Head gasket removal - Any tips?

I'm getting the beast in the barn tomorrow & will start the head gasket job. First time for me, I've read the manual about 20 times & it's as clear as mud but here we go. I'm not sure what needs to be stripped on the cam side of the head, things will come clear as I go, I hope. My main concern is I don't strip anything unnecessary & make more work than I need.

Any tips that could save me bother are gratefully received.

Got the head back at last... Looking through the manuals I see it gives two torque settings for the camshaft... wtf! M10 & M8.

Pretty sure all the bolts are M8 Do some vans have a mixture of bolts?

confused  

if its a 1.3, I go off this:-

Thanks I've got that, it's the 12mm headed bolts for the camshaft caps through the rocker shaft that's a bit foggy.

Well which do you have, M10 or M8!

Measure them and use the measurement given if your doing by the book.

Yeah ok. Just seems weird there's 2 sized bolts for the same job.

raydreadz wrote:Yeah ok. Just seems weird there's 2 sized bolts for the same job.

I recon it is an early and late version or they had the heads machined at two places and one got it wrong but it was too late by then so they used them up, Quite often on old brit stuff if they ran out of something but something else fits it was used rather than wasting or stopping production which makes sense but is a pain for us.

I want to meet the bloke who's job it was to right that manual & shake his hand, then find out if he was paid a slave wage to put it together. If he was, I'd commend him on sticking it to the man..... If however he's sunning himself in his villa on a good pension I'd like to shove my torque wrench up his arse.

I only use a torque wrench for head bolts. The rest I do by feel.

Someone once told me torque wrenches were only invented so women could work in factories during the war

As a woman who knows which end of a spanner to use.. i tend to tighten by feel + the 1/4th turn at the end.I am sat here trying to remember when the last time i actually used a torque wrench... oh yeah.. when i replaced the rubber rocker cover gasket on my bike over a year ago. i can count on one hand in 10 years how many times i'f actually used one.

One brilliant tip given to me on the 1Ltr head change is a clothes peg to hold one head bolt up just enough to get the head off as you cant pull the whole bolt out.

You can get that bolt out on a 1 litre

You just need to put a bit of force on the engine to make it compress the drivers side mount

It was a tip given to me when I was doing the 1ltr head.