New 8v project...

[E405]

Just picked this up today £100...






only down side is blown head gasket  (which I knew when I bought it don't worry!)...now I did a Renualt 5 one about 15 yrs ago but I never touched a Golf head before - is there any nasty things to look out for? or is about as easy as Mr Haynes says...

Cheers

[ambrose89]

cover everything in plusgas, if you can get hold of  a 12v impact wrench ( clarke cir 13?, £30 ) for the exhaust down pipe bolts. remove the engine, the front of the car comes off quite easy. that way if you have trouble with the downpipe bolts ( a real b!tch) you can crack the exhaust a bit further back and slide the engine out forwards. i'm doing my 8v at the mo and wish id done it this way. to undo the exhaust downpipe bolts means taking most of the top end off. and every other bolt is going to be inaccessable or rusted/rounded off. good luck 

[...joe]

don't bother removing the engine, you can get the head off an 8v in under an hour. nothing scary to look out for...

[ambrose89]

don't bother removing the engine, you can get the head off an 8v in under an hour. nothing scary to look out for...

fancy coming round and doing mine then?? i'll pay you an hours labour

[...joe]

yeah ok and an hour to put it back together! seriously its easy, took my head off, re-tapped the manifold studs and had it all back together in about two hours. saying that i have done it a few times so knew what i was doing.

[ambrose89]

yeah the first time is always gonna involve a lot of head scratching ( "how the hell am i supposed to get to that?"). if i'd done a couple of golf heads i would b quicker myself and if the head had been off before the nuts maybe wouldn't be a much of a pig to get off. know anywhere to get a head skim, btw?

[ambrose89]

just to update. finally got the last exhaust downpipe nut removed from the manifold. had to use a nut splitter to crack though the nut. allow yourself longer than an hour to remove the head from a 8v unless you know for a fact that all the nuts n bolts have been done/undone recently and covered in grease/copaslip. if its rusty nuts galore you are in for a longer job.

[E405]

cheers guys to the responses so far ...had the distraction of basically bodging rebuilding the front of my stepsons 1.3 after an argument with a Clio!...only got round to starting it this week and the exhaust manifold bolts are indeed Pi$$ing me off big time! Got 3 off after a week of soaking them in Plusgas(amazing stuff!) but 2 are seriously rounded - is it just as evil getting the manifolds off with engine still fitted or should I keep swearing etc and try with some grips/nut spitter? Not sure what to try next...ambrose89 did you have a head skim ?