I decided to pull off the heads. And to do that I needed a place to work. A garage opened up nearby to where I work, so I went in on it with tow other guys. One's gota Lotus, the other guy's messing with Chevy trucks. It was a relief to move in there, I really needed a workshop to keep my sanity while owning two cars that I liked to tinker with. Why was I doing this? It's a known problem with these engines that the valve guides and seals go bad after a while. That's where the smoke comes from when it idles, and running hot with a bogus water pump and no thermostat didn't help any, either. As I get into working on it, I realize that although it's a very complicated car, it's essentially like any other car, and things are pretty easy to figure out, if I take a methodical approach to dismantling it. So far nothing has stopped me, but I'm using every socket, extension and wrench combination I have. It's kind of a knuckle-buster. One of the more difficult things has been just mustering the brute force and stamina of removing the head bolts. 16 on each side, each one torqued to 90 foot lbs..

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