Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 21:38:08 -0500
Reply-To: Milo <ovalwindow@YAHOO.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Milo <ovalwindow@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Stuck heat shields - summary of potential solutions
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"
So, you're heat shields are fried in there and you can't get them out.
Geez,
can I relate.... :-)
Here are some solutions offered to me by the list in the past few weeks.
1.) Use a dental pick, preferably stainless steel. Pick away at the carbon
where the shield meets the head. Then, lightly tap on the shield w/ some
sort of blunt instrument - just don't get too carried away! Rotate back and
forth as needed. Then, either using a screwdriver or a surgeons towel
clamp,
or even the said dental pick, pull just that bad boy out!
2.) For more severe cases, you may have to remove the glow plug, stick
a rubber nozel from the end of a air compressor line in there, and carefully
blow from the inside out. (Note: make sure the valves are closed.)
3.) If you're the adventurous type, you can also just crank the engine
over a few times w/ the injector out and the glow plug in. That should
knock her loose. (It may bounce around a little first though!)
4.) Still no luck? When in doubt, burn her out! Get a torch, being
careful
not to ignite any diesel laying on your engine in pools (clean that off
first!), and cook the heck out of the heat shield in question. Then,
drop some ice cold water on it - hopefully that'll pop it out.
5.) It appears the court of last resort, outside of removing the head
and punting, is to tap the heat shield - then thread a bolt in and pull
it out.
Unfortunately, the guy who rebuilt my engine about 1100 miles ago
fashioned his own heat shields out of brass or copper. Two of them
came out easily, but he didn't turn the other two down far enough
and he had to force them into the injector cavity. Not only that,
but there's no overhang into the middle of the hole above the glow
plug. The heat shields are w/i a mm or so smaller than said hole.
Well, after hours and hours of all of the above (except #5, haven't
gone there yet and probably won't to avoid tapping into the head as
well...) - I still can't get the damned things out. "Frustrated..."
One person suggested using ammonia on the brass shields, as it will
reportedly dissolve the metal. I may try this, but I'm not sure
how I'm going to keep the ammonia out of the glow plug area. I
may just pull the damned head, take it to a machine shop, and
start from fresh as well. At this point, I'm fairly fed up.
If I do remove the head, I guess I'll try to dissolve these
homemade heat shields first however.
Anyway, hope this helps someone. Thanks again to everybody
for their help.
Peace, John
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