You might want to print this off and get a bookmark handy for multiple reading sessions.. its a lot to get through in one sitting

Chapter 1 The Problem

No need to restate the background info.

Chapter 2 The delimma

So I'm at a crossroads. I don't really have the time to fix it myself; and paying to have it done kills my Moab money. Fixing it myself is certainly do-able from an ability standpoint... the main problem comes from the fact that my 'shop' is in my parents' barn 45 minutes north of my apartment; so I am not able to work on it a little at a time. Just driving alone is a 1.5 hour investment each time; so I need to find a huge block of time when I can get it torn down in one sitting, then I can take the head back with me to have the machine shop down the road check it just to be safe, and then another block of time to put it all back together.

How hard is it to find a couple of 6 hour blocks of time over a 4 week period? Well, let me tell you My graduate program is nearing its end. That means, on top of my usual weekly readings/assignments/tests, I am also trying to wrap up the group research study we have been working on for two years and prepare its presentation at the research forum. Also trying to wrap up the grant we have been working on all semester to fund a Lifestyle Redesign Program at a local elderly independent living community. And lets not forget preparing for the long clinical affiliations I have starting shortly after Moab; which also includes finding a new place to live in a different part of the state. That wasn't quite enough stuff, so for good measure I have a cousin that commits suicide that same week... which results in various family members calling needing to talk for anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours each. I had a wedding to attend last weekend, finals to study for this weekend, my best friend's bachelor party next weekend, and a spring term class the following week. Spring term ends on Friday and I have another wedding that Saturday (BTW, all of these are my classmates' weddings... everyone seems to think it was a good idea to cram them in before clinical affils... I am actually missing yet another wedding during Moab and have one to attend the two weekends after I get back), then I leave for Moab early Sunday morning. THAT'S how hard it is to find two 6 hour blocks of time over a 4 week period!

Chapter 3 The attempted fix

So, in a fit of unadulterated craziness, I decide I'm going to drive it home that weekend and do it myself. The machine shop is open 8-noon and Saturday and they told me they'd fit in checking the head after I told them of my time constraints; so if I can pull the head Friday night, they can check it Saturday morning to confirm no cracks, and I can have it all back together by 2PM Saturday. If I just don't go to bed at all Saturday or Sunday nights; I can stay caught up on the research forum stuff and be in the clear. Having just typed that, I find it amazing that it ever seemed like a good idea without me being heavily intoxicated

I go to AutoZone immediately after my last group meeting ends and buy a Felpro head gasket and valve cover gasket. Its about 8PM once I get to my parents' house; and I immediately pull into the barn and get to work on the tear down. I burnt my arm pretty nicely in a few spots since I didn't even give the motor time to cool before turning wrenches. Things are going good, get all of the intake stuff off, vacuum lines, valve cover, upper timing belt cover. All thats left is to loosen the cam sprocket bolt and remove the cam sprocket and I can pull the head. I stick a screwdriver in one of the holes in the cam sprocket to hold it in place while I loosen the bolt, wrapped in a towel to keep from gouging anything. The bolt is tight, and I'm leaning all of my weight into it... when the screwdriver slips and I hear a pop. My weight immediately shifted the cam sprocket CCW, causing it to tension up really hard on the right side and gain slack on the left side. The slack went down to the crank sprocket, allowing the timing belt to drop down off the teeth just enough that the large amount of tension on the other side pulled it over a tooth out of time. DANGIT! and things were going so well up to that point.

I loosen the TB tensioner bolt and turn the crank; but the tensior isn't detensionerizing ( ) for anything. Decide I'm going to have to take the front of the engine down so I can remove the lower part of the timing belt cover and get to the tensioner more effectively. Take out the radiator and shroud, loosen accessories and remove belts, take off the crank bolt (which required utilizing a 4 foot cheater pipe on the end of my breaker bar)... can't get the damn harmonic balancer off to save my lift. I don't have the proper puller to remove it and there's nowhere to get one at 1AM. I try various bits of McGuiverism for about 45 minutes and finally just admit defeat. I knew there was no way I'd be able to make my time deadline now; so I just went inside, got cleaned up, went to bed, got back up at 5am and put it all back together. Drove my other truck ('88 F-150 with a primer hood and rust holes through the sides of the bed, its awesome!) back to my apartment and dad hauled the Amigo in-toe with his truck. Still didn't get to sleep more than 3 hours Saturday and Sunday night, I was out all of my time, and now I was still going to be out my Moab money I did get all of my school stuff taken care of for the week, though, and the research forum went swimmingly

Chapter 4 Couldn't fix it with my watch, so I'm fixing it with my wallet

I called the Isuzu dealer that Monday and gave the guy that answers phones a brief synopsis (he admits to not being much of a mechanic and said it wasn't worth giving him an in-depth explanation); and he said to bring it down and the mechanic would do whatever I needed done.

That Tuesday, I drove the Amigo over (running like crap since the timing is off a tooth) and my room mate was going to pick me up shortly thereafter. Even though it was around 7PM, the shop foreman was surprisingly still there; so I actually spent about 10 minutes explaining the situation to him and discussing what I wanted done. I was very impressed with him because he actually listened very intently to me and regarded the fact that I knew what was going on. Considering I am young looking and was on-site at a rehab facility right before dropping the truck off and still had my 'white-collar camo' clothes on; most mechanics would have blown off my attempts to tell them anything; disregarding the fact I could have done the job myself if I had just had that darned puller. So that made me feel a lot better about them doing the work without trying to 'pull one over' on me. I told him to feel free to give me a call if they ran into any abnormalities; but besides that, just have the head checked, replace the gasket, reset the timing, and call me when its done.

Talked to him today and he asked me if I had torqued the head bolts at some point. I said no, but a shop put that AMC head on about 45k miles ago and would have at that time. He said the head bolts were so tight that he had to use a breaker bar to get them loose and the HG was squashed in a few places. This finalizes the negative experience I had with the shop that rebuilt the motor; which is a whole different story I'm not going to get into there (you're welcome ). The HG was blown between the 4th cylinder and the water passage; shop said the head check out fine for cracks but was warped (probably due to the rambo treatment the last shop gave the head bolts). The machine shop was supposed to shave the head true today and I should have my baby back by tomorrow evening. But, in all honesty, with everything I have going on already; its worth that money not to be tightening the last bolt 5 minutes before my 24 hour trek out to Moab and praying the whole way that nothing goes wrong.

Chapter 5 After 5 years of waiting, I'm NOT missing my trip

I've waiting far too long and the timing is far too perfect this year not to make Moab. Who knows when I'll get this opportunity again once I start a career in January So I decided on a compromise. I have two weeks off between Moab and my clinicals. I have never taken an actual break the whole time I've been in college (always worked over the summer and during spring and winter breaks); so my intention was to veg out and be a bum during those two weeks because, well, I've worked my arse off and earned it! But my boss at the construction company for which I work was practically beggin me to come back this summer (couldn't due to clinicals) and I can easily cover the expense over those two weeks... so I am using some student loan money to pay for the fix and then working like a dog those two weeks to pay it back. Well worth it to make the trip of a lifetime. And not just to experience the trails, but to get a chance to meet many of the people such as yourself that have been so nice to me and influential in my choice of hobby over the last half-decade.

Sorry for such a long message; but I'm all about being thorough In case you blacked-out at some point while trying to get through all of that, the take home message is SEE YOU IN MOAB!!!