Yeah, whenever you pull the heads on one of these things, the very 1st thing that you want to do (before even setting the heads down
) is to place some liner-retainers on about 2 or 3 of the head-studs (per bank...) - Basically just large-large washers to hold the sleeves firmly
in place.
There are these thin rubber o-rings around the bottom of each liner that keeps the engine block water and coolant from seeping down into the crank-case oil! (Amazing that there is not
that much there to separate ultimate enjoyment from pure pain...
Once in place though, you're good!
When you are simply doing a top rebuild (valves etc - in the case of Todd and I) you don't want those puppies to move at all! The slightest movement means removing the liners (as well as the sump, crank, pistons/rings/rods etc...), slipping new o-rings on and cleaning up the seats in the block! At that point you have the stuff right in your hands and you may as well do rings and bearings too! (This is what happened to Todd at shop #1...) The job became a bottom-end rebuild too because retainers were not used after the heads were removed!
It is an easy mistake to make (especially with a manual transmission car...) It's sitting there in the shop - maybe in gear to avoid rolling - the heads are off and away for rebuilding or whatever, somebody wants to move the car and starts to push/nudge/bump the car - the tranny is engaged, so the pistons move ever so
slightly -sticking to the liners and moving them - it is all over at that point. The seal (as in locked-shut) breaks, debris gets in-between the liner and the block and now after re-assembly you have water seeping down (under cooling system pressures around 8 to 15 pounds of pressure per square inch) in to your engine oil) since the o-rings were probably old and rady to be replaced once damaged.
The same thing can happen on an automatic car (less likely), but when somebody comes along and accidentally cranks the key - thinking that it is a driver - the liners can move too! REmove th battery cables when doing pretty much anything!
Another thing; "...’n jags ou..." (or what we would call a helluva horny guy) with long fingers can get down in there around the outside of the liners – pistons still in place – and clean up those seats at the bottom of the sleeves – take a chance - slip those o-rings (lubed up) over the top of the sleeves and roll them down around the outside of the liners and position them that way! Not for the faint of heart!
Quote:
Linear Mode
