pacotaco345
01-09-2012, 01:51 PM
I just finished this job about a week ago, and I've been hesitant to post this but now that the car has some miles since the headwork and I know it works here we go!
If you're like me you put your motor back together in a rush after fixing your timing chain and forgot to tighten down the cam bolt. Well, needless to say the cam bolt spun off and I dropped the no. 4 intake valves. This left my pistons looking like
this:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/20111224154909.jpg
and my head looking like this:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/20111224155053.jpg
Needless to say when this happened 5 minutes after getting my car running I was somewhat pissed at myself and punched my perfectly good headliner. Now it has a nice crack :(
Anyways, once you get over yourself you're gonna need to get to work.
First, get the motor to tdc and remove the valve cover and upper timing cover like this:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/20111227112222.jpg
Then begin unbolting the intake and exhaust manifolds, no need to pull them out of the car, just pull them far enough out of the way. You're also going to need to drain the coolant so you don't spill it everywhere when you pull the head off.
Once you get everything out of the way, begin loosening the head from the inside out. The head bolts are allen heads and require the cams to be removed before you can get to them.
Your next order of business is removing the actual head. Now, THIS IS IMPORTANT. If you don't want to lose all the timing work that you have done previously, you're going to need to get the lower chain to stay in place. I chose to shove a big wrench in there to hold it like so:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/IMAG0301.jpg
Next get the head somewhere you can work on it and figure out what's broken. You can see from the previous picture that the no. 4 intake valves were trash, but here's another perspective:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/20111226170728.jpg
I don't have a picture of what I did to get the retainers off, but here's a description. I had a spare head that was trash in my backyard, so I took the cam caps off of it and put them on the head I was working on. Using a 22mm wrench I pried against the trash cam caps which pushed down the valve springs. Then, with a magnet and screwdriver the retainers were removed. Now I only really had to replace the two bad valves with ones from my other head. The old ones looked like this:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/20111224170002.jpg
But I decided to go a step further. From a previous regasket of the motor I had a headgasket that I didn't use, and 16 valve stem seals. I changed all the stem seals simply by pulling the old ones out and pressing the new ones in, pretty self explanatory.
After replacing the seals its time to grind the valve seats with your 7 dollars worth of harbor freight grinding tool and compound that look like this:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/20111224112921.jpg
It is VERY important to use the valves that belong in their respective spot in the head when doing this, so keep track of which ones go where! Apply the valve grinding compound to the side of the valve that seals, apply grease to the side that faces the piston, and stick the valve to your suction cup grinding tool. Slide the valve down into the head and begin working it back and forth while applying light pressure like this:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/20111224164552.jpg
I did this about 30 seconds per valve, then the valve was removed, both surfaces cleaned, and I moved onto the next.
Once all the valve seats have been ground its time to begin putting everything back together. Once again MAKE SURE to put the valves in the same spot they came from.
After you've inserted the valves its time to put the springs and retainers back in. This was somewhat the same process as removing them but a little more complicated. I took a big socket and cut a chunk out of the side so I could insert the retainers through it. Using the previously mentioned big wrench, push down on the socket enough to compress the spring and insert the retainers. This takes a bit of patience and several tries, but hey it works.
Once the valves and springs are all back in the head its time to put it back on the motor. Clean both surfaces of the block and head as much as possible, if you don't it will come back to haunt you. Place the gasket on the motor first then set the head down. Insert the bolts (which you cleaned right?) into the head and finger tighten them. Now tighten the bolts down as per the fsm here:
240sx FSM, Full Service Manuals, S13, S14, KA24E, KA24DE : 240sx General Discussion (http://forums.nicoclub.com/240sx-fsm-full-service-manuals-s13-s14-ka24e-ka24de-t311075.html)
Once the head is on its time to put the timing chain back on. Now if you did like I said before it should be pretty simple. the motor is already at tdc and all you need to do is bolt up the idler sproket and pull your wrench out that was keeping the chain in place.
After the lower chain is on, align the upper chain using the timing marks as usual and tighten everything down.
Now that your head is on its time to re-assemble the top half of your motor. Put the upper timing cover, valve cover, intake, and exhaust back on and tighten everything down.
Lastly, Its time to drop your distributor. If your motor is at tdc, once the distributor is dropped it should look like this:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/timing04.jpg
Put the cap and wires back on and try to start it. If it doesn't start its time to re drop the distributor in another place until you get it to a point where the car will start. Once the car starts fine tune the timing by moving the distributor around until its at 20 ish degrees. Once its running okay burp the coolant so It doesn't come back to haunt you later.
