what fun, head gasket is trashed!

Pimpin Dsmstyle · 05-02-2005

Well after driving austens old laser for 13K + miles, i finally had a problem. Head gasket is leaky. Im pretty sure that sucks but..... This is a good excuse to dump money into my 4x4 BEAST.

New head gasket
ARPS
Valve seals
AC removal
Emission removal
All simple gaskets ( exhaust and such)
Intake pipe
maybe my 7 bolt head
water pump
timing shit
Paint valve cover
Reroute vac lines
MBC maybe

Looks like a few hundred dollars, but it will be worth it. would this be a good time to ditch the BS ? I dont know what it costs to do that since I have never done it ...I also dont know how complicated it would be to do in car.. This is surgury number one on my laser ( since i owned it). Any other suggestions would be appreciated. Im on a budget sort of, Im moving out but my car is like my wife, worth every penny ! ( fuck no im not married to anything but my car)

IndiEP · 05-03-2005

Well that sucks, the only good part is it happend in warm weather(unless of course you have a heated garage), w/my luck stuff like that always happens in the dead of winter. There isn't even 20K miles on the timing belt/pulleys/h20 pump so that doesn't need to be changed.

Pimpin Dsmstyle · 05-03-2005

i think the gasket was bad from the begining. Remember how i was losing coolant slowly but no leaks? Yea, makes sense. Are there stock studs in there? Or did you go ARP? Or did you not touch them

Im going to try bang it out saturday / sunday. If time is permitable.. its still driveable.

IndiEP · 05-03-2005

Nope, never touched the head.

**Halon** · 05-03-2005

Doing a headgaset isn't really that hard man, just time consuming for the first couple times you do it. The first time you do it, it may take some time because you have to figure out what all to take off. But you will see, it's not that difficult. In Yuma, all of our DSM's started to have head problems all at once, and by the time we got to mine, 2 of us could get it off in maybe 1 1/2 hours. We just used common sense, just looked in there and we saw what needed to come off. Just don't forget the bracket in the back that attaches to the head and the block. That one we didn't see the first time and couldn't figure out why the thing wasn't coming off. If you look behind the intake manifold, there are 2 little plugs the wiring harness connects to. And those plugs are attached to the bracket I'm talking about. Good luck with Austin's old baby!!

IndiEP · 05-03-2005

Okay hang on a second, you've put 13K+ miles on a car in under 5 months! Where in the world are you driving?

TheBlizzard · 05-03-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by IndiEP

Okay hang on a second, you've put 13K+ miles on a car in under 5 months! Where in the world are you driving?

Yeah I was wondering the same thing, because you are on here over half the day. The only way is if you have a portable computer that you take with you to post on here.

CRAIG

And yeah a head gasket isn't too bad to do. JET and I had my head off in an hour even with a few problems with the head bolts. Just make sure you watch where everything goes when you take it off and KEEP ALL THE NUTS AND BOLTS ORGANIZED.

CRAIG

x1genx · 05-03-2005

I bet he has one of those t-mobile sidekicks haha.

Pimpin Dsmstyle · 05-03-2005

i never sit on the computer for more than an hour. FYI, i dont even own a computer or have internet access ATM. I get on on breaks at work, and friends house. I post a lot in 15 minutes here and there.

I know how to do the headgasket

I was refering to other tune up shit im forgetting.