Head Gasket Advice

[techsan23]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

The best way to clean it is to have a machine shop vat it. That costs $ though. I had a truck shop stick one of my blocks in a massive parts washer, but it was completely stripped. Are you replacing any bearings, piston rings, honing etc? After you check the deck on the block with a straight edge as mentioned in a previous post, simply wipe down the block and head mating surface with starting fluid before you bolt it back together. If you have idle time on your hands you can sand and paint the block.

[evilspot]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

well the block is still in the car, was just doing the heads. will look in to the starting fluid for cleaning, thanks

[taylor.o1]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

i did mine a few months ago. first i used a razor blade to scrap off any gasget material left on it. then i finished with a sanding block and some 400 grit wet/dry sand paper and sanded them a bit till everything looked perfect, then cleaned everthing off good with some oil and rags and a shop vac. right befor you put the heads on wipe all the surfaces down with some gass and then acitone so theres no oil on anything

[evilspot]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

thanks

[evilspot]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

So this might sound like a bit of a nub question, but is carb cleaner the best thing for cleaning the rocker arms and push rods. I should be getting the heads back this week and want to start putting her back together. Yes if I had the money I would buy new rocker arms and push rods, but that is not an option right now. Also I have some little peices of debri in the cylender heads that don't want to come out with the shop vac, what is the best way to get it out. one last for now, is there a way to clean off the top of the pistons (I think I saw this answered in another thread some were once but i can not find it again). Thanks

[taylor.o1]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

i reused my rockers and push rods too no problem. mine were fairly clean just covered in oil. unless they really have a lot of gunk built up on them you shouldent have to clean them i dont think. there made to be covered in oil. pour some oil in the cilinders and try and wipe everything out with a shop rag. I filled each of my cilinders with about 2 inches of oil and used a scotch bright pad to clean everything off the best i could then used the shop vac to suck it all up and a rag to get the little left behind. some of my pistons still had some carbon build up on them but not too much.

[evilspot]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

Thanks for the advice

[evilspot]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

So got her put back together tonight. started right up, and ran a little rough for the first couple minutes. After that she smoothed out and seemed to run fine. Took she on a short test run, about 15 miles, just wanted to make sure that she was not going to over heat or have oil pressure problems. She ran good and sounded good, no strange engine noise:banana:. Also, for the first time in a while there was nothing coming out of the pipes. checked the oil it was still clean (no new fluid in it) I would like to say a big THANK YOU to every one associated with FirebirdV6/CamaroV6. not sure I would have thought about doing this or been able to get it done with out the help and advice, so Thanks everybody:bowdown:

[cam98aro]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

glad you got it running, im sure you saved a ton of money by doing it yourself than if you were to take it to a shop.

i didnt get to this thread before, but when i cleaned the carbon off of the pistons on my other engine, i used berrymans chemtool, it worked awesome... and lets just say that the engine was running so rich raw fuel was coming out of the pipes and the plugs would be covered in black after 5 min of running.