Hey guys,

To make this a short post...
- Bad water pump
- Wife drove car till hot (apparently very hot)
- Either warped the head or blew the head gasket (Hopefully didn't crack it)
So...I need to know if anyone knows of somewhere I can get a quality job done for a good price.

OR - If anyone knows on a scale of 1-10 how hard this would be to do myself. My knowledge of working on the car extends to replacing the optispark 2 times and water pump once (Unfortunately, that was after the fact)...

Any help/opinions you guys may be able to provide would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Jason

 

id give it about a 6.5-7. ITs taking me near 2 months to do, mainly do to time and lack of parts. Im sure if you get EVERYTHNG you need ready, you could knock it out in 2 weekends.

 

first of all, take off the waterpump and heads, this should take you about 5-6 hours if its your first time. Make sure to get a LONG torque wrench to unbolt the heads. Also, be careful of the coolant steam crossover tube at teh back of the heads - some people end up just cutting it, and putting it back together with a rubber tube and clamps instead.

Take the heads over to a machine shop, they should be able to check for flatness and remachine it for you for cheap. This is very important, a friend of mine didn't do this, and ended up replacing the head gaskets twice.

Also, depending on how long it ran hot for, the block could be warped too. My block was warped but I had no way of telling - so when I put the heads back on, it still leaked, I got coolant in the block, and spun 2 bearings. Fun stuff.

Anyway, putting the heads back together is a bit easier than taking them off - maybe 4-5 hours depending on how things go. Make sure to be VERY careful about getting anything in the engine - be clean because little bits of dirt *will* clog up your oil filter. When you're all done, make sure to change the oil and filter as well.

All in all, its not too bad. Just tedious and long, but its nothing you can't do.

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence fellas...Looks like I'll be digging in to this motor as soon as I get everything I need.

Stupid question but besides a Hayes or Chiltons is there any other step-by-steps on doing this out there?

Many thanks again...
Jason

 

Grab a digital camera and take pictures of everything. I find it helps me put things back together.

 

Excellent point Eric, I do that as well. Also, get a cardboard box and a sharpie marker. Every bolt you take off goes into a hole in the box. Label what it is and you will have no problems at all putting it back together. Good luck. I did a blown head gasket set in 2 days, although we worked till 8am the second night

Q

 

wise words right there.

Im going to attack this project this summer on my truck with my dad... Im almost looking forward to loosening the manifold bolts that have been untouched for 180k

 

yeah...great suggestions! I'll definately be bringing the digital and plenty of cardboard onto the battle field. I'm not sure what all gaskets and extra's I'm going to need...That's more of why I was looking for a guide of some sort...and of course for procedural direction (Like what to take off first and what needs to come off and what doesn't)...

...I heard from somewhere else that the whole thing might cost me about $500-$600 to do it myself. That was to get the heads checked & decked if needed and the valves redone (Sorry forgot the terminology) plus all the gaskets...Does that sounds about right? The car as 105,000 miles on it...

Also, I hate to think about it but what is the probablity that the block could be warped (Like mentioned earlier)...she said that she ran it about 1 1/2-2 miles with the check engine light on before she relized it was on due to the temp gauge.

Thanks,
Jason

 

I spend ~500 and that included my friend snapping the plug off my ignition module (80 dollar part)... Otherwise its not really hard, just time consuming..of course based on my cheapest estimate I recieved...uh..I saved ~1100 dollars.

 

Something else to kick around...

I just got an estimate of (he said starting at) $925...that is assuming he said that the heads are not cracked. That price includes them pulling the engine from the bottom of the car (He said it was easier that way) pulling the heads, sending them to a machine shop to get them shaved and valves done, all gaskets and re-assembly...This guy has rebuilt my transmission twice now and seems so far to do a good job. My neighbor is the service manager for a Chevy dealership and this guys works for him. So all work would be done at the dealership (Yes, I know I said the D word - makes me get the nervous twich too but my neighbor lets them do "on the side" jobs on their own time so it would be a hell of a lot cheaper than what the dealer would normally charge

What do you guys think? Worth it or just suck it up and find the time to do it myself? This is also my daily driver so I need to get it fixed in a timely manner as well...

Thanks,
J

 

$925, considering the engine gets pulled, is a great price. Black Magic racing, the shop I took it to, charged $1200 just for the engine pull/reinstall! On top of that, there was parts, labor, and machining costs.. blah!

But it makes me wonder.. why has he rebuild your transmission twice? If he did it right the first time, it should've lasted you quite a long time, right?

 

Yeah...the first time was due to me beating on it - plus playing with the shifting pressures didn't help. The 2nd time was due to a faulty torque convertor that fell apart.

He also replaced my A/C condensor and all tubing's associated with that a while back.

 

Umm...the job should cost you ~$130 for all the gaskets necessary. I'm in the process of doing this now and have put 10 hours of work into it. Its not all that hard as long as you take your time. I have everything apart right now because I decided I was going to upgrade the cam as well! The head cost me $30 to get decked. Any decent machine shop should do it for more or less the same. I've taken a bunch of pics with the digi cam and put all the bolts into cardboard boxes. I've followed the steps on shoebox's website for the cam removal, and just took the header/exhaust manifold, and the head off. I was able to unbolt the coolant crossover tube from the back of the head. It was a bit hard, but it came off.

check out combination, they have a whole gasket kit for around 125, including everything you need.

 

Might as well ask here; I'm getting ready to rebuild my LT1. Not sure how yet, so far I've decided on getting my heads completely done by Lloyd Elliot.. from there Im not sure.

I saw posts about a forged rebuild kit from Summit racing for $500-600, that sounds like a killer plan. How about this though - Do the 355 DIY kits come with all of the parts required for a REAL rebuild?

What else is needed if not? Gaskets...what else?

 

Before you put any $ into the heads, you need to have the deck centersections hardness tested! Overheating Al heads is alot worse than some may think & you may have sealing issues later...

Look for a minimum of 45Rb.