If those bristles hold up and don't fall off, and work as well as you say they do it sounds like an excellent tool to try. I never knew those existed. I'll keep that in mind for next time

 

they work better the shorter they get. I save the short ones for motor work, use the new ones for oil coolers, oil pans, and whatever else has a layer of rtv on it and /or gasket. short ones for block and head surfaces.

but on my engine(not the big diesel **** I work on) I would NOT use gasket remover. just a razor should get all of the big stuff off. wet the scotch brite pad in oil or atf ring it out, and the dust will not come out of the pad. clean the block with some brake clean or carb clean on a clean rag and pop those new heads on. just the way I do it.

 

I just met up with Chase and he gave me one of the above mentioned rubber 3M disks for my die grinder. Thanks again chase... BTW your Firehawk is SWEET!

 

More progress, I ran out of carb cleaner so i called it quits for the night. Tomorrow I plan to get another can and really clean things up! I used the carb clean, then razor blade, then the 3M disk, then scotch brite pad soaked in oil....

Thanks again to chase for the 3M disk.


Progress pics, looks like i might be able to install the heads tomorrow!!!







I took a pic of my headers, the coatings are still holding up great!

 

I've used those, they work great. I'm all out of the green ones but have a 50 box of the yellow ones now...they seem to work better as they get shorter since they are stiffer and don't bend as much when they're shorter

 

Wow! That looks great. Since it looks like the surface was scuffed, is it possible that the deck isn't perfectly flat? Also, what did you do to keep gunk out of the coolant passages and lifter areas when you were using the 3m disk?

 

All used that was abrasive was the rubber 3M pad. the scotch brite was all by hand... I am pretty sure i did not dig into the deck with the rubber pad.. The carb cleaner and razor blade pretty much took care of 90% of all of the stuff. I used blue painters tape and taped off the lifter areas. Worked pretty good. As far as the coolant areas i did nothing, like i said i got most of the nasty crap off with the razor blade.. Lots of old tshirts were used wiping everything off.. Tomorrow i finish cleaning up everything.

 

Love the picture of the headers corey....

 

Ahhh the nightmares!!!! And to think I spent 2 whole afternoons (yes 2!!!) with my motor on the engine stand with little razorblades, gasket remover and compressed air to do what you did in probably a couple of hours LOL. If your half nuts like me you can remove the coolant plugs on your motor and flush the gunk out of your block down through the water passages before installing your heads. That way you don't have chunks of **** floating through your cooling system.

 

Looks like you're doing a very elaborate job mang! Very interested to how how your set up runs as well; if you see some really nice results, I may be doing something very similar (intake, heads). Gonna see what all I can get outta the 4.8 before I swap to a 6L down the road. Keep us updated!!