Last week I explained that during a routine compression test prior to putting Otto (my ’74 2002tii) up for sale, the #3 cylinder measured only 50 psi. I described doing a leak-down test and finding that pumping compressed air into #3 pushed so much air into the radiator that the cooling system literally gurgled like a fish tank. Check out the video at https://youtu.be/6PSMy6wb3lM.

    There was no sense being in denial. The diagnosis was very clear. There was a major leak between the #3 compression chamber and one of the coolant passages, almost certainly due to the head gasket being blown—or, to use less spectacular verbiage, having deteriorated—between the former and the latter.

    So the head gasket had to be changed.

    So the head had to come off.

    While I’m not a professional, I’ve decapitated approximately ten 2002s over the years (I’m an amateur executioner). Unlike a more modern car with its tangled cooling and electrical plumbing, it’s pretty easy to remove the head from a 2002, basically one evening until lift-off. It’s a little more involved with a tii than with a carbureted 2002 because the throttle linkage and injection lines need to be undone, and to do that you have to pull off the intake plenums—at least I do—but it’s still very straightforward.

    I drained the coolant and oil, undid the exhaust manifold from the head pipe, pulled out the distributor, disconnected the handful of wires that go to the head, unbolted the intake plenums, linkage, and injection lines, unclamped the coolant hoses, took the valve cover, timing-chain tensioner, front timing cover, and cam gear off, then cracked and loosened the head bolts.

    The two bolts on the exhaust side of #3 were quite difficult to remove, held in place by a ring of mung that clung like death to their threads. But soon the head was ready to come off.

    I just needed to lift it up.

    The main issue was my aging, aching back. A 2002 head, even one laden with exhaust and intake manifolds, is not terribly heavy, but even under the best of circumstances, I really shouldn’t be dead-lifting something like that anymore. And leaning over the engine compartment with a bent-over back in order to muscle out a head is an absolute no-no for me. My son Ethan is, in theory, around to help with such things; but garage work has its own rhythm, and when you see those goalposts up ahead, a bit of mechanic’s red mist can seep in and make you want to go for it.

    Fortunately (I guess), the back pain from my recent swapping of Otto’s seats was still fresh in my mind, so I stopped before I reached and yanked and did something I’d regret.

    But I had an idea. I have a Warn PullzAll, a small portable electrically-operated winch. I use it when I need to skooch a car sideways on wheel dollies into the tight-fit fourth spot in the garage. I’d never used the PullzAll to lift anything vertically, but I looked up the lift rating, and it’s a hefty 1,000 pounds. I guesstimated the weight of the head and manifolds as absolutely no more than 50 pounds, probably closer to 40.

    Of course, that won’t help you if the other end of the PullzAll isn’t attached securely up above. I found a big screw hook with a quarter-inch shank, carefully located the center of one of the ceiling studs with a stud-finder, drilled a pilot hole one size smaller than normal, and threaded the hook in there. I tightened it using a long half-inch ratchet extension for leverage, making sure the threads were getting a good, tight bite in the wood. When I was done, I attached a strap to the hook and hung on it, bouncing a bit for good measure. It seemed to be in there quite solidly.

    I put one end of the PullzAll’s cable on the hook. I wrapped a piece of strapping around the intake and exhaust manifolds and guessed at a good balancing point. I passed the other end of the PullzAll’s cable through the strapping. I hit the “tighten” button on the PullzAll and held my breath.

    Let me invoke my inner lawyer at this point and say that I recommend that you don’t do this.

    The hook could pull out of the ceiling, causing the winch and the cylinder head to come crashing down on the block—or worse, on you, or parts of you. I only did it because I was lifting only a head, not the entire engine, and I was dead certain that I had screwed the hook into the center of the beam, and that it was set in there good and tight.

    It worked perfectly. But my inner lawyer wishes to repeat: Don’t try this yourself.

    Usually, when you’re pulling a head, you find that you’ve forgotten to disconnect some coolant hose or mechanical linkage or wire or whatnot until you begin to lift the head, at which point you’re inadvertently testing something’s tensile strength in ways you don’t really want to. When you find that you missed undoing a connection, it’s often difficult to gently put a head back down without damaging or crushing something. With the PullzAll, I could lift the head an inch, then two, then let it hang there while I checked for straggling connections. The only thing I missed was that I hadn’t peeled back the thin wiring harness for the two temperature sensors from between the intake manifold and the head. With the head suspended from the PullzAll, I freed the harness and continued lifting.

    You can see the video at https://youtu.be/DEChBY87NQY.

    With the head suspended in the air, I found a two-by-four, placed it across the front shock towers, and lowered the head onto it so it wasn’t dead weight hanging from the hook in the ceiling. Then I stacked a couple of milk crates on the right side of the engine compartment to have a place to put the head down. I went to get Ethan to help me lift the head from there—I figured we could slide it most of the way on the two-by-four—but he still wasn’t around. 

    I looked at this arrangement and had a thought.

    I winched the head back upward slightly with the PullzAll to get it up off the two-by-four, grabbed the exhaust manifold, and used it to pull the head laterally toward the stack of milk crates. As I did that, I let out more cable on the PullzAll to allow me to pull the head ever farther to the right. In no time at all, I had the head sitting on top of the milk crates—without ever having to bend over and lift it.

    Okay, payoff time! Anxious to see the source of the gurgles in my cooling system, I reached down and pulled the head gasket off the block. I inspected the area between #3’s compression seal and the coolant passages for what from the dramatic symptoms should’ve been a completely obvious head-gasket failure. Do you see it?

    Neither do I. Hmm.

    (Next week: The plot thickens.)—Rob Siegel

    Rob’s book Memoirs of a Hack Mechanic is available through Bentley Publishers, Amazon, and Bavarian Autosport—or you can get a personally inscribed copy through Rob’s website: www.robsiegel.com. His new book, The Hack Mechanic Guide to European Automotive Electrical Systems, can be pre-ordered from Bentley Publishers. Use the coupon code “BMWCCAELECTRIC” for 30% off list.