Well; eventually was today. It is not difficult, but it does take time working alone. I am experienced in such jobs. I did other things too, that slowed the job such as setting the valves and repacking the PTO pully bearings. I removed the hood and the muffler cover. There are different muffler covers, mine is an upgraded one made of just metal and not fabric. When removing the hood, I put a phillips screwdriver shaft through a bolt hole on each side to support the hood until I was ready to lift. And, repeated that strategy on assembly. With the hood and muffler cover off, the bolts for that pesky igniton bracket are in plain sight. I removed the top half first and then the bottom part of the bracket. The valve cover then lifted right off. The exhaust side of the gasket was COOKED! The old gasket was NOT glued in, it is a press fit. I cleaned the gasket channel with a small flat blade screw driver by scraping gently, then by using a cloth alcohol soaked patch on that little screw driver -- get it totally CLEAN. The new gasket has a wedge shape that is tedius to press into the channel, but keep pressing with fingers and it does bottom out all the way around, needing no adhesive. I had to clean the head's mating surfaces too with the screwdriver and alcohol patches; get it totally clean. DO tighten the manifold bolts, mine were loose and thus the gasket cooked. If you have not had experience with valve adjustments, then do NOT attempt it with this expensive machine unless you have an experienced helper. It is not difficult if you know how; at about 1,000 hours on the meter, mine only had one tight valve, but I set all to center spec. It really helps to keep the bolts organzied in a muffin pan or fishing tackle tray.
