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this week i pulled the 4.6 in my stx for the first time and i was expecting to have to remove or at least pin back the hood, but didn't have to. everything i read or watched said i was going to need to do it. (i did remove the front grille area from the hood) i'm working on this alone, so it saved me a lot of hassle. might not have needed to remove the front bumper either, not sure on that. the flexplate and harmonic balancer both stayed on the engine. it was necessary to remove the plastic cowl piece that covers the body wiring harness or there would not have been enough clearance from the front to the back.
fwiw, here's some pics. it's a 2004 stx 126" reg cab, 2wd 4.6, stock wheels & suspension, etc
nothing special really. my plan is to pull the heads and do lock-n-stitch inserts on all the spark plug holes, a full gasket replacement, and just a general refresh. the engine runs pretty good overall with about 130k.
i got this vehicle about 13 years ago but don't put a lot of miles on it. it's always had an oil leak up near the a/c compressor area, and early on i tried to fix it in-vehcle by doing the front cover/oil pan/valve cover gaskets, but it didn't seem to work. i can't see anywhere else it could be leaking from, but i will open it up and see.
been working very slowly on this truck, but finally found out why that persistent leak and why my initial in-vehicle attempt to repair it didn't work. RH cylinder head must have been dropped at one time because it was cracked.
so, i bought these... (i am into it this far, didn't want to do just one)
what's nice is they already have the deep spark plug threads, so i won't need to lock-n-stitch
reference pic of the original 4-thread heads. i did an in-vehicle lock-n-stitch repair after a spark plug blow out a few years ago (middle chamber in pic).
looks like the only thing i'll need to do before bolting them onto the block is to plug for the tensioner boss on the rear of each head. for some reason they left them out... oversight? not sure. but weird because everything else is fully assembled and side-specific.
and lastly - like i said, into it this far - so i had the trans rebuilt
just an update i got this all back together and up and running. it is running good and the transmission feels great. i learned a lot from this project and will use the knowledge when i pull the 5.4 out of my fx4 next year.
