[antiSUV]

I wanna change my head gasket to be on the safe side. When doing this should I remove the intake and exhaust manifolds before removing the head from the block, or leave them on and undo all the pluming, then remove the whole thing in one big hunk? Any tips on this procedure would be great.

 

[Wayman]

I haven't changed the head gasket, but I did replace the turbocharger a few weeks ago. It was a lot of work to get just the exhaust manifold off! You may be better off just taking off the head with the manifolds still connected. Hopefully that is something that can be done Good luck, and with the head off the car you might want to look in the intake manifold -- mine was really dirty!

 

[anarchyx34]

I havent done it on a GT, but I did it last summer on an LX. It was surprisingly easy. The intake plenum along with the throttle body needs to be removed, but the intake manifold can be left on the car, just pushed out of the way. The exhaust manifold can be disconnected and just left there hangin out. But you may want to support it or tie it to something just to be on the safe side. The distributor can be left on, just make sure you disconnect all the elecrical connections. Undo the head bolts, and lift that bastard off. make sure you have the head checked out for cracks and have the bottom milled true. It took me and Kennymx6 (it was his car) about 4 hours to remove the thing, and about 7 hours to install the cam gears, seal, and distributor on the new head, and then install it on the car. It's a pretty straightfoward procedure. We used the haynes Ford probe manual.

 

[kennymx6]

Just like anarchyx34 said, it was easy. The only thing that sucked a lot is that I didn't have a car for one week. But now my car starts one 4 cylinders every time!

 

[antiSUV]

Thanks for the help everyone.

I'm going to attepmt to do ever greater and more complicated tasks on my car until I feel I can rebuild the engine myself. I'm not scared of anything, and realize that doing work like that is not magic. You just have to know what you're doing, have the proper tools, and take your time.