My 89 has a blown head gasket and Im going to try and take on the job myself because I cant afford to take it to a shop. I bought a 1989 Corvette Service Shop Manual DVD online to help me. Ive never done this sort of thing before. Is there some sort of DIY thread on how to do this job? Such as telling you which parts to take off and in what order? Im a girl so please bare with me. lol

 

There would be a plethora of info online on how to do this, and it would save someone a lot of typing in a post. First off, are you sure you have a bad head gasket? What are the symptoms? The readers digest version would be to drain the block, pull the intake, remove exhaust manifolds, remove valve cover and head bolts, pull head. Find a generic guide to doing this and ask questions along the way as they come up. And ignore all of the guys on here that are going to give you a bad time.

 

I admire those that live without fear......

It might seem overwhelming at first, just remember, its just one part bolted to another. You will figure it out.

Start by familiarizing yourself with the manual. Read thru on intake removal, exhaust manifolds and engine teardown.

Drain everything...start pulling ex bolts. Get some kind of penetrating spray to help with rusted or seized bolts..
Tag and/or photo wire harness and brackets. I like to use small boxes to store bolts with the bracket or part that came off. Make a pattern in a cardboard box for pushrods..they should go back where they came from.Rockers as well (if removed for some reason) Heads need to be looked at closely. Get someone that has experience to take a look and see if they are warped or cracked.
Make notes on things like rocker nut turns...so you know later if you are close or not. Take your time. Its not an emergency despite how it may seem.
And when questions come up, and they will, just ask. Nobody ever got an answer unless they ask the question.

Good Luck

 

My advice before starting this little exercise is to take off the distributor cap and rotate the engine until the timing mark lines up with the timing tab. Make sure the rotor is pointing at the #1 spark plug wire (toward the driver's side, about 45 degrees from straight ahead). This will make it a lot easier to get it back together correctly. If it's 180 degrees out your engine won't start.

If you do decide to rotate the engine while it's apart (to clean piston tops, for example), make sure you keep track of the rotations to make sure you're really on #1 vs. #6.

My socket kept slipping off the stock harmonic balancer bolt head. I found it much easier to replace the bolt with an ARP bolt, which has a much longer head. The ARP bolt is kinda expensive (~$28), but it will save your knuckles.

 

You are braver than I.

Lot of good information in this thread, but the best advice I can add is to see if you have a friend that has torn down a SBC Chevy themselves so that if you get stuck you can get someone to look it over for you.

Where I get stuck and am ashamed to admit is I got hung up on adjusting the valves. No big deal to most folks here, but for me at least, without someone to show me in person I had to have it towed.

Good luck with it and you can be proud when you finish.

 

one, with that avatar, and i'm really surprised the leg humpin'-horn dogs are not out in force with this one. seriously, i really hope you have, at least a little mechanical ability, have or have access to a good, complete tool set, and have a good working environment. there are several different ways to approach this, but personally, i'd position the car in my garage, and get it up on jack stands. the jack stand thing is not required, but i hate to work in a bent over the engine, and it's a bit easier to gain access to anything under the car - like draining the radiator, and retrieving that bolt you WILL drop. to start, the first thing to do is disconnect the battery, take a bunch of detailed, digital photos of the engine compartment, next read a lot, ask questions, seek help and assistance, be neat and organized - bag, tag, and label everything, seek more help, and finally, connect the battery. not trying to discourage you, but this will be, especially on an L98, one monumental task for a "rookie". my best advice, and not trying to be sexist, but get your dad, brother, uncle, boyfriend, or any other motor head to help you, or save your pennies and pay to have it done. whatever way you go, good luck - you will need it - it WILL be a learning experience! maybe it's just me, but i see a 5 gallon bucket of worms about to be opened...

 

Good Advice Joe.

Couple of things I'd add would be to take the front tires off to make it easier it get toand get one of those cheap pumps that will let you drain the cooling system enough to work on it without needing to get under it to drain the radiator.

Take the plugs out to make it easier to turn the engine over then set it to TDC and make the distributor cap, the rotor location and mark where the distributor is on the intake.

Take photos as you're disassembling it as well.

And congrats on giving it a try, you can do it just take your time and don't panic.

 

Wow, congratulations on your first attempt. Even though you are a girl that takes some testicular fortitude. Pretty much the head gasket is straight forward. Take off the intake, remove the exhaust bolts and just take off the heads. This is a good time to have the valve job checked also. Let the machine shop worry about making sure the heads are true and just re-assemble in the reverse order.

For your first time I'd take some plastic sandwich bags and put the bolts for a particular sub-assembly in individual bags. Mark them with a marker. It'll make re-assembly easier and less confusing. Feel free to take some pics and post them up with any problems you're having. We'll be glad to help.

BTW, nice avatar. That's my kinda girl. Good luck.

