My 2.8 lost coolant through a thermostat gasket that was a goofy design. Changed it several times while I owned the car. Kept a spare in the car. I think yours is a newer design, improved design.

Got the valve covers, LIM, and pushrods removed, but not without a couple "incidents". Now I'm handling the very exciting but tedious task of cleaning the mating surfaces... any tips on that? I'm pretty pumped to be this close to reassembly!

More about the "incidents" later...

Gasket eater

http://www.beltco.com.my/catalog/ima...MA-500x500.jpg

I like permatex products :D

the gasket eater is nice, and dont scrape aluminium with a steel blade, use a credit card edge or get a copper pipe and hammer it into a chisel and sharpen with a file, use that for scraping away on aluminium if you want.

make sure to hang some paper towels in a way that it wicks up coolant and drips it outside the valley.