I put my 300tdi head back on too soon

[AndrewClarke]

I'm putting my 300tdi back together, and there are a couple jobs that in retrospect I should have done while the head was still off.

I didn't put my glow plugs back in, and I can't get the front one in without moving the air conditioner out of the way. I can't get the back bolt off to remove the A/C compressor. It's frozen in, and nothing I've tried is going to work. Are there any other tricks for this, or do I just put a machine screw in and go with three glow plugs? I'm at that point now, so if there are any other suggestions I'm all ears.

Also, I didn't think to put my thermostat housing gasket on and tighten up the thermostat housing to the head. One of those bolts is going to be almost impossible to get to, and of course I don't have a thermostat housing gasket. Is Permatex or something like that a suitable alternative in this case or do I need to order the $2 gasket for that?

Thanks :-(

 

[JohnnoK]

If it was my engine and hadn't been started yet, I'd pull the head off and do the items properly.

 

[jymmiejamz]

Yeah I'd probably just order another head gasket and do it right. You'll thank yourself later.

 

[AndrewClarke]

I can understand your comments about "do it right", given my suggestion of just not using one of the glow plugs. However, my questions weren't really about that. Pulling the head off isn't necessarily "doing it right" as maybe I've missed some trick to getting the glow plug in. In that case, it would be stupid to take the head off. I have the exhaust/intake manifolds back on, fuel injectors back in, etc. etc. so it's more than a bit of a pain in the butt to take all that off, especially if there's an easier way I just don't know about.

My more knowledgeable friend is coming over tomorrow to give his input, and from there I'll either take the head back off, or thank him profusely for his decades of experience helping me out in this matter. I'll post back how it goes.

 

[AndrewClarke]

This is for any of you who might sometimes have felt not up to a task. I'm here to make you feel more competent.

My knowledgeable friend took one look at the air conditioner compressor and pointed out that I was attempting to remove the wrong bolts. So that was that. Compressor out, glow plug in.

Then he also noticed that I'd torqued the glow plug wire in between the head and head gasket. So the head had to come off anyway. Fortunately the head is fine, so I'll pick up a new gasket tomorrow and put it all back together again, this time with my friend's help so it's all done right.