thanks man awesome advice!!

 

lol, why dont you buy the bare heads 1st, then the valves, springs, seals and retainers later. once you have all of the parts, then you can send it of to a shop and have them put it all together and make sure they seal properly. put it together in little chunks, that way it doesnt hurt the wallet as much...

and you can also point out the long term benifits of the new heads...
1) the biggest being that they are a lot cheeper than a new car
2) doing the install yourself will save you hundreds + (if you dont already have experience) it'll give you plenty of experience to contnue fixing the other small stuff that will eventually break.
(if you've never swapped heads and need help, you have several people here who would be more than happy to help you out)
3) the more you work on it, the easier it is to keep maintained.

and my opinion on telling the wife... it's the right thing to do regardless of how much it hurts. communication is #1 in any relationship in my opinion.

but the bottom line is, if your head is fixable, and it doesnt have a miss or crappy idle then your probably fine and should just fix it.

[sm=icon_cheers.gif]

 

yea i might just stick with it till spring and maybe over the winter i can score some r/t's and start peice'en them together.. eventually i want r/t heads but i didnt want them this soon.. anyway... yea.. if i didnt talk to her about it and just ordered them... its couch time for a month..garunteed!!!!! thanks again dude

 

your talking about that JB weld stuff, that stuff is strong as hell but i dont know how it will hold up to that.

 

I wouldnt use jb weld on the exhaust. there is another material that is like puddy, once it hardens, it's like a rock. start with the helicoil...

 

i think ill try a coil first.. its just im not sure if itll be easier to take the head off and do it on a bench or tear apart the fenders so i can get in at it... its on the drivers side so the brake master cylender and shock mount and everything gets REALLY in the way

 

----lol, I agree. no sense swapping heads (unless you want the performance gains) for stripped threads... I just got sick of the constant slight miss when i finally committed to the new heads. it never thru a code either.


Hmmm ever since I got the truck I have a slight miss that comes and goes. I changed the plugs - cap - rotor - wires - and ran some crap to clean the injectors. Miss was always the same. I didn't know the heads crack all the time. When I hit the gas the miss is gone and I never feel it underload. When I idle the miss is there. Not bad at all but not super smooth. I wonder if I have small cracks also. Is there a way to check for cracks without pulling the heads?

 

how can you tell its missing? like uner idle... just curious...

 

I would try and run the same size tap in and see if ya cant reform threads, then coat the bolt with loctite that Steve spoke of, should get enough of a bite to ensure seal

 

I would take the head off and try the hele- coil. I used them years ago on a Corvair. Be sure and use exactly the size drill bit they recommed, do not vary even one sixtyfourth of an inch!!!