and so it begun...
here i was, figuring to have the truck in the garage after work friday, spend 5ish hours on it friday night, then back at it saturday morning, heads off saturday night, then change out the upper and lower ball joints, and outer tie-rod ends on sunday. hehe, sure.
well, saturday evening rolled around, and the valve covers werent off yet. no big issue, i thought. sunday started the fun.....
sunday morning, i go to auto zone to see if they might have a fuel line removal tool that would fit the return line by the brake booster. no such luck. i say screw it, and leave em together, but off to the side. off to the valve covers! passenger side first, i take off the fuel supply hoses, then the rail, then to the cover bolts. only to find that 5 of them (upper and lower) had the heads stripped off of them. now, can sombody please tell me how you can get a bolt to the propper torque, with a stripped head? my injectors were just changed at 109,xxx, the truck now has 125,xxx. the dealer was the last one in or around my truck. the only thing i did once it got back, was do an oil change.
so after throwing tools around the shop, and a few choice words calmly spoken, i went about finding an easy-out to take the bolts out. i got all of them out, took the top cover off, barely, cause the hack used a STRONG RTV, instead of a gasket, then off came the bottom. all is ok, right? sure.
i unbolt the return line from the head, and go to take out the return lines off the injectors. HA! 3 of the 4 bolts are stripped as well!!!!!!! by this time my head is right about to fly off my head. so i "try" to unbolt the one that isnt stripped, and i couldnt get enough torque to loosen it. screw it. then im thinking, well, lets see if i cant pop them out a little at a time, and they all come out nice and neat as one unit. nope. the return line bolts are right on top of the injector hold down bolts, so that gets shot right out the window. on to the drivers side covers.
the supply lines and rail come off no issue. top cover comes off no issue. one of the bottom cover bolts is just sitting in its place, no threads in at all!!! and, suprise, suprise, 2 bolts are stripped out. one just so happens to be in the bottom back corner, right up against the fire wall. oh, and the rear most bolt is MIA. WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! when i saw the rear bolt stripped, i just covered the valves, and went on my way home. that is how it sits. wednesday morning should be interesting, because i have the day off from work. we shall see what color smoke they feel like blowing up my ass this time. :mad2:
Ken
i know that if they need to be machined, the gasket needs to be a little bit thicker, right? who would i go about talking to for getting a good set of gaskets? i dont need these things tearing, or breaking in another 75,000-100,000 miles. i know that the old version are still being made, and that there is an updated version out there. like i said, i want to do it right, i want to do it once. Thanks guys for any advice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!