Finally got around to completing the head removal today. Man those back three bolts on the bottom of the exhaust/intake are a real PITA!! Especially when you have an idiot minute and randomly switch to 1/2 socket instead of the 9/16 and you spend an hour trying to get the wrong size socket to fit on the bolts. I have no idea why I grabbed the 1/2″ socket when I switched to the swivel adapter but it literally cost me about an hour of frustration. But alas the head is removed and I called the company I bought the new head from and they said they didn’t care that the core return was a different casting so that’s good. Was nice to have 50+ degree weather today for this little project:
Learned that the head on it was rebuilt at some point but I’m still convinced that it was bad. There were two really rusty head bolts on the intake side around cylinder 3 and 4 and the cylinders all look really clean – no real ridge or anything along the cylinder wall. I know we had an issue with getting cracked cylinders on my 1990 XJ but it doesn’t seem to be an issue here.
Going to paint the head and valve cover tomorrow and get the block all prettied up so I can watch it for any future leaking. But I’m replacing much of the components that are around areas that leak so hopefully she’ll be a clean Jeep for a while.