Quick question on removing the head on the turbo engine. In the past I've always had the luxury of working on the head while the engine was out of the car. I need to replace a leaky head gasket. Can the head/intake/exhaust (turbo) manifold assembly be removed as a unit or do I need to remove the manifolds (etc.) before removing the head? I really hate the idea of trying to get to all those manifold nuts and bolts with the limited space available.

Thanks,

JCW

This IS in the archives, as I have posted at LEAST three times in the past photographic evidence of me PERSONALLY removing the head without taking anything off but the valve cover and sprocket bolts.

[www.cardomain.com]



There is no reason to take the extra parts off if you can lift it.

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People Are Idiots, Just look around here and you will see!
Tony D: "Knowledgeable but Caustic"... rationull
You simply can't call someone a F**ktard here, no matter how truthful it is.
[www.ozdat.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit was august 19, 12:13pm.

Tony, that picture looks like it was taken from the dashboard camera of a squad car that just pulled up on you while you were "borrowing"that head from somebody.Not only can you get the head off without removing the manifolds, but you can do it in less than two minutes, with the hood shut.

Bigfoot's body is supposedly in scientific care at the moment. Was this the before picture? LOL.!




No, you cannot see a picture of me.

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I'm concerned with all the rampant sex and nudity on TV but all I can do is sit at home shaking my fist.

See the t-shirt I'm wearing?

"HRT"

Hemp Racing Team

What was that you said about cops and headlights???

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People Are Idiots, Just look around here and you will see!
Tony D: "Knowledgeable but Caustic"... rationull
You simply can't call someone a F**ktard here, no matter how truthful it is.
[www.ozdat.com]

You got that in Flin-Flon underground where the golf cart crews race, didn't you?

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I'm concerned with all the rampant sex and nudity on TV but all I can do is sit at home shaking my fist.

I got that a long time ago...
In Vegas...had to be 1999.

I freaked out two people on that trip...just before I quit that company.

I was on the way out, I knew it, and I wanted to make them scratch their heads and fu*k with their minds.

To this day I can still hear old Bob screaming on the phone to legal "WHADDYA MEAN HE TESTED NEGATIVE, I SAW HIM FIRE IT UP IN THE CASINO AND SMOKE IT IN FRONT OF ME! There's no WAY he's NOT positive!"

Ahhhh, playing with the heads of weaker witted superiors. Such good sport.

Then I quit, and my partner and I took $2.2 million dollars in service revenue from them the next year, and for three years subsequent.

As I later posed that rhetorical to the National Service Manager:
"In retrospect, $21 an hour wasn't that much money after all, now was it, Dave?"


MUAHAHAHAHAHA!

They would not let me take photos at the 163 level in Flin Flon. I could see it, but like the stories go to the uninitiated in the Navy regarding Subic Bay Liberty Calls: "Until you see it personally, you would not believe the stories even if I did take the time to tell you!"

LOL

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People Are Idiots, Just look around here and you will see!
Tony D: "Knowledgeable but Caustic"... rationull
You simply can't call someone a F**ktard here, no matter how truthful it is.
[www.ozdat.com]

A buddy of mine who also has an autistic daughter is the head biologist for hemp research, government funded of course, here in Alberta. You'd be surprised what I would believe. Or, having been to Manitoba's center, maybe you wouldn't be surprised at what I would believe. You've seen firsthand. LOL

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I'm concerned with all the rampant sex and nudity on TV but all I can do is sit at home shaking my fist.

Once you've been into the P.I. you know what a 'league' is...
$5, and my mouth started watering. I had to step away from the situation...

"The Dude Abides"

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People Are Idiots, Just look around here and you will see!
Tony D: "Knowledgeable but Caustic"... rationull
You simply can't call someone a F**ktard here, no matter how truthful it is.
[www.ozdat.com]

Hey Tony,have you seen new pics of the bridge over sh*t river lately? Ever spend time in the Apple Club in Olongapo? And you are right about the stories. Unless you've been there.........

To go here, I always travelled on 'The Freedom Bird' (Below)

Old "Fat Jack" the 43 year old 'old guy' I worked with had a friend who's mom owned a 'nightclub in the P.I.' and he always talked about how his friend always told him to come visit with him for two weeks and that 'everything will be on us, just pay for the flight'---well Fat Jack was pretty timid in just about every respect from travel to food choices, and to impress us would try and regale us all with stories about being a "swinger in the 70's" in Detroit (yawn!) and 'how could you 24 year old's know anything about what it was like?'

