Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Parts for head gasket replacement?

You will want the cam seals. If you're taking the engine that far apart it may well be worthwhile to change the timing belt and water pump, since you might save significant costs this way over doing them separately later on.

When comparing prices for a "head gasket set" or "upper gasket set", be sure to ask exactly what's included in each one.

When my head gasket blew, coolant got inside, and we took the engine apart completely to make sure that no bearing surfaces were damaged by the coolant. This required a new pan gasket, crankshaft seals, and piston rings, and tons of labor. Skipping this could be a gamble if any coolant was running around inside in the oil. (We had to pull the engine anyway because the flywheel was wrecked when it hydro-locked and broke the starter motor.)

If you pull out the valve lifters, keep track of them and get them back into the same holes they came out of. If you take the caps off the cam bearings, make sure they not only go back in the same places, but with the same end out -- don't flip them end for end. Of course, you may be able to get away with leaving the cams attached to the head.

You may need the cam locking tool to check cam timing -- a plate 0.200 inches thick on one edge. It's not only easier, but faster, to make this yourself than to order it, even if you have no tool better than a grinding wheel or a drill press to shape it with. That's enough, if you use a micrometer.