Replacement of the cydnr head gaset = $825

Hey guys, i need some advice from you all. As everyone prolly knows that my coolant is leaking and it is not showing up anywhere near the car. After a lot of research i came up to a conclusion that my clyndr head gasket is prolly cracked and i should get a new gasket. I refill the coolant after every 2 weeks. I am tired of that and i have decided that its about time to get this darn thing fixed.
I have two options
1. I should do it my self
2. Get it done from a proffesional mechanic.

Second option is very expensive!! I talked to a couple of good mechanics that my friends recommended. 1st one said it would cost $825 to replace it including labor. 2nd one at milex auto asked for $1200 for replacing it. Dont you guys think this is way too much????

I dont kno about option number 1 (me replacing the gasket), because i have never disected the engine that deep. I am willing to invest time but i dont kno if this is worth it. The v6 engine sits to inside of the car and that would be very difficult to mess with. In addition, i dont kno if i want to spend $1000 bucks on just replacement of the gasket, but this will be done by the mechanic and i will have peace of mind.
If you guys think i can do it, then please let me kno. I know how to do stuff on the car but time is money. Please tell me if you have done it and how it went.

Any advice would be deeply appreciated! Thank you very much.

You have to be the one to decide if you can do it. research how its done and then decide. To me it would be worth taking to a professional because if you arent sure you can do it, what if something went wrong and it costs twice as much to fix what you messed up? But good luck with whatever route you choose to take.

Please help guys!

I dont know much about the V6 birds mechanically as far as what it should take to do a job like that. If it is difficult to reach as I suspect it is then that $800 probably is about right. Youre going to have to remove the heads which is a lot of labor. Front accessories have to be removed, valve adjustment after removing heads, etc. requires some skill and and patience. I don't think that job should be any more than $800 though. As difficult a job as it may be, I cant see spending more than $1000 on head gaskets. Then again, if that motor is anything like the LT1 I had, where a tune up was estimated at $1200 for a GM mechanic to perform, then who knows.

You really should verify that is the problem, via compression checks,, cylinder leak down and over all engine vacuum. I really stress the vacuum one cause it will point out a intake manfold leak which is probable and far easier to do, and if you don't do it, alot cheaper to have done.

Compression checks on what? And how much is this going to cost for these checks and stuff? Let me kno and then i will call the mechanic and ask him about these checks. Thanks a lot.

There's a book at every repair shop and dealership, called a "flat rate manual". Okay, some shops today have it on CD... Anyway, it describes the labor time (in detail) to perform a given operation. The labor rate times the number of hours will tell you how much labor is expected to cost. R&R head gaskets is definitely one of the listed repairs.
A reasonable guess to the amount of time on a modern V-6 would be in the 8-10 hours range. That includes taking off all the accessories necessary, and reinstalling them. Some cars require the A/C system to be openned, and therefore recharged. That could add a bit.

On that engine, insist on NEW head bolts. Felpro gaskets are superior to most others, too.

Lastly, head gaskets don't "crack", they "blow". Heads crack...

Jim

I'd like to second the notion that you need to be pretty certain that you have a blown head gasket (or cracked head) before you start ripping that far into the engine.

there are lots of places where coolant could be leaking.

In my experience, on cars with blown head gaskets you could expect to see a lot of white or gray "smoke" when it is running. This is mostly steam from the coolant leaking through the gasket (or throught the crack) and either getting into the hot engine and coming out the exhast or leaking out onto the hot engine and coming up from under the hood. Once the coolant leaks out enough you will quickly start to overheat the engine.

Just as an example it could be that your coolant is leaking slowly out of the heater core and dripping down underneath your carpet. If the leak is slow enough you might not notice wet carpet and it could dry fairly quickly.

Other leaks from a hose could be very slow and only happen when you are running the car. So this single drip at a time would slowly drain your coolant, but you wouldn't notice it unless you let the car run for an extended time while parked.

Just my two cents...but I've seen lots of coolant leaks recently and they come in many shapes and sizes. Similarly when I've seen an engine with a blown head gasket the coolant is gone sometimes in minutes...not weeks.

Good luck.

I do get the dense white smoke out of the exhaust and i am pretty sure that it has to be the coolant. I always watch the temperature and after about 12-14 days, it starts to go up and sometimes even to the redline. The "service engine soon" light comes on once in a while and goes off too. You guys think maybe this leak has to do with the water pump? I got about 65k right now on the meter. But please let me kno which tests i can perform to confirm that its the blown head gasket and not anything else and please post how much it could possible cost for these tests. Thanks a lot to everyone and i really appreciate all the feedback. Thankyou.

O.K. Dense white smoke out of the tailpipe is a dead giveaway.
Water is getting into the engine somehow...and a blown headgasket or cracked head is a prime suspect.

You should check the intake as previously mentioned however.
I don't know any more details about how to check that.

The water pump failing could not make dense white smoke come out of your tailpipe. Usually the water pump would dribble coolant out of its seep hole and you would see it hitting the ground.

Just a thought...but if you're going to have to spend $850 to $1200 to have a head gasket (or a head) replaced...why not think about buying a crate engine (perhaps a V8) and dropping that in instead?

I dont know much about the V6 birds mechanically as far as what it should take to do a job like that. If it is difficult to reach as I suspect it is then that $800 probably is about right. Youre going to have to remove the heads which is a lot of labor. Front accessories have to be removed, valve adjustment after removing heads, etc. requires some skill and and patience. I don't think that job should be any more than $800 though. As difficult a job as it may be, I cant see spending more than $1000 on head gaskets. Then again, if that motor is anything like the LT1 I had, where a tune up was estimated at $1200 for a GM mechanic to perform, then who knows.


