My friend recently blew one of his head gaskets in his 1970 Monte Carlo. He has insisted in me helping with the replacement of his head gasket, he thinks I can help him more than anyone on this issue. He does not have enough money to have it repaired at a shop. I agreeed to help him, I have never changed or replaced a head gasket on any engine, but I have installed and intake manifold and TBI/WATERPUMP/STARTER/DISSY/RADIATOR into my car I have never gone as far as replacing a cylinder head gasket. What I need to know is, what essential tools will I need to aquire to have this done? and will I need some sort of schematic to execute this correctly. I know these olde 350 engines are actually more easier and can be more simple to work with than 1980s 350s which is to my advantage. Any information will greatly help! Thanks

 

All you really need is basic hand tools and the torque pattern to change the head gasket you can get that from Auto Zone website or just about anywhere on the web but ill give you a torque pattern pic

 

Head gasket replacement is not a hard task, but is easy to screw up and you end up paying huge.

You can replace an entire set of head gaskets with a few tools.
Remove carb, and intake manifold
Remove exhaust manifolds
Remove valve covers
Remove rocker arms*
Remove pushrods*
Remove head bolts
gently pry the head up on the corner where the china wall and head meet.
remove head.

Now, this is where the fun starts.

Look at heads, they probably are due for a rebuild. Since you have them off this will be a good time to get one. At the very least, replace the springs, keepers, and valve seals.

You need to get a straight edge and measure the head gasket surface for warpage. This requires two metal straight edges are one metal straight edge and a feeler gauge. Lay the metal edge against the head long ways on the straight edges side. Then measure the gap between the straight edge and gasket surface.

Do the same for the block surface. Post your results. If the block or head is too warped you need to machine the head or block if not your gasket change will be in vain.

It is also a good idea to get new head bolts. Old ones some times stretch or warp, however I have reused some in the past but OEM ones are usually $24 a set at autozone. This is not a good place to cheap out.

Gaskets, there is a plethora of gaskets. I now run dead soft copper gaskets, but I plan on running boost, I would recommend GM's head gaskets. Or felpro blue.

This would also be a great time to check your cylinder walls for scouring, scratches, etc.

If your heads and block are really straight, and after you clean your surfaces and heads are rebuilt. Lay down your gasket. Make sure the label where it says *this side up* is up. You can easily install them upside down and cover a cooling port. place your head where the dowels line up and install your bolts according to the bolt's manufactured specs. This is very important. Some people go according to maint manuals specs which is fine and dandy with oem bolts, but torque and sealant changes with aftermarket bolts like ARP. Which will usually require more torque. The installation instructions may suggest to dip your bolt in oil or add permatex #2. You do what the instructions for the bolt says before manuals.

There is a specific pattern the bolts go in when you torque them. It is sometimes a great idea to step torque them. For instance. If your torque is 60 ft lbs you will torque all your bolts in a pattern to 20 ft lbs, then all of them again to 40 ft lbs then 60. this ensures even pressure and make sure you get two clicks on each torque to make sure you recieve no false readings.

The patern is usually the same for all small block heads

starts in the middle then makes sorta a spiral square.

after this is done, it would be very very wise to replace all your push rods. They are about $20 for all 16 of them.

install your rocker arms in the order and original place they came off, would be a good idea to soak them in some oil along with the donut washer.
Rocker arm, washer, bowl side down, then nut. Hand tighten them till you get to a good spot to set your valve lash. (search setting valve lash)

install exhaust manifolds, with hopefully new gaskets.

Hope this helps... it would be a great idea to get a manual first to get most of your other torque settings and they usually have decent suggestions.
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I noticed you are doing an LT1 swap. I am not trying to offend you in any way shape or form, but how is it you plan to tackle such an expensive, time consuming, and knowledge savy swap such as that and not know how to replace a head gasket? There is alot of advance wiring involved. Again, I am not trying to be mean I am asking a serious question

 

i recently did it and it wasnt really all that hard. just pretty time consuming. make sure you mark where hoses and such go with masking tape and just right A and A on the end of the hose and where the hose runs to, to keep things organized on reassembly. getting the head bolts off is tough so you're going to need some sort of bar to put on the end of your socket wrench for leverage (unless you have a nice long socket wrench.) have the heads magnafluxed to make sure you arent putting a cracked head back on. good luck.

 

The one item we seem to see often when someone is putting something back together after their first time doing such a job - timing light.

 

You will have to remove your distributor obviously to remove your intake manifold. You "can" mark where your distributor was, but it is usually a good idea to re-time your motor anyways since you made significant changes, such as replacing those worn out valve train components...

 

The LT1 project is a new and challenging delima, I agree. But the plans of execution to make this come together are only of financial ones at this time. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do with it and what Horsepower I want it at and know how to acheive this, although I do need more knowledge and experiance to know what im dealing with a bit more. The actua physical work will not be done by myself, but by someone with experiance.
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I really wasn't planning on having the heads machined.... is this a requirement in most cases?

 

I bought my first motor with the thought of having a practice motor. I bought the cheapest parts I could find, to practice on. Then I would spend the money on things that could be transfered over to a great motor later down the line, such as headers, carb, intake etc. The point is, I made a motor by myself, and did not care whether it blew up a week later, because I made plans to work on a motor that was short term. This way, when you want to create the motor of your dreams, you will be less likely to make previous mistakes.

Perhaps, since you are novice, you could buy an el cheapo 350, hone it, re ring it and rebuild the heads yourself, so when you want this LT1 you been wanting, you have the experiance, and confidence to do the job right.

sofakingdom has a saying. If you cannot afford to do it right the first time, can you afford to do it again?

As for the machining of the heads, you must measure the warpage as I discribed. If they are indeed warped, you will have a blown head gasket in the matter of miles, and there is absolutely no point in doing this at all. having your heads decked is not a wallet breaking deal, but you do have to invest some money unless you want to do this very soon.

You need to invest in:
pushrods
valve springs
valve seals
keepers
guides
headbolts
headgasket
intake gasket
exhaust gasket

If you get into the mind set of "do I really have to spend the money for this?" then your LT1 will not survive long. We are all victims of thinking this, I think about cutting corners all the time. I have blown two engines in my past for stupid $5 mistakes. I write them off as lessoned learned but, you will never forget it when a 100 hours of hard work has died in vain.

Goodluck bro.

 

I already have the LT1 in my posession and am not about to use the only engine I have as a practice build. With this, I plan on accumulating a certain amount of funds to finance my dream set up. Money is tight, so I wish to invest it right and do it right the first time, at the expense of me DIY'ing it and learning more about engine overhauling. Maybe sometime in the future, but not at this time.