Hello, i recently bought a 89 s-10 blazer with the 4.3l v6. The friend i bought it from rebuilt the motor, when he did the head gasket, he bored the water holes on the gasket to mach the head. thus telling me i need to replace the head gasket. So what im asking is if this is ok, or do i need to replace the head gasket, and will it cause the blazer to overheat? any info on this will be awsome! its setting in my driveway. im dying to drive it! thank you and god bless!

 

In my opinion, you should not need to mess with a head gasket at all. They are made that way for a reason. Most likely to account for shifts in head and block casting locations of the water ports. It would probably be fine that it was done, however another form of logic behind the smaller holes is to slow the travel of coolant allowing more time for heat transfer from the heads/block into the coolant; instead of the coolant racing through before picking up as much heat as possible.

You can leave it and see what happens. If you are on the fence as far as replacing them or not you are ready to take on the work. Why not try it and if you notice it is running hot or cold, then do the work.

 

Thank you TZFbird, I appreciate the input. I may have more questions in the future. lol. Ive come to discover i have an over heating issue, so i gotta go through the cooling system and fix that. Once again thank you.