Trouble pulling cylinder head

Hi everyone.

My daughter’s 86 Escort with the 1.9 gasoline engine blew the head gasket. I’m trying to pull the cylinder head but it won’t come free in the front. It looks to me like the plastic timing belt cover is hanging up the head. I’ve of course removed the front part of the cover, but there’s a back half too, behind the various pulleys (that isn’t shown in my Chilton manual). Since this cover extends the whole height of the engine, it has the effect of holding the head and block together. If I could get sufficient leverage, I’d just snap the $##$% thing, but I can’t. I will admit that I didn’t/couldn’t pull the crank pulley and just removed the timing belt off the cam pulley and let it hang down. Is it necessary to actually remove the crank pulley to pull the head or am I missing something?

Thanks in advance!

Well i'll try to help you out there is a bolt the goes through the front of the head and you will have to have the alt off to see it. I just found it in the manual its the alt bracket to cylinder head mounting bolt. If you have the same manual chilton #26242 it on page 3-51 fig 120. good luck.

Thanks,that's a good thought, but I did get the alternator bracket
bolt. I just can't figure out how to remove the back half of the
timing belt cover.
Thanks for the response.

pull the cam gear

pull the cam gear

Yep, that was it. It was that simple, strange that Chilton
didn't bother mentioning that step.

Thank you very much! Now I can get on with hard part -
trying to put it back together...

I don't thik Haynes mentions it either, I just know that from taking a few hours to change my timing belt....

Hi everyone.

My daughter’s 86 Escort with the 1.9 gasoline engine blew the head gasket. I’m trying to pull the cylinder head but it won’t come free in the front. It looks to me like the plastic timing belt cover is hanging up the head. I’ve of course removed the front part of the cover, but there’s a back half too, behind the various pulleys (that isn’t shown in my Chilton manual). Since this cover extends the whole height of the engine, it has the effect of holding the head and block together. If I could get sufficient leverage, I’d just snap the $##$% thing, but I can’t. I will admit that I didn’t/couldn’t pull the crank pulley and just removed the timing belt off the cam pulley and let it hang down. Is it necessary to actually remove the crank pulley to pull the head or am I missing something?

Thanks in advance!
it is tricky but the cover will come off