Reassembly in earnest

You know the drill

I finished the summer term today with an easy final this morning. Trigonometry is like clubbing baby seals anyway. Finished the test in under half an hour and dashed home to get back to work on the Jag and capitalize on the next few days off.

With the valves lapped in and ready to go, reassembly took me about six hours, mainly because I kept taking breaks indoors out of the heat. It also took a while because valve spring keepers are tiny little things that are easily dropped and a frickin' nightmare to position correctly through the PVC pipe spacer on the valve spring compressor. Took me about half an hour to get the knack of it.

The cylinder head is now ready to go back on the engine, once I prep the engine compartment tomorrow morning. Taa-daa!

In case anyone wonders what's left, here's a rough list of things that remain to be done:

1. Intake disassembly. To place the head correctly and repair the heater hose I cut when I took the head out, I need to break down the intake manifold. While I'm at it I plan to clean the MAF sensor and throttle body. Been meaning to do that anyway.

2. Cylinder block prep. Tapping the bolt holes, making head alignment dowels out of old head bolts, placing the new head gasket, etc. A good hour's work to make sure it's all ready. I also need to dial the crank back to TDC.

3. Head installation. Might need some help for this. Once it's on and the head bolts are torqued to specs, the timing chain and cam sprockets go back in. The heater hose will be reconnected and manifolds re-installed. The intake will be a nightmare to bolt back in unless I disassemble it so I can actually reach the bolts and torque them properly.

4. Fluid refill. Coolant and oil. Can't do anything without either.

5. Re-rigging. Reinstalling the wiring, hoses, vacuum lines, valve cover, etc.

6. Priming. I have to crank the starter for a little bit to get the oil circulating, coolant back into the engine, and the fuel system primed.

7. Ignition prep. Plugs, wires, and coil wire.

8. Starting. Bringing her roaring back to life. I may leave the pipe section between the collector pipe and mufflers off just to hear it unrestrained for once. Don't ever do that at 7 on a Saturday morning.

9. Warm-up. Idling the engine up to normal operating temp, completing the cooling system fill, and checking for visible leaks.

10. Odds and ends. Exhaust pipes back in place, new oxygen sensor installed, all fluid levels checked.

11. Test drive. Nice and easy, no wide-open throttle or tire smoking stupidity. I'm going to give the engine a few days of easy driving so that all the parts I've just taken out and reassembled can bed back in.

I think it's doable in a day, but I'm going to take two to make sure it's all done perfectly and to the letter.