If only things were simple. Maybe to some of you, pulling a 5.3 V12 drive train from this ’87 Jag is not a big deal. In reality, it isn’t. But when you’ve never done it before, it’s the “have nots” that get you. Did I disconnect everything? Is the engine hoist strong enough? What’s it caught on?? We pulled it out and I think it took five to ten minutes before my chest deflated. It was a proud moment. But man is it heavy, about 500 pounds plus the GM 3-speed trans, whatever that weighs, a buck twenty?
It’s on a pallet so we can move it around as needed. The heads are off. Oh shoot! In looking back at my posts I didn’t actually tell you how we got here. On my first test drive, it overheated. Ok, now, we are all caught up. But it wasn’t just that it overheated. It blew a head gasket. At least that’s what I thought. After the car cooled down on the side of the road, I drove it home before it could even heat up, about a mile or two. I tried it the next day and so white exhaust and smelled radiator fluid in it. I thought, well that’s the end of that.
We had to pull the heads to replace the head gaskets, which on other cars can be done at the race track in a couple hours. But not with a V12. There is a required special tool that generates even torque to all the studs, after nutting down the tool to camshaft bolts, to pull off the head. However, said heads when coming off need clearance from the exhaust headers. By the time you try to remove the headers, you may as well pull the engine and tackle everything. So that’s what we did. Heads are at the machine shop in Ann Arbor.
Leave a Reply