If you have patience, a razorblade can be used. Run it at a 45 or 60 degree angle to the forward path, and fairly vertical to decrease the chance of digging in. Otherwise, you can chuck a wire wheel in a cordless drill.

 

I plan on being very patient with this so will try a mixture of techniques I've read. I'm a little nervous with wire wheel or abrasives (even scotchbrite pads) as it sounds like particles or wire pieces could go flying into where you don't want them to, but if I have to will do so.

Another thought, since I have it tore apart should I pull the lifters and check them out? Is is a pain to do? What should I be looking for or test for? I haven't noticed any valve noise except maybe a little on startup that quickly goes away once the oil starts pumping, not sure what else a bad or going bad lifter symptom would be.

 

With the heads off, pulling the lifters will never be any easier...... If you are over 100K miles, I would be real tempted to simply replace them. They aren't really expensive.....

 

Well worked all day Sat and got the intake off and started on the passenger side cylinder head, got the exhaust manifold off and loosened all the head bolts and was working out the last bolt by hand with the socket it slipped out of my hand and went right down the rabbit hole into the open exhaust pipe down below, so that ended my day Sat. Today tried fishing it out with a hand made magnet (1/4" vacuum tube and 5/16" neodymium magnets from HF) but couldn't get it out. Tried loosening the bracket and banging the pipe out right by the first O2 sensor but can't seem to get it to come apart. I'm pretty discouraged right now, should have tried the can of the blue stuff....

 

Take a sawzall and cut between the Wye and the main catalytic. Will make your life much easier. Use a 2.5" coupler from oreilly's to clamp it back together.

 

Thank you, that's a great idea. Wish I would have posted earlier before banging on the exhaust trying to separate it near the Wye. Now have to try and push that back together, as I did get it to move about 3/4".

 

Haven't had a chance to cut the pipe yet, didn't have the right tools. I do have one question though, I got a little aggressive from frustration trying to get those pipes apart and dented the exhaust pipe. Should it still be good enough?
Thanks.

 

not even noticable...

 

OK so I cut the pipe and got the socket out of there. Thanks magnethead. Finished pulling the passenger side head and the gasket looks fine to me, I don't see anywhere that it's blown through, and I don't see anything crazy on the head itself either. I'll work on getting the drivers side head off next and see what I find.

Reason for my post is started talking to a new neighbor up the street who works on vehicles too, and he said that the coolant in the oil symptom (there was probably 1/2 quart) is more likely a cracked block or a seal underneath. I haven't seen that yet in any of my web searches, it's always been head gasket or something with the heads. How likely is it with these 5.2L engines for a block crack? It was running great up to the point where I suddenly started having problems, and it didn't overheat from what temp gauge said and the engine still sounded good too.

 

I have seen a lot of headgasket problems, I have seen very few cracked blocks. If your coolant was good to colder than it generally gets where you live, I seriously doubt that is the issue. (cracked block) However, there ARE gaskets on both sides of the timing cover that coolant passes thru, and if one of those let go, you get coolant in the oil.