The weather gods decided to give us cold and freezing temperatures and that's something I had to keep in mind for the installation. After all I'm working outside.
Looking at the weather forecast I decided to install the head past tuesday. I started the installation shortly after noon because I was still waiting for a head gasket.
I installed a small heater under the hood to keep the block somewhat warm and to avoid condensation. I meticulously cleaned the engine deck surface and installed the dowels to keep the gasket in position.
I used an engine crane/lift to put it in because I'm alone and it's a bit cumbersome to manhandle it into the car.
It's not easy but doable alone , it's just a bit tricky to get the head over the timing chain guide and behind the AC line while operating the hoist.
Eventually I was able to get the head in place although I forgot about the bolts at the back, they need to be installed before fitting the head.
Tightening the head bolts went pretty good better then with the old head. The timing is easy to do, I installed the camshaft before hand but that's not really required.
After that it's just a question to put everything back in reverse order.
I finished the job with everything installed at 10pm. Of course I had a few breaks because I have a daughter that requires some attention to.
All in all very doable as a diy job and the best thing is that it fixed my problem of course. No more air in the cooling system.
First observation is that it ran a little more quieter than before. The next day the head bolts need to be torqued down another 90 degrees. After that it was time for a test drive.
I monitored the coolant temperature with the nanocom and found that I had peak temperatures up until 106 degrees celsius! That not good at all, back to the drawing board. I installed a new water pump, thermostat so I excluded that from my troubleshoot.
Then I thought, I had a smaller pulley for the water pump so I installed it, I have also installed another viscous fan that goes with the pulley. The results were better but still not how it should be.
My first thought was why don't I hear the viscous fan working. After some chatting with chat gpt we came to the conclusion that I did not install the plastic cover or shroud behind the radiator.
I also independently tested all my spare thermostats in boiling water to see from which temps they start to work and if they work properly to start with.
I decided to roll back to my previous Meyle water pump and thermostat and original size pulley to get to OEM specs again.
I had to modify the shroud a bit to fit the bigger Direnza radiator. What a pain in the *ss to install the shroud... I quickly remembered why I did not install it.
However, after a test drive with all the modifications I noticed a properly working cooling system, with peaks up until 101 degrees celsius but it's way more controlled. Temperature peaks are short and it down regulates the temperature pretty fast.
Mission completed.
