Now to remove the intake, turbo, exhaust manifold, alternator, and eventually the head.  The first thing I noticed when I came into the shop was big pool of black engine oil on the ground.  I had the plug out of this thing for 5 hours yesterday and still got about 3/4 of a quart of nastiness out if it.  In the future, when changing the oil in my Supra, I will jack up the drivers side of the car and let it sit for a few hours.

With the throw out arm removed and the bolts holding the pressure plate to the flywheel out, the trans slid right off.  I then mounted the engine to an engine stand to make the work easier.  I was a little leery of having so much (not to mention expensive) weight hanging out in space, but everything worked as advertised.  I noticed that the valve covers had been leaking (another dealer repair already going bad).  I will definitely be getting rid of the valve cover screws. 

I took the cams out and bubble wrapped them up so that I could move the head around and not worry about banging a valve.  The head was seriously over-torqued.  I had to block the engine stand wheels, stand on the legs, pound down on the ratchet with a hammer while a friend put all his weight on the end of a 4 foot pipe slipped over the end of my ratchet.  It's a good thing none of the bolts tripped out. 

I spent a few hours with the degreaser, cleaner, and a scrub brush to get the head all cleaned up (turned out to be a waste of time).

1- The only real difficulty will be remembering where all the bolts go when it's time to put this all back together.  I had a number of ziploc bags that I put sets of bolts in and labeled them with a pen and masking tape.

2- The closest thing I had to a problem in stripping the engine was the trans.  I had to pull harder on the throw out arm than I wanted to as it seemed like it was still attached.  It wasn't, it just needed some persuasion.  

3- A number of vacuum hoses look to be dry rotted and I will be replacing them with stock since they are in such easy reach.  Next time I will go with Hose Techniques.

4- With the turbo off, it's easy to see the manifold has been leaking.  There is carbon build up all around the exhaust side of the head, the back bolt had backed off a 1/16 of an inch, and about 2/3 of the bolts were loose.  Sure does seem like a lot of problems for an engine that was worked on less than 40,000 miles ago.

5- Three of the exhaust manifold bolt holes are stripped inside the head.  The stock thread is 10x1.25.  I guess I will be putting in some heli-coils.

6- Oops! Wait a minute!  While cleaning the deck of the head, I noticed a crack between one of the bolt holes and a water jacket.  This can be repaired by a competent machine shop by welding and re-decking.

7- I also found some rice kernel sized chips missing from the edges of the water jackets.  I can't see these as having broken off since the last engine work.  I think that these were missing when the dealership did the work, and they over-torqued the head to get it to pass the warranty period.  After a few calls and some advice from a bracket racing friend of mine, I was able to find a head shop that could weld the crack build up the water jacket edges and re-deck everything for $175.00.

8- A slight blown head gasket.  I can see where the copper seal has stretched around the water jacket holes.  There isn't much actual seal material.  Most of the head gasket is just a carrier for the fine copper edges.  I'm sure that the seals had blown due to no clamping pressure where the edges were chipped.  Another dealer caused problem.

Well, the more I look, the more problems I come up with.  I guess while the head is out, I will clean up the block.  That is if the block is still true.