do they expect you to do roadside head gasket swaps?

girlfriend's 17 year old kid got himself a 96 Mazda Protege for $400 yesterday... good runner, leaks a little oil from somewhere, clutch and trans grab really good.. looking around under the hood, i noticed that there is a decal on the underside of the hood that shows all the specs for the head bolts: bolt length, thread pitch, torques specs (SAE and metric) and procedure, and even a diagram with the tightening sequence.. never seen this on a car before- and it seems like an odd thing to put under there, since a lot of cars don't even have something as useful as a belt routing diagram for the serpentine belt..

That is suprising. I guess you should ask how often did mazda expect the heads to be off these engines?

If you look on the bottom side of the hood of all my project vehicles you find the year/make/model of all the donor vehicles that i used parts from. How else would the next owner know that he needs an alternator from an 89 f350 or a water pump from a 70 mustang haha.

Did you check the trunk for a spare?

I thought all vehicles were like that.

In reply to gearheadmb:

That's a good idea. I've done that with my riding mower, writing the hardware store cross-reference belt numbers on the underside of the hood, too.

I replaced brother in laws 69 MGB head gasket under a street light at night at the Jersey shore back in the day.

I replaced a whole VW engine on the side of the road once.. that was fun

I was lead wrench on a VW trike clutch job at a campground once. Aligned the clutch with a tree branch.

back afew years,i had a blown headgasket on a 1968 Ford ranchero inline 6, iwas 300miles from my shop,in Daytona, found a
engine machine shop in the town,he said to bring the head in and he would do valve job and resurface.

i asked if i could put car around back out of his way, i had my tool box in the back bed, had the head off in 45 minutes and into his shop, he said couple hours, so took the girl friend to lunch,he ordered a headgsaket set.

i came back and had the whole thing back together and running in little over an hour! young and dumb, did it because i didnt know i couldnt!

Y'all missed out on the joys of BABE rally. Parking lot head gasket jobs were just par for the course.

Hell, at a Mini Meet several years ago, a couple guys R&R'd a whole engine, in the hotel parking lot! Used a 4x4 and a strap over their shoulders, to lift it out!

I don't recall ever seeing that, but Mazda did things weird that way.

Meanwhile, in 1985:

https://youtu.be/rK8bg0RDGEU?t=4m53s

And again:

https://youtu.be/COz5LVuWJk0?t=1m32s

RealMiniParker wrote: Hell, at a Mini Meet several years ago, a couple guys R&R'd a whole engine, in the hotel parking lot! Used a 4x4 and a strap over their shoulders, to lift it out!

Yeah but it was on a mini, R&Ring the head on a /6 Dodge weighed more ;) It's kinda why we busted the chops of all the whiners at Lemons when we went. Here they are, tow vehicles, parts chasers, tools tools and more tools complaining about working on a car. Do it in the parking lot of the parts store or on the side of the road and you appreciate how easy it is to do at the track ;)

Hey when it says 60k mile belt replacement, they mean right at 60k miles no matter where you are.

In reply to RealMiniParker:

We did that to swap a straight six on a 55 chevy. It took 5 of us to lift it out and in.