OK ppl, its me... again... Had an issue earlier this morning and had coolent leakage and thought it was the water pump... well I was wrong and found out that i blew out my headgasket from the outside...

Here is the info...

96 Chevy Blazer LT w/ a 4.3L V6 Vortec

My question is...

How hard is it to do a head gasket job on these engines, with all the damn electric wires and sensors and will it be easier to just pull the hood and front clip off or yank out the engine all together and will i have to plane the heads when i get em off or will they be ok just to replace?

Suggestions/advice or a giant keg of gun powder and a long wick will be helpful

 

Actually head gaskets are not a big deal. All the electrical connectors are fairly simple as they will only fit what they come off of.
I would suggest to the begginer to take digital pics as you dissassemble to assist in proper routing for reassembly.

Taking the hood off gives more head room, but it's not nessessary.

 

Update:

First ty for the info

Second I dove in further to see where the leak was coming from and got word of doing a compression check to see if the head gasket has failed and i gotabout 150 and steady. So i was told it was the intake gasket, so a relief off my back andnow comes the wrenching part of it...beingtold i could dissconnect all the wires w/o worries, Is there anything major i need not to over look when replacing the gasket on the intake like adding sealent or torqueing the bolts a certain amout? And if so anyone know what the amouts would be?

 

I replaced my intake manifold gasket on my Bravada a few months before I traded it in. If you run a search, you should find a few threads on the subject. I even think someone has gone through the whole procedure and written a how-to, but didn't include pictures of the steps. I also think that there has been a link to a very good how-to posted on the internet somewhere, but I couldn't it the last time I tried searching for it so I don't know.

If you can't find the information you require after a search, let us know.

 

Update:

Well I went and pulled the intake and found out that i got screwed when i bought the truck as the person before me replaced the seal w/o placing the red RVT down and when it was leaking put in Bars Stop leak to seal it up.

Well I cleaned and preped the intake and the valley and globbed down the RVt and layed down the gasket and put more on for good measure and started torqueing them down in 30ft/Lbs increments and got all 8 started and then as i went to go from 30 to 60ft/lbs and the first bolt, i ended up snapping! [:@]

So now im in a world of **** as it was a outside one so i can't just crank it down in the valley and catch it... So now a drill and an Easy-Out in in my future as well as another set of gaskets... [>:]

 

HOLY CRAP! 60ftlbs...??? WHY???

The tightening sequence:

The torque specs:
1st pass - 27 INCH pounds
2nd pass - 106 INCH pounds
final pass - 11 foot pounds

For the upper plenum, 1st pass is 44 inch pounds with a final pass of 80 inch pounds.

And you didn't do yourself a favor by slathering on the RTV... The overmolded gaskets are not meant to have RTV all over them. Best thing to do is properly clean the surfaces and only put the RTV down in the corners as instructed by the instructions with the gasket kit. If the surface is quite irregular around the coolant passages, then you may want to do a skim coat of RTV and let it setup for a bit... And I prefer to use Ultra Black RTV for the galley rails.

You may get lucky and be able to use a reverse drill bit to turn it out. The bolt shouldn't be stuck in there, just broke off.

You will mostlikely have to pull the lower plenum back off.

Over compression of the gasket is a sure fire way of causing a premature leak.

 

Wow..60 Ft lbs!? I was gonna say..just did mine last weekend (137,000 miles! woo hooo), and the total is 11 ft lbs..like Kyle said. As for the gaskets, GET GM GASKETS! they just updated them to rubber-impregnated ALLUMINUM gaskets! (they were rubber in plastic) The new ones are awesome, and I can't imagine them EVER failing again! I'm not sure about list price, cause with my discount I paid $28.00 for the set, but they're probably like $50.00 or so, WELL worth it IMO. As for the sealer, get a tube of it from the dealer when you get your gaskets, they've updated it recently too..does a GREAT job. Apply a 3/8" bead along the front and rear of the block and use the sequence and torque specs that Kyle posted above. You'll be good to go!

 

Update:

Well good news is that the intake is on an seated at 11ft/lbs Went to AutoZone and came close to chocking the living snot outof the guy who was telling me the three stages of torque in ft/lbs instead of inch/lbs!

Anywyas, i let the small bead of RVT set overnight then put everything back together w/o any extra parts or bolts!

Now... I have yet another problem.... My timing is WAY off! i had to readjust the oil pump driveshaft via spinning the crank by hand to get it to line up with the number 6 on the distributer and then have it line up back to TDC (top dead center)... well i got the dizzy back on and filled it with water and started it up... it would wanna try to kick over but wouldn't then it would bog down a ittle in starting then it would halt completely so i left it alone...

Anyone can help me in finding how to time this engine would be greatful!

 

I posted a long winded procedure a while back for Tim (hanr3). Run a search for timing or distributor and swartlkk as the author.

Oh and it's MUCH easier to move the pump shaft than it is to roll the motor over!! Once you move the crank, you pretty much have to go through the WHOLE process of timing the engine all over again. Reference marks from before you removed the distributor are all worthless.