tore into the 283 found it to be locked up but oh well i guess anyways i have all the head bolts out and cant get them to come loose/off have done everything i can think of with out destroying them i even tried to put a small jack in the intake valley and lift them off but no success i don't want to use these heads but don't wanna ruin them either any suggestions??? also the block reads gm 3914638 any info on it would be nice. thanks
there was a photo in Car Craft several years ago showing a small block Chevy head that was removed without removing any of the bolts that are not under the valve cover. yup. the rare 2 piece single use small block chevy head. make sure you don't have one of those.
Are you sure you have the lowest row of bolts out. I once saw a head a guy broke off the bottom lip prying on it when the lowest bolts were still in and he didn't see them. Two minds one thought. But he types faster.
could you imagine??? I wouldn't tell anybody. I'd put the head at the bottom of the lake so no one would ever find out.
I once installed a set of rebuilt heads on my Olds 455 and I had heard a tip about spraying headgaskets with aluminum paint (!) instead of copper coat or simply dry. A week or so later I decided to change the heads and after taking all of the bolts loose, I couldn't get the heads off. I tried everything I could think of after checking for bolts I had missed three different times. I finally got angry and bolted a chain to the bolt holes on the front of one of the heads and hooked a come-a-long to it, and then to another chain in the roof trusses. It lifted the front corner of the truck off the floor! I know this sounds unbelieveable but it's true! Finally I stood on the front bumper of the rockettruck and on the third bounce, the head broke loose. It had ripped the gasket material in two! The other side wasn't quite so bad--it didn't lift the truck off of the floor before it ripped! The aluminum paint trick really sealed the head to the block!
bottom row in a 305 i did were sludged up so bad they looked like they were the head casting poke around with a screw driver and loosen the rocker arms and turn them so u can see w.t.h. ur doing.
There are three different length bolts. Short ones outside of the rocker covers, long ones between the rocker arm studs, and two medium length ones on each end under the rocker cover, on the ends of the rocker studs. On each head of course....
Some of those studs get burried in sludge and you can't see them. Pull the rockers and clean it as best you can, you will find the one you have missed.
One more vote for bolts you can't see for sludge. I had one like that, I think it was a 235. It was so sludged up, the stuff had actually formed inside parts of the valve cover like it was a jello mold. It was crazy. Decades of profound neglect. Once I got to the pistons you could shake them with your fingertips. The thing smoked like a cigar, but it ran. Squirt around in there with some Brakleen, see if something that looks like a bolt doesn't show it's little hexy head.
well i hope i have left some bolts in there so its a simple fix im going to go count and recheck both heads! thanks for the input!!
I heard a story like that one from a local guy. It was several years ago and it was on an inline 6 ford. He had replaced the head gasket because of a coolant leak, but that didn't fix it, so he was going to replace the head. Same story as yours, aluminum paint... And after removing all the bolts, it wouldn't budge. First he re-installed the plugs and cranked it over trying to get the compression to pop the head off, but that didn't work. Finally, he put the fuel line back on the carb and pluged the plug wires back on and it actually fired up. Said he ran it at an idle for about 30 seconds and it amazed him. Once he bliped the throttle, it finally poped loose. I cant say for sure that I really believed him when I first heard the story, but now that I hear it from you too, I gotta wonder!!! It might actually be a good trick on motors that are known for crapping head gaskets.
turned out to be a row of bolts still in place in between the rockers, took them out and they came right off! at least i now feel retarded
Well at least you didn't break anything... that's the most important thing. I'm laughing with you not at you by the way... i've done crap like that too lol...
If you had broken the head then you could feel retarded.... A couple years ago my son was having a hard time getting the heads off a SBC, he called me over to help him out and after several minutes of prying and so forth I went on a search for head bolts, yep, he had missed the two medium length ones... Sometimes it is the simple things that kick your ass..
a friend of a friend had a Vauxhall 6 they couldn't take the head off, so they put the "extras" back on so they could run it, they drove it for a week till the head "popped" off. sorry can't offer any help.
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