If You Can't Stand the Heat...

The final four exhaust manifold nuts yielded to the might of the blow torch. Each nut took about 2 minutes of heating - until it glowed a dull red - then they moved with almost no effort at all. So all nuts removed without a single mangled or broken stud. One less thing to do.

The next task was to remove the heat exchangers and the exhaust. The former items being compression fitted to the latter. Despite spending a couple of hours with a hammer I couldn't split them apart. So last night I decided to sacrifice the the exhaust (as it was the cheapest) and cut through its pipes. Thus freeing the engine from its final ancillaries.

I then set about the engine casing with my tin of gunk. Engine cleaning is a hideously messy business but the first pass was somewhat successful (see below). Getting into the various nooks and crannies is going to be quite hard, but I think it will be worth the effort as it will make finding case damage easier and also reduce the risk of contamination during the strip down.