Finally, it was time to prepare cylinder head for removal. First thing I did, i removed cylinder head valve cover by unscrewing 9 bolts. Next two pictures are showing how the cylinder head looks without it's cover.
Second thing before cylinder head removal is to unbolt the timing chain sprocket from camshaft. Before that I needed to secure timing chain on it's sprocket so it won't fall down in the engine hole and mess the timing of the camshaft/crankshaft. I used few plastic ties/fasteners to secure them in place. An idea which I used to secure timing chain sprocket, is shown on next pictures.
Next step is to disconnect all hoses which connect to the thermostat housing and all other wires and stuff that are connected to the cylinder head.
After everything was done, I unscrewed ten head bolts which are holding cylinder to the engine. It is very important to unscrew them in the spiral order which you must use when removing cylinder head and tightening it back on the engine block. If you follow this you are avoiding possible cylinder head warp and cracks. The schematics or the cylinder head tightening sequence for Frontera 2,3 TD is shown in the next picture. So, to remove cylinder head you need to go in reverse order to the shown sequence.
Unscrewing the bolts is done progressively, so I needed to do few sequences with slackening them by third of a turn until the head bolts could be unscrewed by a hand. After I removed all head bolts i slightly tapped cylinder head so it could be easily removed. You need some kind of a crane to lift the cylinder head, or an assistant, because you need to lift it straight up so you won't damage the surfaces of cylinder head or engine block and you can take care that the timing chain sprocket stays in it's place. After cylinder head removal it is easy to remove the bad gasket. Next pictures are showing the engine block surface after the cylinder head and gasket have been removed. You can see how bad the failure with head gasket was... but also the engine itself... :(
In next post i will show you the part of job where i started to dismantle the cylinder head so I could send it to specialist for further inspection for warp and cracks... Until then... CHEERS! :)
You can read about everything that has been done in the following posts:
