Tomorrow is the day.

"Rainbow" (rainbeaux) 01/30/2017 at 11:01 • Filed to: None

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High in the 60s for three days straight, starting tomorrow, so it’s finally time for me to get off my butt and replace my Escort’s head gasket. I’m gonna be pretty much just using these videos as a guide and I expect to be putting in at least 6-ish hours each of these 3 days, but probably more since I’ve never done anything remotely close to this. Still, even at ~20 hours of manual labor, it’s a much better deal to do this myself with a $40 RockAuto head gasket kit rather than dropping it at a shop and shelling out $700+. If there’s one thing I remember from high school econ, it’s opportunity cost. This saves me around $35 per hour, give or take, so it’s well worth it.

I do have two questions, though:

1) How much do you guess that head weighs with all the stuff on it? I don’t have any sort of hoist like this guy does, so I’m gonna need to lift it out by hand. I just want to know if I’ll need to get my dad to come out and help. Since it’s such a weird angle to grab the thing, and I will sort of be forced to lift with my back, I’m not sure I want to even try it if that’s much more than 40lbs or so.

2) Assuming it gets late/cold/rainy/etc. while the head is off, what’s the best way to keep stuff out of the engine? Towels stuffed into the cylinders and around the hoses? And what about the head itself; should that come inside the house or something?

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > Rainbow 01/30/2017 at 11:09

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You can lift the head off by hand no problem with regards to weight. Breaking the seal that tends to form between the head, gasket, and block due to repeated heat cycles over decades might require some effort though.

I wouldn’t worry about leaving the block open for a day or two, but would just use cardboard and/or masking tape. I wouldn’t stick a towel inside because of lint.

Seat Safety Switch > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 01/30/2017 at 11:32

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Yeah, BP heads are very light. As Sideways says, breaking it off the block is going to be the hard part. Just plant your feet when you lift it and you should be okay.

Urambo Tauro > Rainbow 01/30/2017 at 11:39

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I had to do head gaskets on a 2000 Taurus (transverse V6), and left the exhaust manifold attached to the rear-most head because there wasn’t much room by the firewall to use a wrench. The extra weight is certainly awkward, especially when you’re leaning over the engine bay like that.

I would say that it’s manageable, but I don’t think that’s a fair comparison since that head was only 3 cylinders (not 4 like yours), and does not include the weight of other stuff like the throttle body as shown in the video. It’s probably still manageable though, just be careful.

And try to get that head off quickly so that you can assess it. Hopefully it won’t be cracked like the one in the video. *fingers crossed*