Re: '51 200 Straight 8 Head Removal

Posted by Fred Puhn On 2009/12/23 15:49:17

When I recently pulled the head off my spare 288 engine I had to do it myself. I am 70 years old and have arthritis in the hands (no grip strength). To do the job I had to use brains and tools.
To start with I cut a large selection of small wooden blocks from small square moldings and thin plywood strips. I also got some narrow wood wedges at the local Home Depot store. With the nuts and washers off I put Kroil (penetrating oil) down each stud to lubricate a soften any dirt. Then I carefully tapped thin bladed screwdrivers into the sides of the head gasket at the 4 corners. You must take care not to force any screwdriver. The thin blade digs into the soft head gasket and the taper of the screwdriver blade wedges the head upwards. I used lots of screwdrivers so the head remained level and did not jam on the studs. As gaps opened up I used bigger screwdrivers and then finally started tapping the wood wedges into the gap. When gaps became large enough I put in the thin strips and wood blocks to hold the head level and keep it from falling on my fingers. Finally the head was high enough to clear the studs and I turned it slightly to rest it on the tops of the studs. At that point it was totally clear of the studs and I could wrap my hands around it and safely lift it off. A helper or a chain hoist would have made this part of the job much easier.
On another engine I made puller tools from old spark plugs. If you grind or machine off the metal surrounding the ceramic insulator the plug will come apart. With the ceramic removed the steel part of the plug has an internal hole that can be easily tapped. You can screw a bolt or a lifting eye into the tapped hole to hoist the head.
I agree that studs make head removal harder than bolts, but studs and nuts are more reliable. A head bolt can corrode and break in the threaded area and this causes way more problems than studs. It is difficult to clean out a tapped hole in the block. The corrosion and dirt inside the tapped holes in the block makes bolt torquing less accurate than torquing clean nuts on clean external threads. On many racing engines I have converted head bolts to studs for these reasons.