tips/hints/advice on changing headgasket

[crioten]

im going to be changing the headgasket on a 92 hatch and i was just looking for some insight on the project. yeah, i know that i could just swap out the motor, but i would rather learn a little bit more in doing so.

i ordered the "valve regrind gasket set" from nissan, it has head gasket, intake and exhaust mani gasket and a few others in there too...

will i need any rtv for this? ive never gone this deep into engine work before... ive swapped trannys, pulled motors, and a ton of other crap, so i think this would be a great step up in my knowledge base

ill have my trusty FSM to help me with all the tricky stuff and TQ settings, and another person to assist in being tool bitch.

lay it on me, any advice is great :)

[crioten]

anyone...anyone... ? :)

[klattr1]

just unbolt the intake manifold. dont remove any of the heater hoses. you'll hate life if you do. just take out the 8 bolts that is used for the intake manifold onto the side of the head. pull it off studs from the head and leave it sitting to the side towards firewall. drain the oil and coolant from the motor and them remove only the necessary coolant hoses, intake pipe, exhaust manifold and downpipe.

after that, remove the plug wires, distributor, valve cover, front timing cover and then remove the cams. it might take a really good turn or torque or heavy duty wrench to loosent the cam gear bolts. remove the bearing caps evenly according to FSM and make sure cams isnt going crooked when loosening. remove the upper timing chain, idler sprocket, guides and tensioners. zip tie the lower timing chain to the sprocket and make sure to remember its there when trying to set to TDC later on. best way to do it is to set to TDC before starting the project so that the zip ties wont get rotated into the bottom part of cover because you or your friend forgot. lol
after the cams are out, make sure to remove the head bolts according to the order in FSM.

pull head bolts out and lift head off of the block and set it somewhere. make sure to label which shim and bucket goes where by marking on top of it with permanent marker after oil is wiped off. dont tip head upside down or the shim buckets will fall out and make sure to collect the head bolt washers as well.

clean the surface properly and redo everything. just make sure to put the motor at TDC and install the cams and distributor accordingly. Jim Wolf has good illustrations of KA24DE cam installations on their tech support link.

for distributor and timing setup: www.ka-t.org/tech

[kandyflip445]

Surface prep=HUGE IMPORTANCE

You can buy a 3M wheel that will take off the old gasket and clean the surface. It goes on a drill/air drill it looks like a pad with a lot of fingers on it.

http://products3.3m.com/catalog/us/en001/auto_marine_aero/automotive_aftermarket/node_GSJJHB5N8Vge/root_GST1T4S9TCgv/vroot_GSLPLPKL4Xge/theme_us_aad_3_0/command_AbcPageHandler/output_html

[crioten]

dam, thanks a TON for all the help, this should be a faq or something