Head gasket went, now considering Standard Tranny

[ned032002]

My Headgasket blew and now I'm going to start changing that. Do I need to pull the engine? Also how hard would it be to take out the AOD Tranny and replace it with a Manual Tranny? What would I need to get to do the swap?

[8ate8]

Simple for the NA V6's. Take off the intake, valve covers, heads, and there you go. If you had the SC, it'd be a ton of crap to take off first before you even reached the valve covers. As for the trans, I don't know.

[ned032002]

I appreciate the feedback and it's good to hear that it won't be too difficult. How much does it usually cost to do the head gasket on these cars?

[Mike75]

The estimates that I got were all between 800 and 1000 bucks. Be wary of ppl charging you too little, tho. It's my belief that you get what you pay for when it comes to these things.

It was 2700 for a new (rebuilt) engine for my car with a 3 year/100K mile warranty. Installation was another 1000K, but with 165K miles already on my old engine, I just decided to replace it, and I'm really glad I did. Yeah, I'm still paying on it, but at least it's done now.

I went through Rhinoengines.com, btw. They've been in business for like 65 years, or something - so that made me feel a lot better. So far, so good with the engine!

[ned032002]

I mean how much will it cost for myself to do the head gasket? Like parts and such, I was told that it could cost upwards of $200? And where is the best place to get the parts I need to do the Head gasket change? On line or dealer?