Well, I am about to blow a gasket (pun intended) here.

So, I learned a lesson that I already knew.....dont replace a head gasket without having the head machined....and reusing the head bolts. I tried to cut some corners and save a few bucks on my sons CRX, and now I am paying for it. Long story short, I replaced the head gasket on his car with the engine on a stand last time, but I cut corners and it has failed again.

So I am trying to pull the head with the engine still in the car, and it is giving me nothing but problems. I am starting to think it would have been easier to just pull the motor.

First, I have the exhaust manifold loose, but it will not move forward enough to clear the studs. I have the bracket just in front of the cat removed, but it still will not come forward enough to come free. Do I need to seperate the manifold from the cat?

Second, how the hell do you reach the center nut on the intake mainfold? I have tried every combination of socket, wobble, open end, and box end wrench I have, and nothing will get a bite on that last nut. The only thing I can see that may give me a shot at it would be to pull the alternator off.

Man, I swear I had less time, headaches, and busted knuckles in dropping the motor in the last time. Granted, I had the front end tore off the car then. I am seriously about to just yank it out, but I thought I would see if I am just missing something easy here.

 

Not trying to be a d$@k here but do you have the d15 or b16

 

I've pulled the head on my D16 twice recently. For the center nut on the intake manifold, I'm able to loosen it with just a small wrench right through the top though it doesn't have the greatest grip. I could never get a socket in there. I use one of those magnet tools to spin the nut back on as fingers don't fit. For the exhaust manifold I think the stock one has two brackets (my DC header has just one) attached on the underside which would need to be taken off to give enough wiggle room to clear the studs on the head.

 

Do not pull the intake manifold! Leave it attached to the head and enjoy life a little.

And you can probably just loosen the exhaust bolts or just zap them off now that you won't be pulling all those other nuts/bolts from the intake mani.

 

^^^^^ x2, just leave the intake manifold on and save the headaches. There should be enough clearance to remove the exhaust manifold, just take your time. You don't need to remove the exhaust manifold from anything else other than the head, just play with it some.

 

As mentioned on the first response we need accurate info. B16 od d15. Big difference

 

My bad...I edited the title. Its just a basic '91 d15, bone stock.

I got the exhaust loosened enough to clear the studs. I found the other bracket just right before the cat, just behind the oil pan.

As of now, I have everything pulled on the intake except the one bolt that is directly under the throttle body. I am pretty sure I can get to it from under the car, so I have a bag of speedy dry soaking up the fluids on the garage floor so I can climb under there without getting FUBAR'd.

Is there any other hidden attachment points for the intake other than that one?

 

There should be a bracket holding/supporting it up too if it's never been tampered with.

 

Something wasn't done correctly on your end the first time. It's not required to have the head milled every time you do a head change. The way you talk to people you should know better. Inspect the surface and place a straight edge on it. There are specs for this sort of thing. If you had to kill the head there would be a possibilit of the deck being warped as well (not as likely though). Being that a composite headgasket should had been used, this would have taken up some imperfections (you can even copper spray it if you like), which leads me to believe your head is possibly cracked or severly out of spec.

The intake manifold nut can be removed from the top. I have done it many times myself. If the vehicle is factory there is a support brace that goes fr the block to the intake manifold. I thought you had the engine out before? The block bolts can be kind of hard to reach; all you need to do is remove the ones from the intake. Regardless you can just leave the intake manifold attached to the cylinder head.

The exhaust has a bracket (as you figured out) that attaches to the back of the block and the front. If you don't want to mess wit the exhaust you can just get everything loose and pick the head up enough to clear the dowels. Then move it back to the firewall this clearing the manifold.

 

May as well pull that intake manifold off. Get under it and use a 12" socket extender, or go insane trying to get your hand into it from above. While you're under there, don't forget to unscrew the manifold from the holding bracket.

I recommend removing the intake manifold because after all the advice I've seen here on my problem being a blown head gasket, the ACTUAL problem was a blown intake manifold gasket.... not that it makes a large difference in the amount of work required. Scraping that crap off the head means pulling the head off anyway.

 

Once the head/intake mani is off you can sperate them if you NEED to...that being said, unbolt the Exhaust manifold. Unbolt the support they were refering to from the intake it helps hold the intake up. Slip the timing belt off as u remove the head. How do you know you need to mill the head BTW? What problem is there after re-install? What gasket did you get for the head? You typically want to replace the bolts as they stretch after being torqued...theres videos of torqueing and re-torqued bolts that show what happens when u do this. Not good stuff. Pick up some new ones.