No sealers on a head gasket. You put the high temp silicone aside while doing the head, and maybe use a very thin coating on the carb to intake gasket and perhaps the intake to head gasket when you get to that point. There is mention of using a thread sealer on the middle bolt on the exhaust side in one of the books. That bolt hole goes through to a water jacket. I've done with and without and I think it only makes a real difference when you go to remove that bolt again. Hi temp silicone probably would not even do for that, as that bolt gets right up to full exhaust temps.
The secret to successful head gasket work is cleanliness. You want the head smooth, the block smooth, and both clean enough to eat off of. If you are not going to have the block machined, go over it very carefully with a razor blade to remove any old gasket gunk. When I did my last one, I also gave it a hit with 800 grit sand paper on a sanding block, but you have to be very careful to sand evenly. You don't want a low spot, especially between cylinders where is is thin already. For cleaners I used Goof Off (pure xylene, Goo Gone has other stuff that may leave residues) but acetone would probably work as well. Once both the head and block were clean I wiped them off with a tack cloth right before assembly to get any dust/dirt off that had landed on them. The cleaner and smoother things are, the longer your replacement gasket will last.
Replacement head bolts are available at
http://www.headbolts.com for $40 for a set. Isuzu wanted $40 a bolt the last time I heard. The head bolts on these are not torque to yield type bolts that you use only once. They can be reused if they are in good shape still. I have to swap around a few last time I did this as I had a few that were severely rusted. Don't forget to oil the threads and the bolt heads when you put them in. Also doesn't hurt during the cleaning phase to chase the block threads with a tap to clean them out. 12mm tap, 1.5 thread pitch, coicendentally the same as the lug nuts. I cross cut an open ended lug nut with a hack saw to make a thread cleaner for the bolts actually.
One last thing, when you take off the old head, be sure not to lose the locator rings. They fit in a niche around two of the head bolts (front right and back left I think) and help get the gasket on the block straight. Put the gasket down, the locator deals in to line it up, then carefully lower the head down. An extra pair of hands is a big help there. I also back off the valvle adjusters all the way, that way you don't chance denting the gasket with a valve, and you can turn the cam over to line up with the sproket even with pistons all the way up.
Oh yeah, one more tip. The exhaust manifold is easy to put on after the head is installed, but the intake is much harder. I installed the intake along with the EGR pipe, then put the exhaust manifold on after the fact.
If you have any questions I just did a head gasket this summer, so its all fairly fresh in my head. PM me if you need an immediate answer, I'll see the email alert from that before I might get back here.
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??? Are you talking about the hose that runs from the top of the rad in the pic? The only other coolant hoses I can see are the heater hoses next to the firewall. If its the upper rad hose, rez is right... it connects to the intake not the head...
