smithoman

I've done a lot of wrenching in my day but I've never completely pulled the manifold off a 3.0. Seems like there's a lot of "stuff" on the passengers side. I'm sure there's people a plenty who could do it in their sleep here. Any tips or tricks?

I've done a couple of timing belts and water pumps and an old timer gave me a great tip. Use a pair of vice grips to keep the new belt on the cam gears when installing. Great advice and would have saved me a full day of intalling over and over to get it right!! Thanks in advance and this website rocks!!! Smithoman

bluAM2

For the Vac lines, use model paint and put a color coded dot on each end of the line and where it connects to so you know where they go back on. Plus then if you ever have to do it again (or do some trouble shooting) they'll already be marked.

bluAM2

But most of that 'stuff' over there can stay put. It'll have to be disconnected from the manifold obviously, but if I remember correctly most of it can just sit there. What's it coming off for?

smithoman

the upper half of the engine is leaking oil all over the place and the heads sound loose. I think the last owner had the bottom end rebuilt but they just bolted the old heads back on. So I'm going to pull them and have them done at a great shop near where I live and reinstall. Perhaps a water pump while I'm in there. I've been pondering whether to just sell the 92 and get something newer but I really love this vehicle and I've done a ton of work on it. So it's new heads and tires time.

Thanks for the advice I really appreciate it!! I'm definately going with the model paint.

justin_4runner

also take pics, put the paint on then take a couple pics, also when u said loose why not check the valve clearance first before just having the heads gone threw, it could be just a simple adjust of the shims and good as new, put in new gaskets on the heads and done... no need to spend the extra money on getting work done that is not needed, i would do a compression test and see where there all sitting might be good across the cylinders and if that was the case i wouldn't do anything but a valve adjustment.

bluAM2

The heads sound loose?? I think if they were loose enough to hear them you'd have more than oil dumping everywhere. Does it run even? Maybe you just need new valve cover gaskets?

When you take off your upper manifold, your EGR system can be a pain in the butt sometimes. It has a long 'pipe' running down the middle of the manifold that makes you either remove the EGR flex pipe from the exhaust manifold or hope that your flex pipe is still flexible enough so you can 'hinge' the intake manifold up off of the lower manifold and then slide the whole intake off of the EGR pipe (leaving it connected to the exhaust manifolds). I removed mine and made a blank-off plate for it. Any questions about removing the EGR system can be answered by searching for "EGR removal" on here. Lots of folks have done it for various reasons. Mine was because it was leaking.

bluAM2

And I second the compression test at a minimum if not the valve check. Do some quick checks before you go spending $$ on reworked heads. Mine ran me about $400.