We told him in somewhat graphic terms and he was in total disbelief.

He didn't believe our stories. Then I met the friend. Come to find out that the bar his mother owned was the one NEXT TO THE NIPA HUT! I called him a piece of the female anatomy which is oft referred to as a cat for the way he was skipping out on that opportunity "Mr. 70's Swinger"!

There were three of us working there, one guy off the Shasta, another off one of the CVN's that was always Westpackin' and me...Mr. TDY to Clark for 90 days at a time...

ALL of use were no more than 25, and no matter what stories we told, Old Fat Jack just never believed them. So I had a friend still stationed there go an film a Wet T-Shirt Contest at The Nipa Hut and send me the VHS tape.

Old Fat Jack sat affixed, in disbelief. He remained curiously silent about his escapades in his youth afterwards. We often said he would have gotten married had he gone on the vacation trip with Manny... And curiously enough "I'm his age" now, and I don't act as damn decrepit as he did! With him it was always 'you say that now, but when you get to be my age...' everybody thought he was something like 60+. We had contractors in that were in their 70's that outworked that Fat, Useless, Lazy, Bastard! Man, I hated Fat Jack. What a waste of human flesh.

And we didn't even get to battery acid on the pesos, stuck atop the SanMiguel Bottle for "Three, two, one...JACKPOT!"

"Banana Banana Banana!"

Oh, you bastards have regressed me to filth. BAAAAAAAD forum members! BAAAAAAAAD Forum Members!

Oh, I digress. No, I have not seen photos of the new bridge. Anybody else chuck money in for the kids to fish out?

(hangs head in shame, skulks to darkness)

For all the kids out there, the worst that was possible at that time was PRG if you were straight... The Drip. Wooooooooooooo!

Man, I got phrases that are burned in my mind from those days...


The guy who I hoisted these photos from was deployed TDY there same timeframe as I was, 1984-1989.

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People Are Idiots, Just look around here and you will see!
Tony D: "Knowledgeable but Caustic"... rationull
You simply can't call someone a F**ktard here, no matter how truthful it is.
[www.ozdat.com]



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit was august 19, 03:29pm.

I spent 13 years knocking about that part of the world when I was "haze gray and underway". I'm 71 now and I'd go back in a second! When you are 'too old' for that, you are already dead and have just forgotten to lay down!

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A destination is merely an excuse to drive a Z !

1988 300ZX white with blue body panels due to wreck,daily driver
1982 280zx 2+2, metallic orange and black, started body work and prep for paint
1985 300zx white, finishing repairs for gift to grandson
1987 300zx red, needs transmission installed
1987 300zx gold, needs minor engine repair
79 280zx blue, waiting for title and total rebuild

Tony's photographic proof notwithstanding, unless you're really pressed for time I would suggest that you at least consider taking the manifolds off before the removing the head. Not only will your lower back thank you, everythings just easier to manage that way. Plus it's not THAT hard to get the assembly on and off, since the intake and exhasust manifolds come off as one big piece. Once you get some of the driver's side stuff in the engine compartment out of the way, the nuts holding the manifolds on are relatively easy to get to. Just be patient and have lots of differing-size socket extensions handy.

Ah Tony...the memories. I used to live in Subic Bay when I was wee lad of 12 years old. My dad used to drag me out to Butt's Watering Hole over in the barrio, or if he was in the mood for some female interaction, out to Olongopo. Those were some of the best father/son bonding moments...lol.

Not to mention, Olongopo has some of of the most mackadocious, smack-a-lackin, questionable street food you will ever get your teeth on. I miss that place.

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1973 240ZT - my money pit.
2006 Acura TSX - my DD.

Questionable street food is an understatement. But hey,after a long hard night of drinking rot gut rum and San Magoo and fighting off some very touchy ah female bar patrons,and on top of that,had to be off the streets and out of public places,curfew,that questionable strret food was pretty good. Just don't ask the person selling the food,hey where is your dog that was with you yesterday? Lots of fond memories. Did alot of diving off and around Grande Island.

Leaving the manifolds on, it's STILL easier with a cherry picker than stripping the head and pulling the head alone by yourself!

Having the requisite tools available DOES make the job easier. For the time and hassle of removing a sealed intake/exhaust gasket lifting it with a cherry picker would be on my list of preferred methods before lifting the head alone without a cherry picker.

Doing it with them attached will allow this procedure to be done in half a day, four hours tops.

