After trying to troubleshoot what might be going on with the Scion's apparent loss of coolant and subsequent overheating, I finally started seeing the clues that lead me to the idea that the head gasket was bad. With fresh coolant in the rad, upon starting the engine, the coolant started frothing with air bubbles, indicating a break between the combustion chambers and cooling jacket, probably small enough not to allow water to seep into the combustion chamber, but enough to allow the pressurized hot gases to blow out into the cooling system. Either way, the engine has to come apart in order to replace the head gasket. At the same time the timing chain and hardware have to come apart so I may as well replace that hardware too. First thing's first, I had to drain the fluids and start removing stuff from around the engine. With the radiator removed, the next thing I had to pull off was the serpentine belt. This had me having to go under the car to route the belt from around the power steering pump. I also had to pull the cover off the exhaust manifold to remove the nuts holding the piece on. To get one of the nuts off I had to remove the alternator. Once the exhaust was out I pulled the air cleaner box and started removing wiring, taking a moment to mark the plugs with tape showing the particular load written on the piece. We're off to a start, but with a job like this, I'm going to be taking my time, same as I did with the engine swap. I still have to remove the fuel rail and those plugs, as well as the intake manifold. I also have to pull the coils and valve cover so I can get the head bolts pulled. I got new head bolts with the gasket kit so there won't be any concern with saving or even noting the position of the old head bolts for reuse. I will have to see how to hold the engine still to pull the crank pulley as well and afterward note where all the timing cover bolts are so they can be removed to get that part off. That's one of the biggest things I hate about transverse mounted engines in FWD cars. The work will continue, slowly but surely so the chance of messing up something is lessened.
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