I have a 1998 4 door 4 wd with the 4.3 with 206,000 miles the recently replaced water pump went out again (thanks auto zone) while on the road and now I have a blown head gasket, I think it already may have had a slight valve issue due to a very light miss and it had good plug, wires and filters so now I am looking at re doing the heads and don't think I can do it myself so what is an average cost for a shop to do this? Thanks in advance

 

i think our shop charges around $500 for the intake gasket so i would guess probably about $1000 total, lot of labor going on. AND theres always a risk of stuff being tacked on. never know if manifold studs are going to break off or any other issues found along the way. best bet would be to call around

 

Sure it is the head gasket? Reason i ask is its common for that age of blazer to have a cracked intake manifold gasket. it can allow water into the intake runner and or cause a vacuum leak(and a miss). It's common to pick up an s10 cheap because of this.

Just my .02

 

No I am not 100% on it being a head gasket but I have water in my oil after it over heated so I figured it was very possible, thanks for yalls help.

 

WOW 1 grand to fix a blown head gasket,Bring it to me I only charge $500 LOL.

 

If you have coolant in your oil, get the oil out of there asap. Park it, dump the oil, put some fresh oil in there and let it sit while you determine what you are going to do. I let a '97 Blazer sit too long that blew a head gasket. Long story short, I learned antifreeze loves to eat bearings like they were a midnight snack.

 

wrong spot

 

Thanks for the info on what antifreeze will do. Now i have a new question, I pulled the plugs and checked compression and they all held good compression from 120 to 150, i rented the gauge from autozone so i pulled the new radiator i had installed to have checked.what else can i check or look for as why water is in my oil, thanks for your resopnses.

 

Lower intake manifold gaskets. VERY common for them to leak externally and internally. If you use OEM style gaskets, they will leak again, guaranteed. Felpro #MS98002T if clean up and installation are done correctly, they will not leak.

 

it will be either head gasket or lower intake gasket. I personally have never seen a head gasket blown on a 4.3(i'm sure they do..), but LOTS of intake gaskets(mine included) ditto on using the felpro gasket.