Take those manifolds off, and you're in for a long day....

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People Are Idiots, Just look around here and you will see!
Tony D: "Knowledgeable but Caustic"... rationull
You simply can't call someone a F**ktard here, no matter how truthful it is.
[www.ozdat.com]

Thanks for all the feedback. Knowing the head can be removed without disturbing the intake/exhasut maniflods is good news.

JCW

Tony, since this is the turbo engine, isn't he better off removing the intake and exhaust gasket? I have posted on this before. It seems the #1 and especially #6 exhaust gasket is prone to leaks as you know. In fact, when you remove the exhaust is when you discover the stud is either gone or exhaust leaking. I am three for three on this one. All had the same problem. I do not know if this is the best route, but I used stainless steel studs....

in both the recent instances (as you can see from the website I linked) there were valid reasons NOT to disturb the gasket.
The biggest one was if it's currently sealed and not giving you a problem, why run the risk of breaking studs, etc...

In the case of my 260 in 2001 (the FIRST TIME THIS WAS POSTED WITH PHOTOS) I had previously installed a turbo exhaust/intake gasket onto the engine to fix some leaks as you mentioned---at the intake as well as at #6. On a 260Z with full smog equipment, this is not a fun task. Later, whilst troubleshooting some problems with the car it appeared the engine had a blown head gasket. I would be DAMNED if I was going to trash an $80 Nissan Gasket I had just installed 3 month prior just for 'ease of removal'---this was the day before an 18K mile trip. I got another head gasket, pulled the head complete, and found nothing wrong with the head gasket---but did find bad seating on the exhaust valves. So I lapped the valve set in place on the head (with the carbs and manifold attached) and reinstalled the head the day before the trip. It has been well over 40K miles on that setup now (closer to 60K now that I think about it!) and I ma JUST NOW starting to hear that telltale 'exhaust tick' when it's cold. So maybe it's time for a retorque.

But in that instance pulling the carbs and manifold off would have added time to the job and wasted a perfectly good sealing gasket. Why? For what? To what end? It made absolutely no sense to do it.

In the website shown, there was a cost limitation. We had to keep total cost of the vehicle below $500, and a head gasket (to fix the valve you see in the photo) was cutting deeply into that when you consider the costs, it didn't make any sense to disturb a perfectly good seal on a setup that was not showing any signs of a vacuum leak, nor an exhaust leak. The cost of the gasket, and the time it takes to properly attend to that surface sealing would have not made any sense other than to say we did it. Why? For what? To what end? It made absolutely no sense.

There is no tendency to leak or the studs to break if they are properly maintained---do you know someting about JCW's engine that we don't? All I can do is answer the question: Can it be done. Yes, it can, and there are VALID REASONS for doing it that way. Probably more can be said to do it that way when attending a Head Gasket or other work than to NOT do it that way, frankly.

And like you said you remove the manifolds WHEN YOU SEE THE STUD GONE OR EXHAUST LEAKING. Such was not mentioned. So no action is necessary. This is not a 'preventative' sort of action either. The time for 'preventative' action like larger studs, or new stud set is when you are doing something like head work.

For all we know, this is for a simple leaking head gasket---and for that, there's no reason to strip the head bare and ship it off to the machinist for rework.

FAR too much is being read into the post that is simply not there. Answer the question, and don't suppose. Helpful hints aside, all it will do is add extra work and expense. And most here being the bottom-feeding sort will not spend the money when they don't have to...so why NOT pull the whole assembly.

Other than 'your lower back thanking you' or 'there might possibly some time in the future be a stud problem on he exhaust' there haven't been any real reasons given as to why he SHOULDN'T simply pull the whole assembly to do what he wants to on his car.

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People Are Idiots, Just look around here and you will see!
Tony D: "Knowledgeable but Caustic"... rationull
You simply can't call someone a F**ktard here, no matter how truthful it is.
[www.ozdat.com]

Thanks, Tony, I am kind of old school anyway. Knowing what is aggrevating to have to do again, I like to stay on top of when I have access to it. I have to change my Turbo out since it is puffing smoke sometimes, I know its a pain to get to all the bolts, when in place. One of my club members reminds me that I should have had it rebuilt when I had it out....have to hear it again and again. OK, the turbo had 188K miles on it. I replaced the intake and exhaust gasket, hose for the turbo and the oil return line, I should have done it then. That was at 186K. Back seat quarterbacks. Thanks, Again