 

Thanks everybody!!! I appreciate all the input! The block has been drained already. If you search for my name vetdrem in the c4 forum, you can read up on what happened to my car to cause this catastrophe way back last year. Im 99.9% sure its a blown head gasket. This isnt the first time this exact same thing has happened to this car. Same thing happened about 5 years ago-water pump was going out unknowing to me and it overheated on me on the highway. Boyfriend at the time was a mechanic so he tore it down, had me take the heads to a place and had them resurfaced. Now here we go again. Somebody asked where Im located-I am in wichita,ks.

 

So far i have taken off distributor, spark plugs, alternator,air pump,took loose the a.c. compressor,the manifold is partially loose,took belt tensioner off and valve covers are off. Note: on the passenger side of the motor the spark plug closest to the radiator was completely blackened on the end. A friend said that means it has not been firing. And the spark plug on same side of motor closest to the windshield looks like it has rust on the end meaning that it has had some water on it,right? When I took off the valve cover on drivers side of engine, you can see where coolant and oil have mixed together. Below are pics. Anyways, i need input as to where do i go from here...

 

your doing fine..

as others have mentioned, catolog your parts in baggies, and identify hose's etc with masking tape, always reinstall bolts nuts etc, anytime you can.

Another big help is to keep a journal on your steps, this will help with the build up by simply reversing the steps taken during tear down.

Basically remove the entire intake, and all Accessories bolted to the head (s)
exhaust manifold (s) and then prepair to remove Valve rockers, and push rods...Emportant; seperatly bag the rockers, and rods by cylinder # and location i.e #1 intake, #1 exhaust and so on. Now your ready to actually remove the head (s)

It's always a good idea to have a repair manual close by, and take some extra time to read up on a few things while you move along. individual details can be answerd on the forum as needed...take lots of pictures, and try not to get frustrated.

This will be a great experience.

 

Start spraying your exhaust manifold bolts with PB Blaster right now. Spray them every chance you get until you get them off. They are prone to breaking off in the head. It doesn't happen every time but it happens enough to be a real PITA.

 

Slowly and carefully. Every time you take off a set of bolts, clean them to a shine (even if you think you will end up replacing them) and organize them piece by piece.

But, your doing awesome so far. I didn't start having problems until later.

Just something to think about, it is a HUGE pain cleaning off the block deck with the motor in the car. I suggest getting your hands around the trans, disconnecting it, and pulling the motor by itself. Getting it on an engine stand and having it right there in front of you will make it 10 times easier.

And, if you end up needing machine work, your already good to go. With a blown head gasket, there is a good chance you will need a 30 bore just to get all of the walls smooth and perfectly round.

Oh, and just a bit of ranting...
Why is it ALWAYS #7?!?!?! Did GM do something that made that part of the gasket specifically weak? Does anyone have any documentation? This is a gasket blowout on #7. I'm just waiting for the pics. I blew out at #7. I know that there have been several other people on this forum and off that had a blowout at #7 somewhere between 100k and 150K.

 

another way you can track your push rods..

http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/...1/P9170743.jpg

at the bottom of the cardboard is a matrix that shows which valve to adjust during #1 & #6 fireing positions. This is for an LT1 but I believe it might be the same for an L98...do some checking

 

Geesh NavyVette, why don't you just go all sexist on us. Let's see.....you said clean and shine and then mentioned cleaning again. Is that just because she's a girl? Then you go on to talk about blowing things.....Wow, I could never pull that off.

The you talk about machine work. Is that really reference to a sewing MACHINE? What's this about perfectly round.....'nuff said on that one. And how about your quote, "blew out at #7". What? Did you run out of wind at #7.

Just like a sailor.........Sexist Pig.
---Love, Gunny---

 

Hi vetdrem, all good suggestions from everyone, I have just put new heads on my 85 so i know its a very time consuming process taking it all apart and putting it all back together,
make sure you research what thickness head gaskets you need, do a search and read some threads and you will get an idea what to buy, both in relation to thickness and brands that people have used and can recommend. I used GM performance gaskets.
Also look at replacing the original head bolts with some ARP, especially important on alloy heads, i see you have done this job before, did you re use the old bolts ? Its probably not worth doing this job and using the old bolts again, might be setting yourself up for another gasket failure,
any questions just ask, you can get some good help and suggestions from the cf members

 

Watch out for the various Torx bolts. They are different lengths and need to go back in the same places they came out of. In my case I somehow ended up with a short one and a long one to put the EGR tube back in place. The long one bottomed out in the hole and I had to put a nut on it as a spacer.

Mine blew out on #7 also. There was one hole that was oval instead of round like the one on the other side. I guess it rusted, but who knows? I thought the shim gaskets were stainless steel, but apparently not.

 

 

Lemme- Steve has a really good AFR head swap & CC camshaft installation Thread on Going yet today.

Has really good disassemble & reassembly steps by myself & others.

I will let Lemme give you the link to his thread.

Should be very helpful.

Brian

 

Hey Brian. I better get off my backside and finish it. Have some new valve covers to try over those pesky roller rockers. CC stands for "comp cams" in case anyone is wondering.

My link is:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c4-t...stage-1-a.html