I am looking at buying a 99 seville with a blown headgasket. I am looking to replace it myself (im going to school for automotive technology). the car has been driven around for a while, overheating once in a while, because he kept replacing different things (radiator, thermostat, water pump), and then seeing if it helped. he finally had the car propperly diagnosed and a head gasket is bad (dont know what one). what i want to know is how easily these heads warp? how likely is it that this vehicle has a warped head? i dont know much about these cars. i know i have an 87 chrysler and if you let it overheat once your head is basically toast. i was wondering if this is a problem with these engines too?

 

I would say that it's not very likely that the heads are warped due to the engines' "camel mode". When it goes into this mode it uses the oil to cool the engine. The aluminim block is what allows it to do this. BUT, I will say that it is possible so you should send them to a machine shop to let them check it out and possibly shave it.

On a side note, Don't forget to timesert the block. The aluminum that the head bolts screw into is not incredibly strong. Most times the head bolts will pull out if you don't timesert the block. A timesert is a threaded sleave that you screw into the head bolt holes (after drilling out the old threads).

 

I have done many and not one warped head yet.
I still check every one with a straight edge.

 

thanks for the advice, anything anyone else has that i should watch out for is helpful.

on timeserting the block, how do most people do this? how far do you have to drill the threads out? and where do i get the right sized sleave? ive never heard of this being done.

 

You can get them from here.... They should provide instructions too.

http://www.timesert.com/html/gm.html

 

so what do you guys do just try and torque the heads down and if one strips out you take it off and fix it or do you drill them all out and replace them?