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How much trouble is it to put a head gasket on a 1979 luv . ( all stock )

Thanks

Unless your truck was smoking a bunch when you first start it up untill the engine gets warm (which is a good indicator of bad valve guides) , or unless you see obvious valve problems once you have the head off, like a cracked or severely burnt valve (possibly due to a constant exhaust leak) - then I would not recommend doing a valve grind on a used head and putting it back on a used engine with very many miles on it.

Putting a rebuilt/reconditioned head on a used motor increases the pressure on the old used piston rings and may cause them to not hold pressure, and then you will risk the chance of having an engine that is a constant smoker with severe blow-by. Which besides making you realize you just wasted your time and money producing a basically unusable and unservicable engine, is really one heck of a buzzkill on a good day...lol

I always follow the old rule of: "If it aint broke - don't fix it". That has saved my butt and my wallet many times for a lot of years.

What I would suggest however, is that you do invest in a decent carbon scraper. I have had one just like this that I've used for years:



They aren't that expensive (this one is $10.00 on ebay) and are an essential tool for any self-respecting shade-tree or backyard mechanic. I personally like this type because it has a flexible scraping edge that conforms to any surface's shape whether it is flat or not.

Then carefully scrape off all of the built up carbon and scaling from the surface of your valves and the tops of your pistons. Use bits of clean lint-free rags or clean paper towels to plug the holes in your block top surface, and be careful not to get any debris into the oil or coolant passages.

I also recommend squirting a little WD40 (and the refillable hand pump spray bottle is way better for this than those darn little spray cans with the little red straw you always loose) around the top of the pistons in order to try to get it to soak down around them down to the piston rings to clean some of the build up around the rings to aid in reseating them a bit. And spray a little around the valves in order to get a little down around the valve guides to try to reseal them a bit too. The whole thought process behind this is to try to remove a little built up gunk and sludge and allow a better seal to slightly help improve your compresion. (Hey - every little bit helps.)

Be very careful removing the gasket material from the top of you engine block and especially the aluminum head because you don't want to damage your mating surfaces and cause a gasket leak. I personally use a long handled scraper with replaceable single edge razor blades like this:



This one is $7.00 on Amazon.com. The long handle is a nice convenience and the fact that it conveniently stores a good-sized supply of it's own replacement blades in it's handle is a definite plus.

BTW.. anyone that would dare bring permatex or any other head gasket sealer into my shop better like leaving with a free installation of my boot impressions on the seat of their britches...lol

IMHO, if you have cleaned and prepped your mating surfaces properly, they are not warped, and you tighten the head bolts down in the proper sequence in the recommended increments to the proper torque specs (it's in the manual and I'm too lazy to go look it up...lol), and use a decent head gasket, then IMHO you don't need any freakin' messy sealant. Nor do you want to have to spend a lot of time prying your butt off trying to get the head you just glued to your block back off, and then working your tail off carefully and painstakingly cleaning it all back off of your head and your block, should the head ever have to be removed again for any reason. (I know..I know...some of you guys swear by using it, but I just hate the stuff with a passion and have never seen any practical use for it, nor have I ever had any leaks from not using it.)

Another little trick you can do is to fill your oil filter with clean fresh engine oil before re-installing it. It can be a little messy, but this helps "prime" your oil pump, brings up your oil pressure faster and saves you a little "wear and tear" on your oil pump and your engine when you first fire it up after an oil change. My personal oil of choice is Castrol GTX 10/40 wt on a newer engine and Castrol High Mileage 10/40 wt on a used/old engine. I buy them in the convenient "oil change size" 5 qt jugs, but you can buy them by the quart if you need some small greasy colorful plastic floats for a crab pot, or you just like having a lot of little greasy plastic bottles laying around...lol

A ratio of 50% straight antifeeze/coolant to 50% distilled, filtered, or purified water is best for most vehicles. Never use normal household tap water because it's full of minerals, impurities, etc, that will build up and collect in your engine's coolant passages, water pump, radiator, and heater core which will end up causing you a lot of cooling/overheating problems later. You can either buy it pre-mixed by the gallon, or buy them both seperately and mix them yourself.

There's my $.02 worth...good luck!