That washer fluid really did the trick and I wish I originally bought it over the brake cleaner even though some of the fluid is now past the valves. I was planning on changing my oil again in 1500 mi
Justin mentioned it in an above post.
You can purge the cylinders of any fluids and some small bits by simply pulling off the coil packs and pulling out the spark plugs. This leaves an opening for cylinder contamination to be pushed through when the motor comes up on compression the compression will push fluids and other bits out the spark plug opening.
Make sure to unplug the fuel pump or unplug the injectors. Let the starter motor run for a few seconds and you will see lots of stuff come out the open port. Works wonders. For me it’s always been a great way to purge after a carbon clean.
Thanks ! 
l thought I messed up lol I’ll let you know how that works for me I’m cleaning my last cylinder now and getting ready to do the valve cover gasket
Have fun with the VC gasket.
They make a low profile tool and bit that work great on that one screw… That will all make sense once you get there 
I would suggest you pull the port spacers out. Don’t leave them in. They just end up being a carbon magnet. Cold starts in most cases ends up being better without them
I wish I knew that before I spent hours cleaning them I would’ve threw them straight in the trash
Sorry man. The good part is now you know first hand just how much carbon those things attract and how hard they are to clean. Now making the fact that you don’t have to do it again even better.
1 Like
Should I put the IM back on before I do the valve covers?
I wouldn’t.
I wasn’t planning on that but I was just curious
You probably already did but, just make sure to tape off the intake ports so you don’t get anything falling in there during the gasket change.
Also, take a few extra min and vacuum out the heads under the areas in the corners. Lots of times during the VC gasket change small bits end up falling in there as well. If you’ve ever pulled an oil pan on a 2nd or 3rd owner car you can tell the people who had their VC gaskets changed and never cleaned up the small bits that fell.
It seems maybe a bit much but trust me. When you see the collection of things already on your oil pick up screen. You want to do anything you can to keep that to a min.
If you don’t already I would suggest looking to get the JHM intake spacers. Now is the best time to put them in.
My low profile ratchet comes in the mail today so I’ll be able to knock that out. It looks like this car was parked on beach so I’ve been trying my hardest not to get any sediment in anything
Both the valve covers are off and they were pretty brittle. A slight tug and the gasket would snap. The gaskets should be here soon and I should have the car ready this weekend. I am forgoing the spacers this time around and I’m going to do some exhaust work instead.
Another setback 
the rocker arm went freelance it looks like. So my questions are:
- How Effed am I?
- If I’m not totally effed where could i get this part and what are the torque specs for the bolts?
Well it’s good you found this now. Did you have any issues with missfires. Seems like you would have gotten some early warning signs of this. How did the other cylinder head look.
I would start by pulling out as many of the parts as you can so you can rebuild the area just to make sure more parts are not possibly lodged somewhere else.
It was definitely misfiring the other head was fine it just had the phlegm looking gunk from the pcv I’m it. And I’ll be back with pictures of everything I take out. It didn’t look too bad when I looked around but we will see more in depth I guess once I take that apart.
I can see that it’s out of place, but can’t really see where it belongs, on those pictures.
Torque spec … Point an arrow and I’ll find if for you.
