Removing cylinder head in NB-difficult?

quartersaw

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 20, 2005
Location
Albany, NY
TDI
2002 Jetta Wagon, '96 B4V,'99 2 door Golf
I'm contemplating removing,and replacing the head on my '99 NB engine (107K miles) which suffers from low compression.(350/425/360/380 lbs)
Besides removing all of the obvious stuff in the front of the engine,I was wondering what else has to come off of the head in the rear-other than the exhaust system from the turbo? Can I remove the head with the turbo,intake,and exhaust manifolds intact?
I have a really bad back,so if this job requires hours of bending over the engine compartment for long periods of time to remove lots of impossible to see nuts,and bolts,I might consider just taking the car to a garage instead.
I still have not confirmed that the head is actually the problem since it seems that nobody in this area can perform a leak down test.Since the timing belt was installed using the 'mark and pray' method,I'm willing to bet that the valves are the cause of the weak compression.
As always,the advice that I receive here is always useful,and VERY much appreciated!!!!
 

TurBoLover

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 16, 2006
Location
NW Arkansas
TDI
99.5 Jetta TDI w/ 164000
As part of my problems I just removed the turbo and exhaust manifold. I'm sure you can remove the head with everything intact, however, it seems like it would be heavy and awkward. Took me 1.5-2 hours to remove intake, exhaust/turbo. Looking at the car I would think it would take another .5-1 hr to remove the head.
If you want to do it piece at a time, follow these instructions posted by runonbeer. Made the job very simple and straight forward

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=69247
 
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