Re: Advise on a 288 cu inch

Posted by David Grubbs On 2011/3/31 19:21:02

I've been driving Packards since the 60's, when they were just used cars. I had one in the 70's that I decided to pull the head, and managed to mess it up pretty badly by using brute force rather than smarts. When I rebuilt a 51 288 last winter, I bought four Purdy putty knives, about 1" wide, and sharpened them on the grinder to a very long taper. (Purdy knives have the metal going all the way to the end of the handle - a good thing to have) I pulled all of the head bolts, and very carefully went around the head, tapping in the putty knives between the bolts, using a dead blow mallet. I had the head attached to the engine hoist and put just a little pressure on it. After two times around, the head popped right off. It also helps to put PB Blaster around each headbolt, as it the corrosion around the bolts that makes it difficult to pull the head. Please note this is a sure fire way to mess up your head gasket. Don't get crazy on the hammering and you shouldn't scratch the head. Course you might get lucky and not need this technique. But it worked for me on two engines.