biturbomax

hi.
Cams are out, Valves are closed, head nuts are unscrew.
I would like try the trick rope turning the crank bolt with hand not with starter.
The car is Maserati bitrubo SI '87, the angine has studs.

fraggle

Use good rope, not twine!

I did this to lock the crank on a toyota so I could get the crank nut off.

WallyP

I have used rope to hold the valves up while installing new stem seals (not on a 928), but not to break the head loose. Before my time, but I have heard that the standard procedure for the mid-thirties Fords with aluminum heads and long studs included loosening the head nuts and running the engine as the first step.

This discussion did bring back memories of how I learned about shop manuals...

'59 Alfa roadster with a burnt exhaust valve - my first OHC, first four-valve, so I bought the shop manual. I was impressed - the section on removing the head went into great detail, telling how to remove every fastener, the choke cable, etc., etc.

Got everything off, started to pull the head, and an hour later had the front wheels lifted off the ground with a hoist attached to the head. Time to regroup and think...

Eventually, I found the two large bolts that went from well-hidden grease and dirt-packed recesses on the front corners of the block up into the head. The only fasteners that I really needed info on were not mentioned in the text, not shown in the illustrations, not mentioned in the torque specs.

I haven't fully trusted shop manuals since.

jcorenman

As soon as the head-gasket lost its seal it would hose down the area with diesel and lose pressure. If the studs are corroded then it needs to be jacked up over some distance.

^^^ This, I think. It looks easy to fab with a hunk of aluminum plate. Drill some holes for studs or cap-screws to pull on the head, and more holes to push on the head studs with long bolts with nuts under the plate, to do the jacking.

GlenL

Wood chisel carefully aligned to not gouge the aluminum.

Jim Devine

A guy that used to be a tech at a Jaguar dealer when the cars had the original 6 cyl design said they would remove the nuts on the head studs.
Then they would loosely put on an old nut & put a blunt tip on the air chisel & vibrate it from the side to break the corosion loose so they could get get penetrating oil to go in. Said it seemed to work.