Head Gasket

[Gimme3steps]

Originally Posted by Omaha Rocks

So... If you're looking at a bad head gasket on a V8, do you just plan to do both heads while you're in there?

It'd seem to me that, if I'm going to be elbow deep in the project, I might as well do both sides and get it over with.

No way I'd do just one side. That's too much risk for me.

You may be right back in there doing the other head if you don't.

[M3 Mitch]

To me, it would be nuts to do just one head gasket - figuring out which one to do (Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya?) would be more work than just doing both. I guess in principle you could find the leaky cylinder (assuming there is just one) by doing a leakdown test on all 8 cylinders. The "valve grind" gasket kit comes with both gaskets anyway, and the incremental work to take the 2nd head off is not much compared to going back in soon when the 2nd one fails, which it probably will, whatever caused one to fail has been working on both of them.

Heads need to get checked for flatness, this being an OHC engine be sure the machine shop that's checking and maybe correcting them knows OHC, you can't just surface them like a pushrod engine's heads, they should be pressure tested and/or inspected for cracks, and I would do the valve stem seals anyway.

[Omaha Rocks]

Originally Posted by Gimme3steps

No way I'd do just one side. That's too much risk for me.

You may be right back in there doing the other head if you don't.

That's what I figured. When you've already done 90% of the work required, just to do one head, it makes no sense to not do the other.

[square peg]

Well thanks everybody for your responses. I didn't think that little fix would hold up for long. So into the shop Edward is going. I mentioned my problem in passing at the local grocery store and a guy I know pretty well said he knows of a newly retired mechanic looking for a project to keep him busy. So I paid him a visit. His garage looks more impressive than a lot of commercial shops. He knows it's an overhead cam engine and apparently has done many such jobs over the years.

When he quoted me his labor rate of $15 an hour I damn near collapsed. Both heads will be done. Plugs and valve stems replaced too. This may be my lucky day! The truck is important to me and I had planned to keep it long into the future. A couple of days ago I wasn't so sure that would happen.

[M3 Mitch]

Cool. Vermont (and many other rural areas around the country really) is like that.

[Omaha Rocks]

Originally Posted by square peg

Well thanks everybody for your responses. I didn't think that little fix would hold up for long. So into the shop Edward is going. I mentioned my problem in passing at the local grocery store and a guy I know pretty well said he knows of a newly retired mechanic looking for a project to keep him busy. So I paid him a visit. His garage looks more impressive than a lot of commercial shops. He knows it's an overhead cam engine and apparently has done many such jobs over the years.

When he quoted me his labor rate of $15 an hour I damn near collapsed. Both heads will be done. Plugs and valve stems replaced too. This may be my lucky day! The truck is important to me and I had planned to keep it long into the future. A couple of days ago I wasn't so sure that would happen.

Dang - I think you just struck gold! Very cool!