That should be it though! Once you're done go for a drive and make sure everything is as it should be. :D
If you're like me you put your motor back together in a rush after fixing your timing chain and forgot to tighten down the cam bolt. Well, needless to say the cam bolt spun off and I dropped the no. 4 intake valves. This left my pistons looking like
this:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/20111224154909.jpg
and my head looking like this:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/20111224155053.jpg
Needless to say when this happened 5 minutes after getting my car running I was somewhat pissed at myself and punched my perfectly good headliner. Now it has a nice crack :(
Anyways, once you get over yourself you're gonna need to get to work.
First, get the motor to tdc and remove the valve cover and upper timing cover like this:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/20111227112222.jpg
Then begin unbolting the intake and exhaust manifolds, no need to pull them out of the car, just pull them far enough out of the way. You're also going to need to drain the coolant so you don't spill it everywhere when you pull the head off.
Once you get everything out of the way, begin loosening the head from the inside out. The head bolts are allen heads and require the cams to be removed before you can get to them.
Your next order of business is removing the actual head. Now, THIS IS IMPORTANT. If you don't want to lose all the timing work that you have done previously, you're going to need to get the lower chain to stay in place. I chose to shove a big wrench in there to hold it like so:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/IMAG0301.jpg
Next get the head somewhere you can work on it and figure out what's broken. You can see from the previous picture that the no. 4 intake valves were trash, but here's another perspective:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/20111226170728.jpg
I don't have a picture of what I did to get the retainers off, but here's a description. I had a spare head that was trash in my backyard, so I took the cam caps off of it and put them on the head I was working on. Using a 22mm wrench I pried against the trash cam caps which pushed down the valve springs. Then, with a magnet and screwdriver the retainers were removed. Now I only really had to replace the two bad valves with ones from my other head. The old ones looked like this:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/20111224170002.jpg
But I decided to go a step further. From a previous regasket of the motor I had a headgasket that I didn't use, and 16 valve stem seals. I changed all the stem seals simply by pulling the old ones out and pressing the new ones in, pretty self explanatory.
After replacing the seals its time to grind the valve seats with your 7 dollars worth of harbor freight grinding tool and compound that look like this:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/20111224112921.jpg
It is VERY important to use the valves that belong in their respective spot in the head when doing this, so keep track of which ones go where! Apply the valve grinding compound to the side of the valve that seals, apply grease to the side that faces the piston, and stick the valve to your suction cup grinding tool. Slide the valve down into the head and begin working it back and forth while applying light pressure like this:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/20111224164552.jpg
I did this about 30 seconds per valve, then the valve was removed, both surfaces cleaned, and I moved onto the next.
Once all the valve seats have been ground its time to begin putting everything back together. Once again MAKE SURE to put the valves in the same spot they came from.
After you've inserted the valves its time to put the springs and retainers back in. This was somewhat the same process as removing them but a little more complicated. I took a big socket and cut a chunk out of the side so I could insert the retainers through it. Using the previously mentioned big wrench, push down on the socket enough to compress the spring and insert the retainers. This takes a bit of patience and several tries, but hey it works.
Once the valves and springs are all back in the head its time to put it back on the motor. Clean both surfaces of the block and head as much as possible, if you don't it will come back to haunt you. Place the gasket on the motor first then set the head down. Insert the bolts (which you cleaned right?) into the head and finger tighten them. Now tighten the bolts down as per the fsm here:
240sx FSM, Full Service Manuals, S13, S14, KA24E, KA24DE : 240sx General Discussion (http://forums.nicoclub.com/240sx-fsm-full-service-manuals-s13-s14-ka24e-ka24de-t311075.html)
Once the head is on its time to put the timing chain back on. Now if you did like I said before it should be pretty simple. the motor is already at tdc and all you need to do is bolt up the idler sproket and pull your wrench out that was keeping the chain in place.
After the lower chain is on, align the upper chain using the timing marks as usual and tighten everything down.
Now that your head is on its time to re-assemble the top half of your motor. Put the upper timing cover, valve cover, intake, and exhaust back on and tighten everything down.
Lastly, Its time to drop your distributor. If your motor is at tdc, once the distributor is dropped it should look like this:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e392/pacotaco345/timing04.jpg
Put the cap and wires back on and try to start it. If it doesn't start its time to re drop the distributor in another place until you get it to a point where the car will start. Once the car starts fine tune the timing by moving the distributor around until its at 20 ish degrees. Once its running okay burp the coolant so It doesn't come back to haunt you later.
That should be it though! Once you're done go for a drive and make sure everything is as it should be. :D