I don't think it would be that bad. I can have everything from the pushrods up out of the engine in 2 hrs tops and that's with hand tools taking my GOOD old time and chatting with my buddies around the car. Thats everything but the heads. V6 should have enough room to do it.

Only accessories that might have to come off is an alternator bracket and/or steering pump. I'm not super familur with the v6 engines but it should but attached to the block.

Anyways, take off the 4 bolts holding the fuel rails on.
-unplug each injector and set the lines off to the side/back
-unplug fuel rail from the fuel line.
-pop up the injector rails(it will take some pressure just be careful to pull straight up).
-take off TB/air box
-unbolt the intake, take off the vacuum lines(mark them since you'll need to put them back on in the correct order...unless you know your engine really well).
- take off the plug wires/plugs and if you have coil on plug system like the LS1s, take them off
- take off the valve cover
-unbolt the rockers(If they're like the LS1s, once all the bolts are loose just pull the entire rail out with the rockers attached still).
- take out the push rods
- turn crank at least 4 times to push lifters up into the lifter holding 'box'(if setup like LS1s) otherwise use a magnet to pull them out(if you have to do that, don't worry about turning the crank)
- unbolt heads.
-stuff rags into each cylinder.
- take the gasket off.
- use razor blade to removed all extra gasket material(if any) on the block and the heads

That should be pretty close...but that's just the tear down. You can use a chiltons manual to get the torque ratings and sequences of how to put it back together. Make sure you follow them exactly. torque wrench is your friend, personally I like the break-away kind.

Putting it together is just the opposite of tearing it down. It will probably take at least 5 hrs for a beginner so have your weekend clear :)

If you're in South FL, I'll help out you out if you need and have a garage to work in.

There's a book at every repair shop and dealership, called a "flat rate manual". Okay, some shops today have it on CD... Anyway, it describes the labor time (in detail) to perform a given operation. The labor rate times the number of hours will tell you how much labor is expected to cost. R&R head gaskets is definitely one of the listed repairs.
A reasonable guess to the amount of time on a modern V-6 would be in the 8-10 hours range. That includes taking off all the accessories necessary, and reinstalling them. Some cars require the A/C system to be openned, and therefore recharged. That could add a bit.

On that engine, insist on NEW head bolts. Felpro gaskets are superior to most others, too.

Lastly, head gaskets don't "crack", they "blow". Heads crack...

Jim

Jim, great info! His car shouldn't need the A/C system to be openned. Like he said NEW headbolts.

dark blue thnx a lot for that info! I guess i will do it myself and save me some college money. Hopefully everything will go fine. Probabaly the next weekend looks clear for now. I have all the manual toos like the sockets, wrencehs and the torque wrench of course. I am just a little scared of the amound of room that i will have to take everything apart. Again, more feedback is appreciated on this topic and tnx a lot to ppl who took time to help me.

If I didnt' have a crodwed garage already I'd say gimp it by me in Brookfield and bring some beer, I've got the gauges and pneumatics. :grinyes:

haha.. i wish man. But my bird is defintely not going to make it that far from chicago. I got the hanes manual and it does look like it will be a full day job. Wish me luck everyone :D.

Meh, good luck. here's a nice way to make a little easier....


Get a couple of box tops, computer paper ones are the best,

Draw an outline of what is being dissassembled on it, and poke holes in the box corresponding to a bolt's hole as it's being removed from the part and place in the hole on the box(head, intake, you get the idea0. That way, you don't loose anything, and you know where it goes when it's all said and done. :thumbsup:

Most shops charge between $50 and $100 to diagnose the problem if it takes tools like compression gauges ect. Any shop thats worth a flip can tell if its a head gasket within an hour. Some places dont charge you if its easy to find the problem. A lot of the time a pro can instantly tell what it is but as slow as your losing anti-freeze, it might make it tougher to tell.

As few of miles you say it has, unless you really run the cream out of it, I would guess somthing went wrong on the assembly line and its just taken this long to show its butt.

Good luck, and I would make darn sure thats what it is before you go ripping the top of the motor off.

T

yah that is the best i could possible do to get it diagnosed for the problem. Its around $55 for a diagnose i guess. The problem is that i am really low on money. Every cent is important to me right now because im saving up for college tuition money. I still havent started on it but im thinkin if i should just do what i have been doing for about two months (puttin coolant in after every 2 weeks). I mean, arent other things getting messed up too?

When water leaks into a combustion chamber, it sort of steam cleans it. When you take apart a motor with a cracked head/failed gasket, you can tell wich cylinder had the leak because the piston or pistons the water was getting to will appear cleaner than the others. The spark plugs steam clean too, where they will look cleaner than the others that arent getting rained on. Ive heard of people actually feeding their engines water, as a method of cleansing them. Really overheating is all you need to worry about, unless it starts to run rough. That would be a sign the leak is becoming bad enough to cause the compression to become lower on a particular cylinder. Usually(unless its not a bad crack or leak) you can see the compression leaking back into the water works of the engine, meaning with the engine cool and the radiator cap off, you can witness bubbles coming back up into the radiator with the engine running(cool). They make some stuff you can put in it to help solve the leak, but it only works for a little while(if at all), and ive been told its not good on other parts of the system, such as the heater core. Typically, water settles inside the combustion chambers after the car has been shut off. You should be able to pull the plugs out and catch one or some of them with moisture on them. Remember that the engine heats up even more after its shut off, when the water stops circulating. A good time to check the plugs is after a normal drive, and the engine has cooled off almost, but not completely.