samseed101

Okay, I've spent most of the day stripping and cleaning the Explorer 302 I bought last saturday and for the most part it has been going great. I managed to take off the upper / lower intakes, clean them, and get them painted. It's not the greatest paint job but it looks better than they did. And It's not a show car anyway. I just wanted to clean up the engine bay a little and I figured that I might as well paint them to make them look a little cleaner.

If I was thinking straight, I would have taken a "before" pic of the upper. But here's some after pics of it, as well as a before and after of the lower intake. Just to give you an idea, the upper was just as dirty as the lower before. I hit them both with a wire brush, degreaser, simple green, and a sponge (not necessarily in that order.)







But anyway, here's my problem. I can't for the life of me get the bolts to budge on the cylinder heads. How in gods name can I get those damned things to budge? I'm thinking that I should go out and buy a really long ratchet to get some extra leverage, but I'm not sure if it would help enough to make a difference. Any of you have any idea how to get these botls to budge? They haven't moved since the engine was built in 1996 [&:]

I longer ratchet is about the only thin I can seriously think of to get this thing off. But I don't want to waste money if it wont help or if there's an easier way.

5IVE.OH

They are torqued down so you'll have a hard time with a standard socket. You'd need a snipe (or bar on the end) but it would prolly break the wrench. I have a solid torque wrench that I use, got it at canadian tire for 12$.

XSRACINGGT

on my 87 GT, they were really tight. I would get some penetrating lube on them. instead of a longer ratchet, I would use a 1/2 inch drive ratchet. and stick a pipe on the end of it to loosen them. remember, those are like 80 ft/lbs from the factory I think. that should help you out.

Oh, and the intake looks great. good job on it man.

2 kwik

boy you wimp's need to work out....just get yourself a nice long 1/2 drive breaker bar ever tool box needs one ....you can get one cheap at harbor freight

capri debris

x1 on the breaker bar idea...those upper and lowwer intakes turned out really good.

samseed101

Good call. I actualyl ended up running to Auto Zone down the street and found a 24' long 1/2 drive breaker bar. Gave it a shot and the bolts moved with hardly any effort. Wish I had bought one of these things earlier! lol.

tmajikman

you may also want a cheater bar to go with that breaker bar, just a thought

samseed101

Thanks. They could have looked a lot better if I had spent more time on them, but I'm not trying to win any awards. Just want to give it a clerner look. Hopefully it will look as good when installed in the bay.

2 kwik

I hope you used silver engine paint on the intake

tinman

Now is the time to throw the old head bolts out BTW.......