Head Gasket Replacement

[lodownlv]

Hello all... I was just wondering how to replace a head gasket in a 1992 240sx ka24de engine.. I have a chilton book which is junk and dosnt tell me crap about just replaceing head gasket.. What is involved? Do I have to remove cams? ect.. Any heads up and some detaled info would be apreciative because I got to get it done in a 4 days... Should i just take it in to get fixed?
thanks

[stealthj]

i would take it in, butmost places charge around 500 bux or sometrhing
cuz they get their shit out of a book that sayd it takes 11 hours to replace it

id say throw it out ..... and did u blow it yourself?

u need to basically take off the valve cover
remove cams, and lets see i forgot, i did this like a month ago....

there are like a million SCREWS

PLEASE LABEL EVERYTHING IN SEPARATE BAGS -U WONT REGRET IT

but anyways, the head comes off with intake manifold..... so u need to remove screws screws and screws,,,,,, i dunno if u can do it in 4 days

[lodownlv]

yup i blew it my self! thats what i get for hotroding.... well im prob gonna take it in or get a new engine and drop it in. im already at 12000 miles so the engine might be going. Any other sugetions?

[publicenemy137]

my mechanic charged only $70 to replace mine, he charged really cheap though. I had all this oil on my spark plugs so he had to drain that too, though he gave me a big discount

[stealthj]

time to srDET your self!

[spitz7985]

$70??? are you sure he didn't replace the valve cover gasket?

[stealthj]

Originally Posted by spitz7985

$70??? are you sure he didn't replace the valve cover gasket?

SHIT I JUST SAW THAT

YOUR TRIPPIN NO ONE WOULD REPLACE A HEAD GASKT FOR 70$

HELL NO , ITS THE PAIN IN THE ASS, POEPL CHARGE LIKE 400$ JUST TO PUT BACK TOGETHER

MAYBE ITS VALVE COVER GASKET SERIOUSLY

YOUR TRIPPPPPIINNN

[gunluvS14]

$70 does sound little bit too low

but anyway, not much of tips from me. Follow that Manual, although its not the Factory Service Manual, it still helps out a good bit.

All i can say is don't unbolt the intake manifold, keep it on the head(u will know why if u take it off), unhook that EGR tubing that connect your exhaust manifold with your Intake Mani. at the back of the engine. Unbolt exhaust manifold.. take off valve cover, remove cams, and head bolts. Reserve is everything when u install and make sure everything is torque back to factory spec.

One thing its very important is, when you unbolt the cam journal cap or the cylinder head bolt, ALWAYS work your way from the outside to inside, also cris-cross.

then when you put it back together, ALWAYS work from the inside back to the outside. Also when u torque the head down, let say it should be back to 95lb/ft of torque; torqued it down to 50lb/ft first from inside to outside.. then take it ALL off again, torque it to 50lb/ft stop, then 70lb/ft, then finally to 95lb/ft(I am just making an example, that's not the torque spec)...

But yea, do it youself because it will cost a decent amount of money to replace them at any shop. but if you are not comfortable with it, I guess you might have to let the professional to handle it then.

good luck

[lodownlv]

70 bucks? no way i got a quote for 500... Dam im lost on what to do!

[publicenemy137]

no it was the whole gasket, reason why it was leaking to where my spark plugs were. My mechanic who used to live with us hooks us up with real cheap labor. When I first got maintainance done on my car, he changed the breakpads, hardware, rotors, ops, belts, wipers, and tension rods all for $100 labor.

For the gasket though it was $70 b/c that was his mistake in breaking it so I guess he just charged really cheap. He definetly was not happy about replacing it, u could tell on the look on his face that it was going to be a bitch to do

[gunluvS14]

dude, from what I read you said oil is leaking into your sparkplug hole, right?

then what he replaced is not headgasket then. It just a reuseable rubber gasket that go between the valve cover and the sparkplugs gallery right in between 2 cams.

[publicenemy137]

^ oh ok, yeah i'm no mechanic lol

Is that hard to do?? He had to drain the oil from the sparkplugs gallery and replace that rubber gasket

[gunluvS14]

nope.. 12 bolts on the valve cover. Use suction tool to get most of the motor oil out of the sparkplug gallery... replace that rubber gasket, put the valve cover back in place. Shouldn't take more than 15 mins and should'n't cost $70 to do it, unless he did some touch up for you for something else.