I got a blown head gasket and was waundring how much it should cost to fix

 

To do it yourself...about $50 in gaskets and a weekend in time, another $50 or so if you have the heads "worked", valve job, new valve stem seals, check head surface for distortions, etc.

 

if you have this done in a shop, expect to pay over $1000 for the labor. A shop wanted $700 to replace an INTAKE gasket on my freind's lt1. I'd say do it yourself, but make sure you get all the gaskets you need ahead of time. This includes tb, runner, intake, thermostat, and head gaskets.

 

$1k price quotes are not at all uncommon


Deffinatly do it yourself, its easy enough and if you've never done one nows a good time to learn.

 

Seeing as how this post hits right where the poster and I need help I thought I'd ask to see if anyone has some good guides out there, or knows of a good site that walks you through it. I've never done it, and I don't want to screw it up and have to tear it down again.

Any idea on how long this would take someone who was just getting into it? I'm estimating about two weeks cause I only have weekends free and the heads have ot be sent out to be checked for warping/cracking. I've got a good idea on how to do this. But would like some assurance. The Chiltons manual for 82 to 94 firebirds isn't exactly the most assuring manual I've seen.

 

Get a Haynes if you don't like the Chilton's. They're both about the same. If you want money to mod your car, you need to work on it yourself. Just follow the instructions in the manual, that is pretty much how everyone else does it. The best way to learn is by doing, not getting assurance from a manual. If you have questions as you go along, there are many on the board here to answer your quesitons. The only way to do it is to quit talking and thinking about it and just dig into it. Once you do it, you will really have no fears about doing other repairs on your car. As long as you have a good assortment of hand tools and a torque wrench, there's really nothing else special you need. Again, if you have concerns as you are in the middle of the repair, assembly, there are plenty of knowledgeable folk here to assisst.

 

Don't want to do it twice? Find out wear its leaking or why it blew. I had to do mine twice b/c my reuseable head bolts, weren't reuseable. I did mine in a driveway in 2 days. They were TWO WHOLE DAYS, but still cheaper than taking it to a shop and working 3 weeks to pay for the bill.

 

evan you *******. i heard dusty blew his headgasket. cant say it really suprises me the way he beats on that poor GTA. it will prolly cost a couple hundred bucks to do it right. his GTA has 70,000 miles oin it and he should have the heads decked and the valves ground and installed with new seals and mybe even new valve guides. he will fork over about 60 bucks or so for all the gaskets he needs too. i hope he learns a lesson on how to drive. (for those of you wondering metalliciroc is a good buddy of mine with a slick 86 iroc. and the car with the blown head gasket is a mint 87 GTA with an L98 and 3.27 gears.)

 

Well, I'm estimating two weeks because my only free day is Sunday really. I doubt many shops are open on sundays, so I'll have to tear it apart, take the heads to the shop, wait for them to shave/pressure check them, then when I have the next free sunday put it all back together. Hopefully that will be it with the repairs. I also just found out my next "mod". My next one will be to replace the lousy R rated tires on the car with something a little more substantial. But for $1,000 the car is a good deal.

 

You may want to consider doing some other stuff while you're inside the engine. Maybe a cam swap with a new timing chain. You'll have the exhaust manifolds off already, so why not throw some headers on? The intake is going to be off, so maybe a little porting. Injectors cleaned and flow matched. I'm not saying to do all of these things. I know I'm not rich, but you may want to consider doing other things while its apart. Minimize labor in the long run. Just a thought.

 

I'm too poor right now. I have to spend about $600 on school supplys by Nov. 4th if get into devry. So anything but actually fixing the car is out of the question. I don't like to touch my credit cards. I went hog wild in high school and spent a little too much. My goal is to pay it all off before I start to use them again.

I basically went and built a kick *** computer for more money than I bought the GTA for. Dual monitors, one 21" and 15", Scanner, digital camera.....you name it, I can do it. I also put together a Home theatre on a really tight budget. All put together I have no problems making the payments, Its just sometimes I wish I didn't get it so that I could spend more money on the car.