Pulling the ABA Head

I've worked on a few things in the past couple days. First, I decided I would paint the valve cover and manifold just to make things look a bit cleaner. I disassembled the components into their individual pieces and taped off anything that shouldn't have paint on it. I used a flat black high temperature paint. It's nothing flashy but it takes away any old stains that may have been there. Here are the finished products, which I already got a bit greasy just from picking them up.

Before moving to the ABA head, I pulled the front end off the vehicle. I already had the bumper cover and lights removed, but I also cleared out the steal bumper, radiator, AC condenser and support frame, and before doing that I flushed the coolant. To do so I pulled the coolant line from the pump and drained into a  container. I had a hard time judging how much came out, but I was expecting at least four litres, so my initial attempt to flush the coolant system didn't appear to flush everything out. I thought part of the problem was the fact the front end was lifted up and thus gravity was potentially inhibiting the flow of coolant to the lower pump flange. I dropped the car which didn't make a noticeable difference and decided I had most of it out of the system.

I also pulled the lines to the AC condenser - the condenser cracked years ago so the system no longer contained any coolant, but normally you wouldn't pull the condenser to avoid opening the system. Opening the system is environmentally hazardous, but would also require a recharge of refrigerant and potential flush of the entire AC system had it actually been working. After removing the air intake, the entire AC system is extremely accessible - I am now considering whether its worth trying to repair the AC in the car before I put the motor back together. I would need a new condenser and receiver drier, but given the whole front end has been pulled this is a great opportunity to replace these relatively inexpensive parts and try to get the system working again.

Removing the air intake is relatively straight forward. There is a confusing stretch of piping leading to the exhaust manifold. Apparently this is designed to feed the the intake with warmed air from the manifold to help with cold starts. I'll be getting rid of this - as mentioned earlier, I have a driver side intake which will require a custom air filter and I likely won't have any way of incorporating this heat exchange design. Also, the little air box on the top of the manifold is a PIA! I've always had trouble with it rattling, and it makes it even more difficult to work with the manifold when the motor is in the car - more on that later.

I started dis-assembly of the ABA so that I could remove the head from the block. Again this is pretty straight forward. One mistake I made was not aligning the engine to TDC before I pulled the cam pulley belt. This won't necessarily cause me problems, but would have potentially made everything simpler down the road. I wish I would have thought of that, but its too late now. My biggest concern is the position of the distributor relative to the crank.

I labelled as many sensors and hoses as I could - even if they seemed obvious at the time. I can already tell that as a I move things around, especially wiring harnesses, plugs and cables that once looked familiar are hard to identify when they are out of place.

I then proceeded to the exhaust manifold. I did this piece last because I was dreading it, and for the right reasons. In the car's almost 20 year life, I'm not sure the exhaust has ever been touched. As a result, the bolts are rusted round. I tried removing the manifold from the head first. I had good success with the upper bolts but the inaccessibility of the lower bolts -  below the heat box for the intake air exchange and above the motor mount made them pretty much impossible to access. I tried everything to reach this bolts - from above and below - but eventually realized it wasn't going to happen. I then decided to try and take the head out with the downpipe attached. This was a relatively good strategy but again the bolts connecting the downpipe to the cat were pretty much toast. I decided they needed to be cut, but it was hard to get any decent tool in there to cut the bolts out without cutting out the flange with them. I used a Dremel tool with the extension "snake" and a reinforced metal wheel which eventually cut them loose. I went through about 15 standard cutting wheels which kept snapping before I gave in and bought the reinforced wheels - which aren't cheap. Here is a picture of one of the easier bolts, which was still in relatively decent shape::

All in all - the head is relatively easy to get out, provided you find a way to deal with the exhaust.

I then needed to lift the head from the engine bay. Relatively simple task for most - but remember that I'm still on crutches and can't lift much of anything. I ran a rope through the lift points on the front of the head and swung them through the roof rafter above in my garage. This served as a relatively effective pulley for me to pull the head while still on crutches. I had a bit of trouble with the cam shaft pulley tensioner - apparently I have the "new type" which has some type of weird hydraulic tension application which was still connected to the lower block. I also forgot to pull out the coolant expansion reservoir return line which was odd since it was in plain site. With the head out, I disconnected the down shaft from the ABA manifold. I wasn't sure which exhaust manifold to use, but it appears the 16v manifold will match up perfectly with the ABA downpipe, so I plan to leave the 16V manifold in place and avoid replacing the gasket.