my truck has been overheating and blowing off the coolant resivors lid. and water was rusty as ****. so i did a flush and a new thermostat because it was stuck open. didnt fix it. let it sit for a day and noticed the resivor was full so i drained a gallon out of it to make it to the fill line and re added the rest to the radiator. didnt work, so i had it towed to the el shopo and they said head gasket they did the die test and said it instally turned blue. so tomorrow i am getting a uhaul trailer and towing it 30 miles to my buddies and sunday tearing the top end down so monday i can get the heads to the machine shop and try to get it back together next week.
anyone done this job? how hard and how long did it take? any tricks? i have done head gaskets before, just never on my own vehicles.

 

take pics, :-p Good luck, sorry about your misfortune!

 

i plan on taking pics learned that lesson before.

 

thats a pretty easy job on a 4 cylinder (as long as it is not a subaru), v6 is twice as much work but atleast you have the pushrod engine. Put some head studs in there when you rebuild it.

 

shop time says 7.5hrs on the job. picked it up from the shop today and trailered it to my buddies house to his dads body shop where i will be doing the work sunday

 

4.5hrs to tear it down. was easy only hard part was the drivers side exhaust manifold bolts were uber tight but nothing my 1/2" matco impact couldnt handle. heads are at the machine shop being checked for flat and cracks along with new vavle seals and possibly a valve job if needed.

 

Well at least it'll run great once it's back together! My friend just had the same issue on his Toyota camry. Was the damn nastiest looking coolant I've ever seen.

 

o yeah that coolant was nasty! it looked like a keg that was shook to all hell and then you tap it and pour it, you know how foamy that is imagine that with rusty chunks.

but i called the machine shop today and good news heads are straight and not cracked and no need of a valve job. so tomorrow i should get them back. and start the reassembly friday night before i forget how it went back together.

 

truck is done! with only 1 broken bolt, my 1/2 impact is a beast! and broke a bolt tightening down. took about 6.5 hrs to put back together would have been 5 but scraping gaskets, dealing with valve cover gaskets and the drinking fact that time added up.