Justrolledintotheshop
When the exhaust bolt is stuck but you don’t own a torch…
Had low hopes of this little induction heater doing the job, but was successful.
Also, for anyone who has never done car mechanic work: I dont recommend your first DIY attempt be a v10 head gasket job. Respect to you all that do this for a living. This shit is rough. Finally got the job first head's bolts loosened and my hands and arms are smashed to shit.
Discussion
"got the job first head's"
cannot edit this typo sorry.
What car is this that has a V10?
used Uhaul 2009 ford e450
Lots of heavier duty Fords had the modular V10 as an option instead of diesel.
There's a ton of Ford V10's on the road from F250's up to F550s, Ambulances, Vans and Motorhomes. Dodge had V10's in some of their trucks for awhile too.
Plus that time a Viper got frisky with those Rams that weren’t using any Magnums.
Must be one of these Germans 🤣
Best use of an ispire
I never thought I’d find an ispire wand in here
🤙
what brand mini heater is it?
This is a ispire wand leftover from my degenerate covid days. It is not made for this and although it worked for this one bolt, I cannot really recommend it for folks looking to use it for this purpose. If you wanna get blasted on dabs, I can absolutely recommend it. I am sober now tho.
I’ve been using that sucker for like 5 years, she does rip
This is stuck?? I don’t even see rust lol, I seen some bolts just yesterday that would make you think the car was 147 years old
Bolt is entirely inside the induction heater so not visible. Was rusty, but not rust belt rusty. With penetrating oil, breaker bar and impact couldn't budge it until after I got it smoking with the heater.
Thats really impressive!
The first diy job i did was removing a radiator from a 1995 peugeot 205 1.6 automatic because the drain valve had seized and upon trying to wiggle it loose the soldered joint completely failed, i cut my forearms up on the radiator really badly to the point a few coworkers thought i had begun self harming but it was a great learning experience as I learned everything about that cars cooling system.
Induction heaters seem like a really decent tool for applying heat to the area in question without disturbing other nearby sensitive materials, if they weren't £600+ for a decent one i'd consider one.
It's overwhelming, difficult, and painful, but I am really enjoying myself and learning a bunch. My arms and hands are cut up and bruised to all hell and I still have one more head to get off.
Oof, head gasket job as first mechanical venture? You are brave, if we're putting it nicely. Best of luck OP, hope you see it through.
Yeah brave is generous. More like poor and out of options.
I've got a venom and love it. I was amazed at how well it worked.
Well done! Fantastic use of resources and understanding of material properties! Even if you are an amateur, this job will have shown you engineering principles like those which got me into mechanics/engineering.
As soon as I saw what it was, I laughed to myself. That’s an interesting use of an ispire wand!
for future a cheap blow torch on a butane can can also help, prob the cheapest thing you can buy which should be about $10 usd
Just buy a Coleman can and a screw on
My first DIY head gasket(s) was a Ford V10.
I bought an Excursion with a bent valve and decided to tackle it myself. I had one semester of boat repair trade school under my belt and an ebay copy of the service manual, but I made it happen.
Took both heads off since I was already in there and wanted to have them both decked and replace the valve stem seals.
Thankfully I was able to take them to school with me to drill out the broken exhaust studs (there were many). It took me a while but I eventually got it done. Still driving the same truck almost 9 years later.
Hell yeah. I am using alldatadiy and youtube. I hope i dont have to get anything machined.
Any tips? Current plan is replace all gaskets, head bolts, crankshaft bolt, timing chains, water pump, oil seal. Going to drop oil pan and clean out and drain transmission fluid and check that pan.
If you're going that far, find a reputable machine shop and bare minimum get the heads checked and decked. No one likes going that far in a second time, especially if its in an e-van.
Edit: if the heads were pressurizing the cooling system you will absolutely need to deck your heads, between the combustion gasses and steam you'll almost certainly have warpage around the failure point.
Alright, I'm a cheapskate but yeah this job is kicking my ass and I'd prefer not to redo. Thank you.
Just to pile on. This guy is 100% correct. It's not a huge expense for a deck and a suck check. Especially compared to pulling those heads right back off.
yeah minor pain in the ass since after a bunch of research the closest place that looks like it can reliably do them is 2 hours out. still better than the literal days it would take for me to redo. thanks ill call for an estimate tomorrow.
You might have a place closer, because they're usually poorly advertised. My shop has more work than we can schedule. Don't advertise for shit, but all the regular shops send blocks and heads for work. I imagine lots of other machine shops in similar situations.
Any machine shop is worth a call. If you're 2 hours from an industrial park then it probably won't get any better 😂.
Good luck man! That's a big ol job to be learning on, but certainly doable.
you can do it yourself.
Understanding that you are not doing a 4.0 job with this method. It will likely fix a warp, but it will probably unevenly sand the head based on weight and hand pressure. But any small imperfections left behind will probably be covered by the gasket.
hmmm🤔
If you do the chains, do the timing gears too.
I did just the chains on mine and there’s a lot of slop between the chain and the gears because of the wear on the gears.
I’d recommend the chain guides and tensioners as well so you have a proper complete timing job.
I also changed the hydraulic lash adjusters, due to the unknown history of my engine, but it’s probably not necessary unless you have obvious wear or valve-train noise.
Check the knock sensor while the intake is off. The wires on mine were disintegrating and it’s like a $30 part and much easier to do while you’re in there.
Ok, thank you- I'll check out the gears and knock sensor. Timing guides came with the chains, but I would have to open up the boxes to check if tensioners were included as well.
If the motor has timing chains they're won't be any timing gears. In any other sub this would be a pedantic comment, but amongst people who work with machinery for a living, I judge the hell out of people who don't bother to distinguish between gears and sprockets.
With you on the knock sensor one, though- they're a whore to get at on modular engines
you were already headed down the "WTF Happened Here" road so a V10 must have been a cake walk.
Tip for the DIY guys here, there's a lot of free service manual torrents out there, and even the free AI models (ChatGPT, Gemini) are also quite good at finding that information for you too!
I hadn’t thought of checking for torrents. I need to look some up.