I am a little worried with all of my gaskets going bad... sooner or later I am going to end up with a "New" old car...lol The latest gasket that seems to have gone bad on me is my exhaust manifold gasket. I thought about changing these myself, but with the tight quarters you have to work with on these cars and the possibility of breaking a bolt off I think I will have a mechanic do this for me. I checked with a mechanic here where I live and he quoted me around $250 IF none of the bolts break off. Does this sound about right? I know the gaskets aren't very expesinve at all and changing them involves some labor, I just want to make sure I am not getting taken for a ride so to speak.

 

250 doesn't sound like a bad price to me. call a few more shops and ask what they would charge. ive done it on my lt1 it wasn't to bad I would think on the 3.4 you would have more room then the 8 cyl. not to sure if the heads on the 6 are aluminum or not but if they are you shouldn't have any problems with frozen bolts.

 

Spray all the bolts with pb blaster or something of equivalence. Let it sit for a few hours and they'll all break loose with no problems. Shouldn't take much more than a couple hours to put in some gaskets

For the record. 3.4's don't have exhaust manifold gaskets from factory. The heat shields serve as the gaskets. Soooo you may already have broken off bolts if its leaking. Mine didn't ever leak and I had two broke off bolts until I put my headers on. Have any questions, feel free to PM me. It's more likely that you're leaking elsewhere...

 

Also thought I'd add, the heads are cast, not aluminum. Since that was mentioned.

 

may have also burned through the factory setup. i looked at the factory parts manual and sure enough it does not show a exhaust gasket. just the shield.

 

I appreciate the info guys. I haven't yet had the time to take a look at things yet. I know it isn't leaking from the donut so the only thing I can think of would be bad heat shields. I hope the bolts aren't already broke. If they are, then it will go to a mechanic. I don't feel like trying to get them out myself.

 

Might want to just consider headers if you're going to mess with the stock manifolds...