OK. Completely new to this kind of thing so please bare with me.
I have a 2000 Chevy Blazer. About 2 yrs. ago it over heated and the radiator went out on me. When I had a new one put in they told me I had a cracked head gasket. Like I said about two years ago now having a lot of problems with it. I don't have the money to have it done so I have to do it myself. Never done any internal engine repair and not familiar with it at all. So I'm pretty scared about doing it but have no choice. I go though about 1 gallon of antifreeze a month. The main problem is when the car is in drive and idling. It wants to stall out. I have to put it in neutral every time I come to a stop and slowly push on the gas to get going again. Trying to go in reverse is very bad as well worse even. There is no smoke coming out of the exhaust just a burning oil smell. Check engine light has always been on and now it blinks sometimes. There's a lot of brownish orange gunk in the radiator even after flushing it. Need to know what else I should change while I'm doing it and what kind of tools I'll need and PLEASE ANY ADVICE YOU CAN GIVE ME WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED.

 

In my opinion one of the best things you could/should do is get a Chilton's manual to begin with and read through the steps it specifies to do the job. Then when before you disconnect Anything take pictures of everything possible from different angles. Diagram and mark everything possible before/as you take it apart. Also flag vacuum lines and ports as well as wiring with A - A or A1 - A2, as a means to match them back up with where they plug on/together. I'm not familiar with that year or engine so I don't know if there are any specialty tools required other than a torque wrench (or torque wrenches as you may have to ranges needed depending on the torque of different things you'll be pulling and replacing.) Remember that when you pull certain things, like your pushrods, they'll either need to be replaced or put back in the same place they were removed from. Something I find helpful and well worth the money is a box (or two) of Ziploc baggies. When you're pulling something apart draw it and then mark your bolt lengths on a piece of paper including the head sizes indicating on the drawing where they go. Then place the paper and bolts into a Ziploc bag and mark the baggie with a magic marker as to what those bolts are for. Beyond that I'm not sure what to offer.


Not sure if you've noticed or not but at the bottom of this page should be links to similar posts/threads. They might be helpful.