'99 Venture Cylinder head removal

[meggabad]

I wanted to say Thank you to those who helped me in this thread with valuable tips and advice. I tried to post pictures of the job, however that feature is disabled for me for some reason. Anyhow, thanks again, got motor finished today and she runs like a champ!

[sonicrunch]

I am considering doing a head job as well.

Do you guys think it would be easier to drop the engine/tranny/subframe assembly instead?

[meggabad]

"Easier"? Seems like that would be a hell of alot harder if you ask me. Its really not that bad of a job. One thing I made the mistake on is I had the van on stands and by doing that, the wheels hung too low I felt to rotate the motor forward while in neutral. So in the midst, I jacked it up higher to put ramps under the wheels. Once you have it on ramps, and disconnect the cat converter underneath, you will have pretty good access to that back (or left) side of the motor once rotated forward. It looks more intimidating than it really is. If you pm me your e-mail, I'd be happy to send you pictures I took of my job.

One last thing, if your really that gung ho, and depending on how many miles you have on you machine, if you decide to go the complete removal route I would reccomend going ahead and rebuilding the lower half of the motor. I use a very reputable machine shop where I live and the machinist told me there that while these motors are notorious for the LIM leak, the only problem these motors really have in the bottom end is that they employ a hollow cam shaft and that sometimes they can break in half. Otherwise these engines are pretty solid in the lower half. With that said, he also told me that he wasnt sure if there was even one on the market that was solid. Since my motor didnt run bad at all when I tore it down I opted against going that route. In fact, there was nothing wrong with my heads or the head gaskets, I just felt that after 120k miles, they were probably due since I had it down that far. My machinist said I certainly didnt waste my money doing them either. I would also like to mention that I went ahead and paid the extra $80 ($40 per head) to have them pressure tested for cracks. My guy told me that while the 3.1 heads are far more probable for having cracks, they do have 3.4 heads show up with them as well.

Anyway, I'll stop my tangent now, I will be more than happy to share those pics, and more if your interested. Good Luck!

[Nitro23]

Dropping the the front motor tranny carriage is pretty easy. I know that's what the GM shops do most of the time. They have the equipment to do it.

When I replaced my motor, I dropped the whole engine cradle out. I put the body up on railroad ties. You will have to calculate the clearance required to roll out the engine. I think I had the bottom of the front end 50 inches off the ground. When dropping the engine cradle, you only have to unplug the wiring to the starter area. The rest of the wiring can be undone once the cradle is down. Motor mounts, steering pinch bolt and strut tops (yes leave the stuts on the knuckle) are the only items which need disconnected.

Also remembered I had to disconnect the AC compressor and move to the front. You do not need to break open the AC lines.

Steering pinch bolt was nasty...

I used a engine hoist with a chain fall to lower the cradle out. The cradle lowered right on the hoist legs, and I could wheel it around my pole barn.

Since then I have also done the head job with the engine in.

I have done both, and because I don't really have the right equipment - doing the heads with the motor in is the easiest way.