Posting to this forum to get more advice...

Background information: It's a 1994 Pontiac Grand Am SE, 98000 miles, on it's second engine. Quad SOHC 2.3. No power, oil going everywhere, standing pools of oil in the intake manifold, every vacuum line is rotted from oil, dipstick is milky on both ends, two spark plugs are crossthreaded by the previous owner. Already replaced the coil packs.

So, I'm ripping it apart to replace all the gaskets and get the head inspected.

Video of engine running:
YouTube - Grand Am Problems (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgkiwvqSHiU)

Pictures of the spark plugs (note the browning on plug 1) as well as the compression test results of their respective cylinders
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/7913/1000606jz.th.jpg (http://img202.imageshack.us/i/1000606jz.jpg/)http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/9382/1000605.th.jpg (http://img510.imageshack.us/i/1000605.jpg/)http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/5111/1000604b.th.jpg (http://img535.imageshack.us/i/1000604b.jpg/)http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/7205/1000603.th.jpg (http://img256.imageshack.us/i/1000603.jpg/)

Pictures of the engine as of an hour ago
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/7874/1000608i.th.jpg (http://img42.imageshack.us/i/1000608i.jpg/)http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/5374/1000609fo.th.jpg (http://img9.imageshack.us/i/1000609fo.jpg/)http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/4968/1000610w.th.jpg (http://img15.imageshack.us/i/1000610w.jpg/)http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/9263/1000611o.th.jpg (http://img683.imageshack.us/i/1000611o.jpg/)

Looking at the pictures, while oil is coming from EVERYWHERE, it looks like part of the gasket is destroyed on Cylinder 1.

Now the parts I'm stuck at:
1) The guides tell me to remove the power steering pulley. I can't quite figure out how. Is it absolutely necessary, or do I just need to get the PS-to-Camshaft belt off? I was able to just say "screw it" and loosen the power steering pump bracket to get the belt off, but is it absolutely crucial to get the PS pulley off?

2) How much of the timing do I have to remove to get the cylinder head off, and can anybody give me insight on the exact method? Haynes wants me to practically drop the gas tank to get the head off and Autozone's online manual is too vague.

Alright well I'm just waiting on new gaskets now... for anyone that comes across this via Google Search in the future and wants a little more insight into the experience...

You don't have to completely remove the exhaust manifold, just unbolt it and move it back. Just be VERY CAREFUL when putting the head back on to not allow the alignment dowel to gouge the surface of the head as you're trying to line the studs back up.

The three 18mm bolts that hold the engine mount plate on really suck, they're torque-to-yield which means they stretch out. I ended up unbolting that lower "dogbone" engine mount, jacking the engine high up, and hammering an 11/16" [17.48mm] Grip-Tite socket onto it, along with a four foot pole. And being torque-to-yield, you MUST replace them with new bolts. This is NOT optional, re-using the old bolts is unsafe because they will not torque properly. You have to order them 5 at a time from your local GM dealer, they're $2.50 each.

Before ordering a gasket kit, there's two different valve cover seal designs -- 1st Design is where the groove is in the housing, while 2nd Design is where the groove is in the cover. It's hard to find a complete gasket set for 1st Design, so you may have to order that separate and dispose of the 2nd Design that comes with the kit.

There are two bolts behind the cam timing gear that hold the valve cover on. According to Haynes, a 7mm socket will fit through the holes on the timing gear, but mine can't.

When you remove all the bolts to the timing housing you may notice it still doesn't want to come apart. There's three bolts on the other side by the water pump (well, two bolts and one nut). They're difficult, but not impossible, to reach with the exhaust manifold still in place. It's easier to get at two of them from the bottom, break them loose, then unscrew by hand.

Also when you get the nut off for that small plate going between the timing housing and the air conditioner mount, there's another nut behind it that is usually covered in oil and hard to see.

It's helpful for clearance to jack up the driver's side and rest that tire on a 4x4 (or two 2x4s) to free up one of your jackstands.

Since the vast majority of bolts you will encounter are oil-soaked 7mm and 10mm, I'd strongly recommend buying a box of disposable nitrile gloves from the paint section of Wal-Mart, so you can use your fingers to unscrew them all. They're so small your socket wrench's ratchet won't catch.

All torque values and a basic (albeit poorly written) overview of the procedure can be gotten for free from Autozone.com (Vehicle Repair Guides, registration required)

Can't get the crank pulley to sit still when removing the 1 1/16" bolt? When working on a Ford Contour, the suggestion was to remove the starter and jam a screwdriver against the flywheel teeth. I do not know what Ford was smoking, because the starter was in an impossible to reach spot by itself, and I'm not sure jamming a screwdriver against the teeth will ever hold the crank in place in the real world. Any time I needed to remove a crank pulley, I happen to have a chunk of flat steel. It's 0.25" thick, 1" wide, and 18" long. On the Ford I drilled two holes to match two holes in the pulley and put a small nut/bolt in each hole... so it could go in and hold the crank. On the Grand Am I just slipped the entire bar through the crank pulley and embedded the other end in the ground. Worked fine.

Alot of good information here!

The car looks really beat up at 98k miles for its second engine lots of noise under the hood and its really sounds, something is spilling for some kind of air pressure release hope you fix it.
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