Hopefully not catastrophic failure?

[We Gone]

I know you can do it Mike, I have a buddy here in Atlanta (ShawnZR-1) that had a head gasket let go and made all the repairs himself than had it happen again found out it was due to corrosion at the top of the liners and had to replace them it was a high mileage car still did everything himself. By the way no other damage was done to the motor ether time. The 2nd time he did a complete overhaul due to the mileage.

Good Luck looking forward to your pics and progress reports.

[Dynomite]

Originally Posted by tccrab

The LT5 is a little intimidating, but don't give up hope. The hardest thing to do is timing the cams after you get the heads back on. The easiest way to do the cam timing is with the motor out of the car. If you are capable of pulling the motor then you should be able to time the cams. It will require some special tools, but there are plenty of guys here who will help you if you run into problems. Just take your time, document everything as you take it apart, take lots of pictures, label everything. Contact Jerry at Jerry's Gaskets for everything you will need to put it back together, seals, glues, gaskets and "Get 'er Dunn".

I would strongly advise against taking it to any kind of local repair shop. The odds of a timely and correct repair are not in your favor.

'Crabs

I concur completely

I have removed the heads with engine in car but then what is left you can almost lift out by hand

So I pulled what was left as you really need the engine out of car to do the timing like you want it just as Crabs suggests

With engine out of car you can take your time with the heads, cams, water pump, and clutch/pressure plate.

And if you like...........add headers which you can install the engine with Headers attached

[MikeSuke]

Originally Posted by WB9MCW

Good luck to you Mike.
We hope you have no damage of major and the fix can be had for low $$.

Thank you! The support here is unbelievable! My confidence is growing!!

[MikeSuke]

Originally Posted by We Gone

I know you can do it Mike, I have a buddy here in Atlanta (ShawnZR-1) that had a head gasket let go and made all the repairs himself than had it happen again found out it was due to corrosion at the top of the liners and had to replace them it was a high mileage car still did everything himself. By the way no other damage was done to the motor ether time. The 2nd time he did a complete overhaul due to the mileage.

Good Luck looking forward to your pics and progress reports.

Thanks! Looks like DIY is doable. Certainly will post pics/progress.

Assume you'd consider 124,000 miles to be high? Should the complete overhaul be considered? Are there tests/specs, such as what is above, that would be used to make the decision to overhaul?

[Polo-1]

Just peeking.....

Unknown mods? My guess the injector housing are ported and it sucked in the gasket with the water port next to it. easy fix I hope good luck.

[A26B]

Originally Posted by Polo-1

Just peeking.....

Unknown mods? My guess the injector housing are ported and it sucked in the gasket with the water port next to it. easy fix I hope good luck.

Wouldn't that be great! It's happened before, on more than one occasion.

[Dynomite]

Originally Posted by Polo-1

Just peeking.....

Unknown mods? My guess the injector housing are ported and it sucked in the gasket with the water port next to it. easy fix I hope good luck.

Plug that TB Coolant Water Port on top of Injector Housing when you are at it

[XfireZ51]

Originally Posted by Dynomite

Plug that TB Coolant Water Port on top of Injector Housing when you are at it

Yes, I guess I blocked my episode w this. What a pain! However, even if u block IH, you still need to seal head/IH interface. I use Permatex #2 around that area only.

[Dynomite]

Originally Posted by XfireZ51

Yes, I guess I blocked my episode w this. What a pain! However, even if u block IH, you still need to seal head/IH interface. I use Permatex #2 around that area only.

Yep......Permatex on gasket between Head and Injector Housing but nothing on gasket between Plenum and Injector Housing if you have TB Coolant blocked.

[MikeSuke]

you guys rock!! That WOULD be great!

This is also in line with what my local guy is telling me he'll test for - to determine if its the heads or the intake. I should hear back from him today/tomorrow. He's pretty good, I trust him to diagnose properly. He commented upon first seeing the car a while back "looks like a Lotus motor"! Now I wouldn't know how alike they look but... basically he said if its intake he could take it on, head gasket, probably not....

I'd feel comfortable letting him do the intake and I will surely share the advice given here, especially if it is ported, as I suspect.... probably safe to assume he'd do that properly? His response up front was "let me diagnose and we'll go from there"....

Another question, not knowing the age condition of the injectors, this sounds like a good time to replace them. Would that make sense if we are already in there?

thanks again to all for the wealth of info! I would love to meet up once this is all done and thank folks in person. I'll keep my eyes on the events page for gatherings. Thank you all!!!