how to remove then. I did figure out for the heater box that there is five nuts to remove inside the cab. some are visible and some are behind the glove box. Remove these and unhook the wires and two ac lines and wiggle out. If I remember right I removed the vacuume pump, vacuume canister, and battery first. Once removed there is plenty of room. On a side note, you will need to buy these cheap white plastic tools to remove one of the ac lines. I can't remember what it's called but it slips around the line and spreads out the round spring. I can get more info later on that tool.

Thanks for all the support
Jason

 

Your picture gallery is great--I've already copied all of the pix into a PDF file so that I can print out and use as a guide. How cold was it when you did this job? Looks like it could have been a bit breezy.

I've used one of those AC tools before--long time ago on an 86 Taurus. Maybe out in my garage somewhere. ha.

I guess I'm looking for a reason to buy a shop manual. Tearing 1/2 the engine apart seems like a good enough reason for me. By the way--what did you use for a torque wrench? Did you have any clearance problems getting torque wrench onto the nuts?

 

Using your experience as I guide I was thinking this might be possible. I've done all my mods myself; including the Fluidampr harmonic balancer. But then after looking at all the pictures, heads off, injectors out, etc. I'm intimidated again. This would be quite a job for a weekend warrior with a desk job. It would take weeks. Darn.

 

Hay forest, as far as the torque wrench goes I went to the local mills fleet and baught a 24' - 250 ft/lbs wrench. The brand was Pro-grade. I paid around $60 for it. If a person was doing this every day this probably would not be up for the task, but for what I did I hope it was close enough. Now to the clearance issues. On the drivers side rear it gets pretty close to the fire wall. I ended up taking a 2x2 piece of wood and a 2 lb mall to make room for the torque wrench. It didn't take much but it was needed. The drivers side rear back two studs were inserted in the head before it was put back in the truck. This was done by holding them in place with a couple of rubberbands pulling the studs together thus holding them in place. I wish I would have taken a picture but I didn't.

Pstrang, it does take some time but if a person started on a Friday night and had the heads removed by Sunday then during the week check the heads for flatness. By the next sunday it could be put back together. I had a vehicle that I could use during the week if needed so if my heads didn't check out flat then I could either have them machined or order new one's. Thank god I didn't have to do the latter of the two.

The one main piece of advice I have is take alot of pictures. I'm glad I did because I had to refer back to them when it was time to start putting the wiring harnes back in place.

Here's what to do: open hood, start removing parts, take pictures, remove heads with an engine lift, check for flatness the short way accross the heads, install new gaskets, put back together. Simple enough???

 

It did get down to only 10 degrees F. There isn't a picture but I had insulation stuffed all the way around the truck to keep the heat in and the breeze out. My waste oil boiler did go thru a little more oil than normal.

 

WOW! I just looked at your pics, You da man!

 

Me and a buddy are going to untake this task in a week and a half. I'll snap a few pics too. I am thinking of getting a port and polish job too.