pulling heads with studs

So, pretty sure my head gaskets are toast. Truck already has studs. My question is , how hard to pull heads with studs with the cab on. I am very capable of doing the work, just dont have anywhere I can leave it with the cab off while the heads are getting checked.

you will have to remove the studs to do it

ok i am in the same position you are in right now but im going to re-torque the studs as i have heard of ppl doing it and having good luck doing so and if it doesn't work you are just out the time you have putting in doing it. Yea i am probably only buying time but im putting my wife through college and don't have the 3 grand to redo the job. I am going to start another thread because i would like to no what needs to be done to re-torque the studs. Just curious how come your not trying it?

Im still new to the sixxer, haven't heard of bein ablest re torque the studs to seal it all back up. Guess it's worth a shot. I'm just thinking if u work on it for a few hours doin that. Y not yank the cab and just pull them off. From what I have heard it was an 8 hour job doing them with the cab on and almost twice as fast pulling the cab. I just don't know if pulling the cab is included in that time!! But as I stated in another post, I don't have anywhere to leave it with the cab off either.

It's a pain but it's not as bad as you think. I'm in the process of changing the heads, gaskets, studs and injectors in mine. 1 afternoon and half a Saturday is what it took me to get everything off which was about 8 hours with no hoist to help lift the heads out. I now have a hoist to help with the reinstall as soon as finally get my heads in.........

For a reference on time, this has to be one of my fastest services. Everything went perfect, no bolts that we had to fight. It was an extended cab truck with no running boards so that makes things easier as well. The truck needed an oil cooler. He wanted to do an egr delete while we had it apart. Then decided that he wanted to do headstuds by swapping them one at a time while we had it apart. Working on the truck was myself, one employee who has probably pulled around 50 cabs and my cousin who works in the shop part time and has pulled maybe 5 cabs before this. The customer was supposed to be in my shop at 8 am. Well things happen and he gets there at 4 pm. We talk to the customer some to get a time line on the expectation with his late arrival.

At 4:30 we start tearing the truck apart. At 5:15 we have the cab off. Spend around 15 to 20 minutes tearing off the turbo, manifold and so forth to get the oil cooler out. My cousin goes at swapping the oil cooler. The employee and I take a head and start swapping studs. At 6:20 my cousin and I leave to go eat supper. Spend some time with my kids before they have to go to bed and so forth. My employee stays working on the truck to reinstall the valve covers, intake, turbo, etc. We arrive back at the shop at 8:30 pm. and the truck is about ready to set the cab back down. Button up a few odds and ends and put the cab back down. We fired the truck up at roughly 9:30. Spent about the next 30 minutes test driving the truck, checking for leaks and verifying all fluids were full. I worked on the bill and the customer paid, we talked a while and he was headed home at 10:30 p.m.

Over all the truck took up shop space for 6 hours. Total man hours on this job were.

4:30 to 6:30, 2 hours times 3 guys for 6 man hours
6:30 to 8:30, 2 hours times 1 guy for 2 man hours
8:30 to 10:00, 1.5 hours times 3 guys for 4.5 man hours

We all discussed this job and don't thing there could have been any man hours saved on this project. So my opinion is the fastest you can pull a cab do any work to the engine and put the cab back down is basically 12 man hours. At the point we had this motor torn down to, I think it would have taken about 3 to 4 more man hours to pull the heads completely off, clean up the block and slap on new gaskets. I also think if we didn't do the egr delete and oil cooler rebuild we would have shaved roughly 3 man hours off the time.

So in my opinion about the fastest you can do head gaskets with pulling the cab is 15 man hours. This would be with a machined set of heads sitting there ready to slap right back on.

The fastest you can to it with swapping one stud at a time by pulling the cab and doing nothing else is about 9 man hours.