at first i thought that valve retainer tool was too big and for domestics. I ended up ordering a smaller one (that only came as a pair with the same sized one that I already had). the small one was TOO small. I placed an order for a better style valve keeper tool.
Well a few days after ordering that new tool, before it arrived, I tried the original tool again and it DID work, I just wasnt hitting that shit hard enough.
Found out from some people on this forum that the SR is an interference motor and you dont need to hook up an air compressor. just set the current cylinder to TDC to prevent the valves from dropping. I was retarded and didnt see one of the oil galleys and didnt block it off with anything. I dropped a valve keeper down in and heard it drop quite a distance, DOH! Dumbass! I tried air in a can, tried pouring oil down the galley, even tried a magnetic strip tied to some fishing line but no luck. !!!! will have to get back to that.
Got busy reading someone elses build thread and they showed a gasket that they put on their oil strainer/pickup. WTF the FSM doesnt mention a gasket, I installed mine with a little liquid gasket just to be safe. This made me worried, so I ordered that gasket and took mine off and cleaned off the liquid gasket.
got the wrong sized gasket and had to wait for the correct one to come in
Back to the valve seals
I pulled the oil baffle plate and got really lucky, the keeper was sitting right there ontop of it. I was thinking I'd have to pull the upper oil pan, and maybe rotate the motor which would mean bleeding the lifters since the head was installed at this point.
so I go to use my new sweet lever style valve keeper tool. It only came with 3 small bolts, 3 fat bolts, and some bolts without threads. I thought that was weird since you need -4- to bolt the horse shoe sides down to where the cam caps connect. I figured Id try and see how snug it is with 1 bolt on the one side. Im torquing down the bolt slowly and all of a sudden the head turns sideways. WTF. I tried reversing it and SNAP, the damn bolt head snapped off
the one thing I was trying to avoid was taking the head back off. I tried a ryobi screw extractor and my hole got off center and it did not work. my roommate and I tried some reverse thread drill bits, which just didnt want to bite and turn the bolt. we went to harbor freight and got a pretty aggressive screw extractor kit. It started turning the bolt but was hitting the sidewall, so we were like....lets give it a little tap with the rubber mallet to straighten it out. DUMB! snapped the screw extractor off inside the broken bolt. this is turning into a disaster.
We pulled the head and I found a local shop (for hondas..) that said they could get it out. It would normally be $10 but because the extractor is broken off in there it would be $20. Im like ok, sweet, this isnt so bad afterall and I drop the head off.
At this point in time Im unemployed so I have a lot of free time but not a lot of free money
I drop the cylinder head off and they said they would get to it the next day. 3 days later I call them (several times, because any time I call before 2pm its a spanish guy that answers who doesnt speak english other than "call back after 2 for ray") and they say they cant get the bolt out because of the material of the extractor, and they actually ask me about cutting the section out to remove it and welding it back in. Im thinking to myself these guys cant be serious, how is that even possibly considered an option. I told them no way in hell are you cutting a chunk out of my cylinder head and welding it back in. They said ok, let us look at it a bit more and see what we can do.
2 1/2 weeks later, I call them up and they say they cant get it out and start asking me how much a new cylinder head is because I should probably just buy a new one.
..............
I go pick up my head and say thanks for the effort guys
went down the road to zFever (now Fever Racing)
man, what an awesome shop!! its literally like a fantasy land for adults. the owner, Doug, is the coolest guy ever. He tried welding a nut to it (even let me hold it with some pliers while he did the welding). We tried 3 times but it did not work :\ on the plus side I got to see a ton of cool cars, talk to the owner for a while, and he referred me to a REAL machine shop in north Tampa (galaxy machining, I recommend this place highly)
Doug, the owner of zFever, has a pretty sick NSX, an s13.5 vert, and an r33 as a daily
Also saw a ton of z32's, a couple 240z and 280z, handful of s13's, a good amount of s14's
alternator died in my 240 on my way home from school one night about 10pm. barely limped home with no lights, every time my hazards flashed my car would jerk--but I made it!! this totally killed my optima redtop (purchased through amazon, they conveniently have since removed this purchase from my order history and I cant do a return on it). had to swap in a new alternator and battery. went for a cruise and I guess I didnt have the tension bolt tight enough because the belt popped off, took off my water pump belt on its way off, caused my engine to almost overheat, radiator hose burst off shooting coolant everywhere lol man what a day. got a replacement bolt, installed, new belts installed, and got back on the road.
got the head back from the machine shop this evening. $155 to get the bolt out, heli-coil the cam cap section. He also cleaned and decked the bottom for me.
Unfortunately, he says theres metal shavings in the head so Ill have to clean it. He mentioned that the easiest thing to do would be take it to napa for a hot tank, but Ive painted it so he recommended maybe cleaning it out with brake clean or carb cleaner
got a new job at this point. took my head to NAPA to hot tank and yes, it took off all of the paint. While I was there I had them use their air tools to put some pulleys on
(this is on a quest alternator, I also picked up a quest alt conversion bracket from CodyAce, just no pictures)
head was super clean though
before:
after:
installed my LED tail lights and my seats
