Cylinder Head Removal

Mike Peters

Mike Peters

Well-known member
`This head was really stuck, so this time I wanted to pull the head without the usual screw drivers and crowbars chewing up the block and head, so I rigged a hydraulic jack on the rear pushing from the frame, and another jack on the front pushing off the timing cover. It made those two jacks grunt, but they did it without damaging anything. The big cross bar in the rear goes through an old spark plug with a big ring welded to it. I use the same spark plug and ring for doing engine swaps.
Happy Thanksgiving!
 

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Great set up! I am just in the process of removing the head on my 30 Tudor & it's stuck fast I was thinking of trying the rope in the cylinder trick but I am a little worried about cracking or breaking a piston when I hit the starter to pop it loose. Has anyone ever known that to happen on the old aluminum pistons?
 
The bar is a heavy old five foot farmer crow bar. It actually flexed when I pushed up on the head with the jack, so I went real slow and in a couple minutes it broke loose. If a head was real, real stuck, you could put good pressure on it and leave it over night. Juice up the studs with penetrating oil, and eventually, it's gotta go. So far, no spark plugs have been ripped out of the head while jacking. I don't know how much pressure would cause that to happen.
 
JtownJoe said:
Great set up! I am just in the process of removing the head on my 30 Tudor & it's stuck fast I was thinking of trying the rope in the cylinder trick but I am a little worried about cracking or breaking a piston when I hit the starter to pop it loose. Has anyone ever known that to happen on the old aluminum pistons?
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If you don't crack or break a piston you will surely bend a rod.
 
I made a piece of heavy angle iron do the work. I put 2 holes in it to pick up the #1 and #4 spark plug holes , took apart 2 old rebuildable sparg plugs put a 1/2" bolt through them and the angle. Than drilled a few holes in the other side of the angle iron to hook to a come-along. A friend made me some aluminum wedges to seperate the head and block as I lift the head. It's worked very well on a lot of old engines. Gary
 
Mike,
You said that this engine had not been run in many decades? Does it turn over and did it have any compression? Please let us all know what you find with this engine? It is great to read about all of the "Bring back from the dead" restorations on Ford Barn.
 
JtownJoe said:
Great set up! I am just in the process of removing the head on my 30 Tudor & it's stuck fast I was thinking of trying the rope in the cylinder trick but I am a little worried about cracking or breaking a piston when I hit the starter to pop it loose. Has anyone ever known that to happen on the old aluminum pistons?
Click to expand...

I've never done this, but I'm sure anyone who tried it just used the hand crank. The starter is a sure way to wreck pistons and rods. A pickup went into a flooded ditch in my old hometown and when they hit the starter they bent the rods. They didn't think about the cylinders being filled with water.
 
The engine did turn over with some compression, but a couple valves were stuck open, and even after removing the valve cover and tapping them down, they wouldn't return all the way to the seat, so off with the head! Gary is right, this is the business coupe that was in dry storage since 1955, and the engine probably hasn't been apart since the 40's. If you look closely at the head pulling photo showing the drivers side, you can see the early starter switch that is attached with a cotter pin rather than threaded on to the switch body. Nov. 28 car. Original engine with matching title number. The plan is to just do a quickie valave job. I should get ambitious enough to check the rod clearances while the pan is off. I'll use Tom's double aluminum foil method of checking rod clearances. Sounds simple, and I like simple. I'm glad there is interest in bringing another old dog back to life, so I will keep you guys posted as this progresses. BTW, I liked the double spark plug lifter idea. Two is better than one, but as stuck as these heads often are, you really need to be pushing off the frame in order to get enough force for lift off. Then you don't need any wedges at all.
Happy Thanksgiving all.
 
"A pickup went into a flooded ditch in my old hometown and when they hit the starter they bent the rods. They didn't think about the cylinders being filled with water."

Ya, hydrolock it is. You can also torque the crank by a few degrees on the hydolocked cylinders, then the crank is total junk. I've seen this happen on huge diesel motors at a construction company I used to work for, with throws as big as your arm...amazing ...and the rods were badly bent...ya gotta see it to believe it ! A $40K mistake.

If at all possible, get it running, even if only on 2 cyls, then remove the head nuts, re-start, and the head will push up and free itself and the engine will quit as soon as the compression is lost. I have freed up a lot of heads this way. Be sure to coat everything in never-seize on re-assembly... the aggravation you save someone down the road by doing this may be YOU !!
 
MikeK said:
Seems like a good way to bend an already flimsy 'A' frame.
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I'd think before any frame damage happened the pressure could damage the flywheel cover, which likes to crack. However due to the pressure being in a radial direction I don't really see the flywheel cover cracking from this.
 
My head didn't want to come off my car either...it'd only been on there for 50 years or so haha! I tried to make it come up with the studs in the block, then realized my problem was it was hanging up on the studs badly. I shot lots of oil around the studs, then removed them all. The head came right off then.
 
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