My car is in the shop because I had a nasty oil leak. This shop is supposed to be very good. When I dropped the car off, the guy said it would be around $1000 to pull the engine and replace every gasket and seal, but said he would call back later after he had a more exact estimate.

After about 4 hours, he calls back and saying it was a lot more than he thought. Said it would be around $2300 to fix everything. This seems high to me, and wanted to see what everyone else's opinion was.

 

I don't know what every gasket means but a local chevy dealer I talked to about replaceing head gaskets on a 95 wanted $1600. Thats the problem with letting other people do the work. They know how much of a pita is it to work on them also.

 

hell you can do a complete rebuild for that if u do the work, i understand tho that some people don't have the time/place or tools to do the work themselves. Luckaly i have all 3 so i'll be doing a rebuild this summer it does seem kinda high tho, some on the board claim that they can have the motor out in under 4 hours, if you could get this far it prolly would at the least cut the price in half.

 

Some of the gaskets were head gaskets, intake, rear main, timing cover and oil pan. He also said that when taking the heads off, new bolts would have to be used because they are a stretching bolt.

He pretty much told me that the oil is leaking out of almost everywhere. Back of the intake, heads, oil level sensor, timing cover...

 

Damn, doesnt Jegs sell warrantied LT1's for $1995?

 

tell the shop they are smoking crack if they need to remove the engine to replace any gaskets!

ALL gaskets on the LT1 can be done with the motor in the car!

 

While this is true... it may be easier if you are going to do them ALL to just pull the motor and then replace them then pop the freshened motor back in. To bad you didn't live nearer to me... I'd do it for a lot less than that.

I can't imagine ALL gaskets leaking at the same time... They really need to narrow it down a bit.

 

ok i guess i'm speaking from the DIY point of view and trying to save the guy $1000

 

So am I. I do everything myself... and If I was looking down the barrel of changing ALL my gaskets.. I would definitely pull the engine... And get new heads and cam and engine bay cleanup while I was in there. :-)

 

Man that was a helluva "reel you in bait you and switch" type of ply.

Figure most places just want $700-$800 just to REMOVE and then PUT BACK IN an LT1 engine. Then figure that a complete gasket and seal set is going to run you up near $200-$300.

Now, you can see, There's a lot of labor left to be done they didn't tell you about up front.

Spend the money on tools and do it yourself!

 

Why would you replace ALL the gaskets? They can't ALL be leaking at the same time.

Your oil leak is 90% likely either the intake or oil pan gasket. Or maybe both of those. The rear-of-the-intake leak is famous, especially if your EGR tube is solid and not the flexible type. The EGR pipe goes from the back of the passenger side exhaust manifold to the EGR valve area at the driver's side rear of the intake.

The only other, but much less likely candidates, are the valve cover gaskets (if that's it, shoot the mechanic who gave you the quote), which would be about an hour and $20 in parts to fix, or the rear main seal, which isn't really a gasket. None of these are a reason to pull the engine. I suppose there is also a slight chance of a timing cover gasket leak, or the seal on the Opti or crankshaft hub. But we are moving farther and farther down the list of possibilities here.

Do a bit more investigating before you spend any money. MAKE SURE AND PROTECT YOUR OPTI AND PCM FROM THE MOISTURE FIRST, and have your engine thoroughly power cleaned, top and bottom, by a detailer. It's not much $$$. From that point you should definitely be able to tell what's leaking.

Lastly, when it comes to a straight ahead shop or dealership, R&R on an LT1 fbody is really expensive due to the way everything is laid out. Book rate at a Chevy dealer to pull and reinstall an LT1 in a Camaro is about $2000. That is without doing ANYTHING to the engine. That's just out and back in. I think they show it as about 23 hours labor plus misc parts like oil, coolant, etc.

You were about to spend a bunch of $$$ you don't need to. Good thing you asked. Use the money to go faster, instead

 

Thanks for the replies. Before I took the car to the shop, I tried looking around under the car to figure out as best as I could where the oil was coming from. I could see black stains under the heads as if there was a leak. Most of the oil did look as if it was coming from the rear main seal and the oil pan area.

I'll ask him how much it would cost to fix these gaskets. From what I've read, the engine just has to be jacked up to replace the oil pan gasket right? None of these, I think, should require the engine to be removed

 

I don't think the oil pan is a common leak area for LT1. I'd suggest you get the dye for the oil and use a blacklight to find your leak(s). It could just be the back of the intake and save you a lot of money!

 

Like someone already mentioned, replacing every gasket is ridiculous. You need to get the engine steam cleaned or degreased and then locate a leak by that means and replace what is necessary. Do nto go and replace all the gaskets.. Waste of time and money.

But if I for some reason replaced every gasket, I would definately pull the engine..Not needed though at all

Find a shop that will fix your car the right way.

 

Who/Where/What steamcleans, how much, and how long does it take?