cleaning methods sound good. Dropping stuff into various holes is something you want to avoid if you can. Don't worry about the carbon on the pistons.

 

1. Use the razor blade and/or a wire brush on a drill, then follow it up with a 220 or lighter sanding.

2. To keep debris from falling into the block, you can a)plug the block holes (coolant and oil passages) with paper towels or b) have an assistant hold a vacuum cleaner next to the block when you clean.

3. I always like to clean the piston heads, but that requires you to rotate the crank to get each piston at TDC. If rotating the crank is not a concern to you (i.e. timing) then go ahead and put each piston at TDC and scrape the carbon off with a wire wheel on a drill.

4. I think I read where you are sending the heads off for cleaning/machining. If not, make sure you put a straight edge across the mating surface from corner to corner to ensure flatness. Any warpage (even slight) will cause gasket failure in the future (ask me how I know!!!)

 

I'll bite -- How do you know?

 

Porsche head...Need I say more?

 

Porsche 928?

 

944, with a whopping 158 hp!!! 2850lbs at the curb!!! But it did have a transaxle setup which shifted the weight about 50/50 from front to back and made for a very tight handling car.

 

Gotcha. The 924 was actually the performance car to have. Especially the 1988 924.

 

[QUOTE=gobbell1;2159928]
3. If rotating the crank is not a concern to you (i.e. timing) then go ahead and put each piston at TDC [QUOTE]

Would rotating the crank with the heads off change the timing?

I rotated them last night to get the coolant out of the cylinders when i pulled the head off.

I assumed that it would not as I am not really changing anything. The cam would still turn with the crank, when I bolt the head back on the valves would be in the right postion for the pistons.

 

My favorite head gasket scraper is a sharpened steel putty knife. A quick pass on the grinder to give the face a knife edge (one side only, the top as you use it), a few passes with a fine file to deburr, and you've got a killer diller gasket scraper that does less damage than a razor blade and works much faster.

That and some fine emery cloth should be all you need.

Yep. I always use some combination of wood dowels, bits of cloth, shop rags, newspaper, and duct tape to plug the openings.

Myself, if it's just the usual thin layer, I leave it. It's normal, doesn't cause any harm, and is going to reform within 20k miles or so anyway. If the domes are really cruddy due to some past poor oil control (e.g. a blown plenum gasket that was left for too long) it's probably better to clean up.

If you want to clean it out, be sure you get all of the carbon off of each piston dome that you mess with, and get it all out of the cylinder before reassembly. Once you fracture the layer you have to get all of it, or you risk that what you leave behind will break loose during operation. Chunks of carbon breaking free can do all kinds of unpleasant things like smashing spark plug electrodes, hanging valves, and hastening the demise of catalytic converters.

 

My bad on the timing thing. The last head I removed was on a OHC engine, thus the timing issue.