First the usual caveats: I freely admit I have no idea what I'm doing and that I'm in over my head. The only other serious wrenching I've done was a ball joint and CV boot replacement (some may remember a post or two from me about that,) and there were a whole lot less moving parts involved. I have a Haynes manual and more enthusiasm than brains.

Next, the back story: the Rodeo was leaking some oil (not a lot, but it wasn't leaking any before I put lighter oil in hoping to help with the ticking) and some coolant (and the green puddles in the garage seemed to be getting bigger.) So I decided to take a crack at hunting down the leak, and changing the radiator hoses. So far so good.

Then along comes the well intentioned co-worker who once rebuilt a 70 Gremlin or something equally hideous (and simple) who said "Really you should change the belts too, and if you do the timing belt, the water pump isn't that hard to get to, and if you are going to do all that, you might as well change the valve covers - I bet it would help the leaking. And if you are going to take the valve covers off, might as well do the spark plugs. And gee, since you are THAT far in, you might as well change the head gaskets too." ...Anyone see where this is going?

So I started taking things apart this weekend, and actually made relatively good progress Sunday. Actually I say "good progress" like I would know it if I saw it. Let me rephrase - I think I can put back together what I have disassembled so far. I have the air intake hose off, the EGR and throttle body off, the air intake plenum off, the radiator hoses off, the radiator out (it was only two screws once the hoses were off, and opened things up in there), the fan out, all the belts off (including the timing belt) and the water pump out.

Tonite was a different story. I started trying to get the valve covers off, and after spending a disgustingly long time fiddling with hard to get to cover bolts, I now have the thing completely un-bolted. I was hoping at this point, I could gently pick up the cover, and voila! No such luck. The manual suggests whacking the cover with a hammer and a piece of wood. Tried that with several variations on the theme. The next suggestion is to take a flexible putty knife and start working it into the seal.

Something tells me there HAS to be an easier way, and I'm a little hesitant to start going at it with a putty knife. Once I start digging away at the thing, I'm pretty sure I will have crossed the line where I can no longer just put it all back like I found it and pretend this never happened. Of course, if I do that, the leaks around the valve covers will remain, I'll obviously not be able to get to the heads (that might not be a bad thing) and I'll have to face my own personal failure and live with my damaged ego for at least a day or two before I forget about it.

So my questions are:
1) Is there an easier way to get the valve covers off other than the flexible putty knife?
2) Is it worth messing with the heads (regardless of the valve covers) Is there something I should look for to determine this? (Oil in the spark plugs?)
3) Any thing else anyone can think of I'm missing?

I HAVE been taking a lot of pictures as I go, and hope to have a decent write up to share with the group when I am done, so with luck even if my own personal experience comes up a boondoggle, maybe others can learn from my ineptitude.

Here's some photos of where I am right now:
The engine in it's current state.


One of the two immovable valve covers.

1. A rubber mallet did the trick for me.
2. No. Nobody replaces head gaskets as a prophylactic measure. If one was blown, you'd know something was very wrong.
3. Since you're already this far, you might consider replacing two certain little PITA o-rings in the cooling system plumbing. Rubber o-rings can only last so long. I recently had the pleasure of dealing with this...here's the thread.

Yeah, I tried that too - whacked it as hard as I dared with a big rubber mallet and it didn't budge. How sturdy are these things - is it safe to beat on them with all my pent up agression and frustration? <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/evil.gif" alt="" />

The valve covers are very sturdy, but I wouldn't get too carried away with the hammer. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> If all of the bolts are out, it should come off. Make sure there isn't something holding the covers in place.

Going after these o-rings and the gaskets on the water pipe toward the rear of the motor are going to require even more removal. You'll need to disconnect fuel lines, remove the fuel rail and injectors. If you didn't first bleed off fuel pressure before disassembly, you may have fuel spray to deal with as you for sure aren't going to get this motor started in order to bleed fuel pressure. After that you get to remove the lower intake manifold in order to finally have access to pipes with o-rings and pull the water pipe which incidentally is your upper pipe that the upper rad. hose connects to. This thing feeds down underneath the lower intake manifold. There's a web site called http://www.slhonda.com that feature components of the vehicle. Same sort of thing the parts guys at dealerships use. You can look at Passports from '94 - ??. I forget the last year Isuzu made the Passport. These photos may help you with identifying all of the hoses, o-rings, etc.

I see your water pump is still on. It's not hard, but cleaning the surface takes time and if you feel taxed by all of this, you may want to forego replacing it for now and just get on with putting Nelly back together. Getting the timing belt on and keeping the marks in sync can be interesting. I've had some things to say about that here in other posts.

By 96.5 I assume you menat 95.5

Good luck.

Looks like the pumps off to me.

Make sure there aren't any hidden bolts behind the cam pulleys or on the back near the firewall.


Madcat <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

Madcat:

My apologies. The pump is off. I did have to stare at it for awhile though. Old eyes.

I'm 99.999% sure I got all the bolts out (if I missed some, I missed them on both valve covers) - there were 4 across the top, 5 across the bottom IIRC. I'll double check when I get home before I start wailing on them again. If another couple of solid whacks don't get me anywhere, I'm going to give a razor blade down the gasket a shot, then whack them again. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/notooth.gif" alt="" />

Yep, water pump is off, but man that gasket was a PITA to get cleaned off. What REALLY sucked though was the heater hose placement on the passenger side. The upper part of the bracket was wedged between the engine lift bracket and the firewall and made the air intake nearly impossible to get out, and the bottom one was equally hateful in getting the back valve cover bolts out.

how about the bolts in the middle of each end of the valve covers? they're a little longer than the rest. did you get those?

Everyone knows about THOSE bolts. Of COURSE I got THOSE bolts - they are right in the MIDDLE of each end of the valve covers, a little longer than the rest. You undo THOSE bolts and the covers come right off:




Phil gets the "where the heck did THOSE bolts come from" award of the day. Thanks to all the beating with a hammer the covers lifted right off after the bolts came out. (Ok, actually they got stuck on the satanic heater hoses and engine lifting bracket mentioned earlier, but I got them off eventually.) <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shiner.gif" alt="" />

So my next question is:
Is that orange color normal? - It's sorta baked on and looks evil, as does all that black gunk in the lower intake manifold (I think that's what that is...)