[dmechnic]

So silly me, I figured I could not bother with getting new gaskets for the coolant connections to the head after doing the head gasket since I had less than 1k miles on the repair. Well, the thermostat gasket worked just fine, but the hard pipe on the back of the block that bolts up on the far left side not so much. It’s leaking pretty bad, as in kinda pouring out. Does anyone have any tips on getting that pipe out so I can get to the head surface, clean it and be sure there’s no remnants of the old gasket as well as clean the flange of the pipe? Any shortcuts to minimize the amount of disassembly to get to it would be VERY helpful. At least I know I can deal with the exhaust manifold without worrying about stripping the stud threads out of the head (they got helicoiled the first time I replaced the head gasket).

 

[dmechnic]

After pulling the turbo and exhaust manifold again (at least that’s “easy” now…lol) I got to the pipe and using a mirror I could see the gasket, which I apparently scraped with the head as input it back in as there was only about 1/2 of the gasket left and it wasn’t stuck to the flange like it was. New gasket is in and nothing is leaking so heading in the right direction.