Head Gasket Replacement

[LotsaSpeed]

The right head gasket seems to be leaking and I was wondering how difficult it is to replace the head gasket and what all is involved and what all materials I would need so I can get an idea of the cost if I did it myself. How long will it take? My car is in my sig. Thanks for any help.

[southern94]

you got to take off your upper and lower intakes and your right head swap out the gaskets and put it back on :D it should not be to hard mike take a couple hours depending on your experience

[LotsaSpeed]

ok, this just shows my stupidity, I knew there was an intake(I'm not that stupid) but did not know there was an upper and lower intake, are either of these difficult to remove, meaning am I going to have to lay across my engine bay, blindly reaching behind the engine trying to find some bolts on the back of the engine so I can take the upper or lower intake off, if not shouldn't be that hard, just have to remember where all the wires go. I was kinda hoping I wouldn't have to remove the intake to do this, but I guess there is no other way.

[southern94]

not that i am aware of it is not hard mostly just un doing the bolts which can be pretty damn tight so make sure you got some a good torqe wernch for leverge and go at it ;)

[Shadly]

Good luck. You might as well replace the left side while you're in there. I remember from working on older GMs that torque-to-yield head bolts can play havoc with your engine later in life if you re-use, so you might want to replace those too.

[xFactoRx]

for the 3.4 there are no bolts in the back of the engine. only the ones on top are the ones u are touching. remove your fuel rail and your intake plenum at the same time... in other words, unbolt both of them and pop out your fuel rail upwards, its gonna be hard... then you cant remove it because of the little space... pull our the plenum and fuel rail together with the bolt on the drivers side still in the plenum but pulled up. after that remove your intake manifold and unbolt the valve covors. take off the power steering and the alternator and bracket holding it. then unbolt the head, and have it vamped and machined... your valves may be cracked. might as well take the other one also. then go to napa or carquest and buy an upper engine gasket set.. 50 bux or so and put everything back on. dont worry about the wiring, all plugs are different in connection pins/shape combinations and you wont screw up. just remember where they go. also put ALL your bolts in different bags so you know what they go with (intake manifold, plenum, font accessories, heads, valve covors, etc). if you want more info ask me, i redid my entire 3.4

[Shadly]

xFactoRx- You milled your heads??? I want to know about this. How much did you take off? Did you have to mill your intake? How much compression/HP/torque did you gain? Any problems? Cool stuff like that gets me far more excited than bolt-ons.

[LotsaSpeed]

hey guys, thanks for all the info, but hearing some of that, right now it is a little beyond my technical skills when it comes to cars(I'm more of a computer geek that likes fast cars) so I think I will take it to my local high school shop and have some people who actually know more than me about it do it and just be charged for parts, not labor, hehe.