make sure that you plug all the openings you can, so you won't drop stuff in them like spacers, bolts, sockets ect....once dropped in then it's either fishing or rebuilding the whole thing and neither one is any fun

 

plug all openings as needed to keep objects from falling in and creating bigger more expensive probls

 

Buckz, How did you put your heads on?

Me and a friend just tried to put both heads on at once and I messed up a HG so ive got to order another one.

 

he is a wise old man...

 

oops////.......well I took both heads off with cross over pipe attached so with a bad head gasket you can't hurt anything except your back, if you do it by your self like me, but you have a fried to help so it should be a lot easier

now to answer your question....I removed the crossover pipe from the L.H. and left it still attacher to the R.H....I then after prepping the block and head surfaces for the new gaskets.I installed them one at a time.I started with the L.H. first (the one without the cross over pipe attached) and worked on that head only until I got it all together including the cam, cam bearings, cam seals and valve cover.

I then moved to the R.H. with the crossover pipe attached because it takes more effort and time to install and quite a bit heavier.I installed it in the same manor as the L.H. but you have to get it positioned just right over the dowel pins then set it down OR you can remove the cross over pipe entirely and lay it up against the fire wall then hook it up that way

hope this helps

 

So just to verify. The left head had the manifold on? Im thinking about do it backwards. Starting with the R.H and crossover so I can at least get that done while my new left HG gets shipped, you think that could work?

 

which way you do it is up to you......either way is good....I didn't remove the exhaust manifolds at all, just the down exhaust pipe from the crossover

just remember that if your standing in front of the engine the head on your right hand side, is the L.H. as from sitting in the vehicle per the fsm....and facing the engine the head to your left hand side, is the R.H per the fsm......it is a little confusing sometimes

that cross over pipe and related 14mm lock nuts

 

Yea I understood the whole left and right thing haha.

 

cool..........carry on......

 

it was the fram oil filter that caused this---lol, good job and good luck

 

lol, yeah i hate getting it but it makes getting that oil filter on and off just so much easier due to the placement on these 3vze (somewhat of a pain...). No, what really happened is that i aloud just water to be used as coolant throughout the freeze that austin had and the thermostat was frozen long enough one morning to really heat up the engine and that is all she wrote. I do believe if I had been keeping up with the old runner like I should have this wouldn't have happened or atleast it would've taken allot longer, but it goes to show keeping up with your oil level and everything coolant is so vital to these engines

 

hey Earl you smell like poop

 

Hey budro, how's your hg job going?

The oil filter's pretty easy to get to if you get the kind that goes on your socket wrench and you get it from the wheel well.

 

any progress on your project?.....any pics to add to this thread

 

Going slowly, eye twitchingly slowly. No, but I could quicken the pace if I were force myself to do it at night after work too but today I just got done with the work week and I'll have a couple solid days to work on it. Today was from starting with the air intake to stripping it to it's heads. The only thing that I would add to the thread is take off as much as you can find from the air intake and then just unbolt it and whatever's left, you'll find as you try and raise it up. the only thing that really intimidated me was the vacuum hose assembly on the drivers side until i saw each hose had a separate numerical marking. then I just drew up a simple diagram of it on paper. I'll also try to go back into the thread and see if there is anything that I had trouble with or someone else might have trouble with and post pics or whatnot.

 

thanks for the update

this is tiring, I felt like I had a second and third job working on this 4runner!!.....many times I wanted to take this job and shove it!!!! many times.The bad weather conditions here pissed me off during that replacement....but I got-er-done.....

 

I think I'm parking the 4Runner TFN. My runner's symptoms are becoming more severe. Increasingly harder to start, sweet white smoke shortly after start-up (not constant, but it smokes a little longer each time I run her), coolant slowly dissappearing. No overheating or noticeable loss of power yet. This is gonna suck.

 

I feel your frustration.......it will probably only get worse, have you done a coolant pressure test on the system yet?....btw nice looking runner.

 

Thanks! I've put alot into it since I bought it.

Haven't done a coolant pressure test yet. My wife's Stepdad is gonna come over next weekend and help me do a compression check. I'm guessing I'll take about a month's worth of weekends to get this done. At least I'll get the other lingering issues resolved too. Luckily, my wife can get by without her car for a while.

 

hell ya, get it fixed and make the wife walk acrossed town