does this head gasket look right to you?

[inthar]

helping a buddy put his van back together. He ordered the valve grind kit from the dealer and the gasket looked a bit wonky around the cylinder openings. thought i'd see if anyone would recommend replacing it.
thanks.

[timsrv]

If it's a Toyota gasket then I'd trust it. If it were just one cylinder I might worry, but all cylinders are uniform & that means they intended this. Toyota makes changes/improvements over the years and they probably have a good reason for this. I have seen the metal ring part of the gasket get "smooshed" into the cylinder bores before. They may have modified the gasket in an attempt to prevent this from happening. Perhaps it's to slightly reduce compression ratio & reduce "pinging"??? I don't know why, but I do know that Toyota gaskets are top notch. I don't think you'll find a better gasket out there. Take a look at the failed gasket below for an example of what can happen. Tim





BTW, I can tell it's a 3y . The distance between cylinder bores gives it away. They don't do this on the 4y, but then again they don't really have the room..............Check out my 4y (bored .020" over):

[Kauco]

So I decided to do my head gasket on my 89 van and after I removed the head I noticed a slight bubble on the gasket near cylinder 2. I looked at the head and there is a passage there but on the block there is no passage just wondering if this is normal. The reason I'm doin my head gasket is because I sent air into cylinder 2 and found the coolant bubbling out the fill area. I added a picture to this thread thanks for the help guys.

[timsrv]

Kauco, I have no idea why there are holes in the head that don't mate up to holes in the block..............but it's a common thing (don't concern yourself with it). Obviously it's had those holes since the beginning and has probably made it well over 100k miles like that. Perhaps having a hole there lead to a blown head gasket, or perhaps it was just a coincidence.......who knows. It doesn't really matter as there's not really anything you can do about it anyhow (at least that's my logic). When doing a head gasket focus on looking for things that aren't normal (like cracks, warped surfaces, leaky valves, worn guides, etc). If all that checks out okay, put a new OE Toyota gasket on and feel good about it. As a technician for Toyota I've done lots of head gaskets and never had an issue with those casting holes and/or gaskets not having matching ports. As long as you're using quality OE parts none of that should be an issue. Good luck. Tim

[Kauco]

Kauco, I have no idea why there are holes in the head that don't mate up to holes in the block..............but it's a common thing (don't concern yourself with it). Obviously it's had those holes since the beginning and has probably made it well over 100k miles like that. Perhaps having a hole there lead to a blown head gasket, or perhaps it was just a coincidence.......who knows. It doesn't really matter as there's not really anything you can do about it anyhow (at least that's my logic). When doing a head gasket focus on looking for things that aren't normal (like cracks, warped surfaces, leaky valves, worn guides, etc). If all that checks out okay, put a new OE Toyota gasket on and feel good about it. As a technician for Toyota I've done lots of head gaskets and never had an issue with those casting holes and/or gaskets not having matching ports. As long as you're using quality OE parts none of that should be an issue. Good luck. Tim

Perrrfect thanks Tim for the info almost all ready to roll putting the head back on today!

[eichler]

How many work hours should it take a mechanic to replace a blown head gasket? Asking for a friend.

[timsrv]

Here's a quote from another thread:

You might be interested to know that back in the day the flat rate manual called this a 9 hr job......ah, well, not a reliable figure any more. When the van was within 5 years old that was about right, but now in it's old age and hard miles I would plan on 12 hrs minimum.

If you want more information from that post and/or thread, click on the blue arrow right after my name inside the quote box. Tim

[Hammervan]

I finally got parts to complete my head gasket replacement and the gasket is damaged, despite the fact that I ordered the Valve Grind Kit which is purportedly better packaged. They (Village Toyota) packed it in the same box as the heavy exhaust manifold. It's got a definite crease on the edge, though at least the metal rings are all pretty flat. Consensus on the internet seems to be a bent gasket is OK but a crease is not. I don't really want to wait another two weeks for a new gasket... use it or return it? Grrrr...

[JPERL]

This is a labor intensive job and I would wait to get a replacement and know that I had good parts to start with.

If you install the questionable gasket and it fails right away your going to now have to do the job twice and to add insult to injury because you installed the faulty part you won't get a refund because now how can you prove to the satisfaction of village Toyota that the failure was not due to improper installation of the head gasket vs a damaged part out of the box. Certainly they would reason that if the part was damaged by poor packing it would be reasonable in their minds that you would return it rather than install it and besides it would always be in the back of your mind when is the other shoe going to drop

[Hammervan]

Thanks Jperl, that's pretty much how I felt but wasn't sure if I was overreacting. I went ahead and ordered the kit from my local dealer, they should have it in a few days vs. the two weeks it took to get this one. They said there were only six in the country so it's a shame mine was damaged! Hopefully I can return it.