My 3 point slow rebuild

[bluewavecaptain]

Great thread, Cap'n. Keep up the good work, you must have done something like this before. I'll have to google earth Manitowoc, WI., but I was wondering if you or your dad every worked in the Jeep factory.

No. Why do you ask?

 

[ozzyleven]

Nice to see a 3.0 getting some love. Good job! Personally, I hate that engine, but for being such a pain, they are damn reliable.

 

[bluewavecaptain]

WOOT! Picked up my new oil cooler gaskets and new exhaust manifold bolts yesterday!

 

[mikebontoft]

dealer?

 

[bluewavecaptain]

For the gaskets, yes. And to replace a MIA bell housing bolt. I got the exhaust bolts through Fastenal.

 

[SwiftRunner]

No. Why do you ask?

I worked for Jeep when AMC owned them. That's a great job you did. How about rebuilding my engine?

 

[bluewavecaptain]

New gaskets installed on the oil cooler!

There is also a new gasket/washer on the bolt as well.

The upper line installed...

...and the water pump line installed. I'm replacing all the spring loaded clamps with screw-type. The spring loaded ones are a PITA!

 

[bluewavecaptain]

New gaskets installed on the crossover pipe.

New gasket installed on the downpipe.

The better you clean the surfaces, the better seal you will get. I attacked this mother with a chisel, hammer, and wire wheel.

 

[bluewavecaptain]

The manifolds and cross-over assembled.

My new....err....fasteners...

OK, so here is my logic that I was hinting at. I assembled the manifolds and set them in the bay. Then, I will installed the heads AFTER removing all the exhaust studs. Then I simply use flange bolts and washers to install the manifolds. It will work...in theory.

 

[mikebontoft]

yeah I just bolted my flanges together... one leaks. annoying as hell. be happy you got the gaskets.

oh and no fair, my oil cooler gaskets were orange.

edit: yeah that should work though.

I got lucky and found my crossover pipe too. it was hiding, know cause someine junked everything from my old motor except the heads.

 

[bluewavecaptain]

The head gaskets installed. PAY ATTENTION to the orientation. They are labeled left and right and there is a top and bottom side. Orientation is based on sitting in the truck looking forward. So right side would be passenger side.





The heads installed. You'll need plenty of upper body strength to tighten these bad boys down! Be sure to replace the head bolts with new ones. Removing a snapped head bolt from a block is no fun.

 

[mikebontoft]

note that if these head bolts are torque to yield type, it means they actually stretch so a replacement is necessary most times. Subaru I'm aware of specifies a "Max reuse length."

love the progress sir, she's almost there. do any head porting?

 

[bluewavecaptain]

OK. So my exhaust idea worked....sorta. Here's a few tips...
- Run a tap through all the holes in the heads and add a few drops of oil. Otherwise it becomes a PITA to know if you have them cross threaded or not.
- START all the bolts before torque-down. This will aid in lining them up.
- If you can, leave some slack in the cross-over pipe. Not too much as to where the gaskets fall out, but enough that you have more play to work with in the manifolds. The crossover pipe nuts are a PITA as well so it may not work that way.
- Make sure you have the right size bolts. As you can see, I had to washer the hell out of mine because dummy as Fastenal can't measure. The dimensions SHOULD be M10x1.25x35 or 40 mm.

 

[bluewavecaptain]

Well, once again, my initial mechanic managed to FUBAR something else. Dude had the wrong cams on the wrong heads and the caps were all messed up. So I had to go through and redo everything.

Apply gasket sealer to the underside of the front and rear caps, BUT STAY AWAY from the bearing surfaces. NOT a place you want gasket sealer.





I almost forgot the rear cam seals. Install the retainer plate and the seal before bolting on the rear cap. This way, the rear cap will "lock" the seal in place instead of trying to pound it in with the heads on. FYI, the cams have to come off to get at the head bolts.

 

[bluewavecaptain]

AND...here's where I FUBAR'ed. That center cooling tube should go on BEFORE the heads. I GOT LUCKY. You can fish it in there with some genuine cussing and fighting, but it's a pain. Don't forget that awesome quality knock sensor as well. If you replace the wire (mine was ok), I'd suggest picking up some heat wrap from Autozone. It's about $20 and you can wrap wires and other stuff with it. It's not header tape!

There's a bolt that goes here and...here. Lol. My dad told me a neat trick for getting the small bolt in that hole. Take a piece of small paper and wrap it over the bolt head before putting it in the socket with an extension. The paper will hold the bolt in the socket. Worked like a dream!

The intake gaskets installed. Note where the knock sensore wire sits.

The intake set on. I bolted it on and called it a day.

 

[bluewavecaptain]

note that if these head bolts are torque to yield type, it means they actually stretch so a replacement is necessary most times. Subaru I'm aware of specifies a "Max reuse length."

love the progress sir, she's almost there. do any head porting?

Unfortunately, no. I tried doing some with my Dremel, but that didn't work well. I plan on doing the header conversion down the line. At that point I'm going to pull the heads and have them professionally ported and polished.

 

[bluewavecaptain]

yeah I just bolted my flanges together... one leaks. annoying as hell. be happy you got the gaskets.

oh and no fair, my oil cooler gaskets were orange.

edit: yeah that should work though.

I got lucky and found my crossover pipe too. it was hiding, know cause someine junked everything from my old motor except the heads.

Just looking at that crossover pipe makes me cringe. After I do the body lift, I'm investing in the headers or doing the manifold mod.

 

[BucknutBob]

Thanks for the excellent views of that pitifully illogical exhaust crossover pipe, one of the dumbest things I've ever seen in all my years of working on vehicles, and something I would've never expected from Toyota. Now I have visual aids to help explain why someone's head gaskets repeatedly get cooked into submission and eventual failure, and why I always recommend headers to anyone who wants to keep the 3.0. The idea that some assumed-intelligent engineer ever thought THIS was a good idea just blows my mind! It's not like there's no room under the truck to join the two sides in a smooth Y-pipe downstream. Utterly bizarre.

 

[mikebontoft]

what didn't go right about it? ive ported heads before so I'm just curious.

its too bad you couldn't do the mod now. I'd like to do mine when I pull my heads and put the ported ones on.

on the bright side, we know these things inside and out now. lol.

oh and make sure you know which timing mark on the crank is actually the timing mark. I ended up 180 out.

 

[bluewavecaptain]

Thanks for the excellent views of that pitifully illogical exhaust crossover pipe, one of the dumbest things I've ever seen in all my years of working on vehicles, and something I would've never expected from Toyota. Now I have visual aids to help explain why someone's head gaskets repeatedly get cooked into submission and eventual failure, and why I always recommend headers to anyone who wants to keep the 3.0. The idea that some assumed-intelligent engineer ever thought THIS was a good idea just blows my mind! It's not like there's no room under the truck to join the two sides in a smooth Y-pipe downstream. Utterly bizarre.

It also doesn't help that the manifolds and cross over are ridiculously small. If they would have went with 2-2 1/2" pipe all the way, It probably wouldn't have been a problem.