Finally had a chance to do some work on the car this week. Cleaned out the mess from the blown head gaskets, replaced the head gaskets and got it all back together. Now I just need to find a few more hours to finsih connecting everything back up, double check the valve lash and hopefully be riding around with the T tops out for the cool evenings. Can't wait. Engine has a little over 112k on it. Going to have to put the headers off for a while, plus I wanted to run the engine a little while before throwing down the cash for headers. I know I am going to regret that!

 

yah i did a bunch of changes at once and wished i didnt. makes it thougher to track problems. lookin good. better get it done before summers over.

 

good job duck!

 

DAMN!!! im doing a head gasket job as i speak and yours looks so much easier. The 3.8 sits way to high. My knuckles is all busted up.

 

LOL @ carnage9. Yes I did a 3.8 several months back and I still have scars!! Those little black retainers poking down from the cowl might as well be fishing jigs!

There is a world of difference trying to lift the 3.8 head out of that bay then the LT1. Remembering the weight of the 3.8 head, Heck, almost busted my head on the hood when I lifted up the ones on the V8, they were light.

I do believe the head gasket job on this is a little easier (except for those darn crossover pipe bolts). I had to unbolt both heads and had my son help me lift both off the engine at the same time then break those bolts loose. Now that was a trick!! Maybe it just seemed easier because this time, I didn't have to read every step and knew more about what I was doing than I did on the 3.8 at the time.

So far I have only managed to break the wire connection going to the evap cannister solenoid and broke one of the exhaust studs off the exhaust manifold. Going to replace all those studs because they were pretty rusted up.

Good luck with your 3.8!!

 

Little frustrated right now. After doing all that woirk, it looks like I am going to have to have a complete rebuild. I finished up today and fired it up, let it run for about 10 minutes. Temp started creeping up and got almost to the 3/4 mark and I decided to shut the engine off. Noticed the oil pressure falling as eng temp was rising. At idle, the oil pressure was sitting on the red mark at about 2k it was just above the 1/4 mark. Not sure about the temp going that high. I test the thermo and it was opening and closing but after I shut the engine off, I never could get it to fire back up. Not sure if it is out of gas or something else, it didn't have much fuel according to the gauge and I was too dirty to make a trip to the store to get any. I did get the opti wet from the bleeder screw after shutting down the engine . Guess I will start saving my pennies for a spring overhaul. Oh well. at least the head gasket job worked! I don't have any more water in my oil! LOL............................................... ...DARN!

 

My car runs out of fuel just as it hit the E line. Was there a bunch of valve noise? Normally the first sign of low oil pressure is lifter tapping. Don't jump to conclusion. Get a hand help gage verify the dash gage. Have you tried 20w50. I have seen cars with less then 10 PSI of pressure go for another two years after switching to 20W50 and getting 15 PSI at idle. Couse you should not heading over to the track or doing any 5K runs till you get all back to where you want it.

You could also have a partialy plugged radiator. PO might dumped a bunch of Bars in there.

 

No valve noise nor knocking noise. Engine idled smooth with an occassional backfire, if I reved it up a little and let off it. Gigure that might be because I did not adjust one of the valves right. I never reved it over 2k. I put 10W30 oil in it with ACDelco filter. I wanted to get it to operating temp, flow the oil through it to get out any left over junk after having it apart. Plus, under the intake, that motor was a mess when I started working on it.

I will check it with a hand held to see what the reading is. I'm hoping it is either a bad oil pressure sensor, incorrect dash gauge or the oil filter maybe done its job and needs changed.

The PO had put something in the coolant system because the steam pipe bolts were clogged up with something that almost looked like red RTV and so was the small hole in the head gaskets.

Being the first V8 to do a head gasket job on, of course I drove the hour and half back home wondering if somehow I put the head gaskets on wrong or the intake gaskets on wrong, plugging one of the coolant passages but I don't think that is the case.

 

If it plugged the cross over tub there is a very good chance some of the vains in the radiator are plugged. Depending on what he used the radiator my not be savalgeable. On a "Normal" car you could use a hand held non-contact thermometer and scan all the vain in the radiator before that we use to just feel them with our hands to which ones get hot. No clue how to get to anything on the 4th gen.

I have seen this before in my own work bay. After the first overheat I even got to the point I would look for signs of a "sealer" while doing the head gasket. If I saw it I told the service manager it will need a rad flush. I didn't even need to explain why.


Radiator shop can check the flow. If you are on the cheap, like I normally am, you could lay the radiator down tubs up and cap on and fill it with rad flush and let it soak. Then flush it with a garden hose and see how much crap you get out of it. Heck I got two big handfuls when I did my v6 and it did not have a blow headgasket.