Just a new head gasket or swap the whole engine?

[cpl rampage]

Hey guys, new to Sonomas. I am trying to help my room mate fix his 2000 sonoma with the 2.2l 4 banger. It has about 105k miles and it started leaking coolant. he brought it to a family mechanic and he diagnosed it as a bad head gasket.

My question before I go tearing into this is how should I go about fixing it? How bad are these things with head gaskets and does the head warp easily? or is it a lost cause and should we just get a complete engine from the junkyard?

I have no problem going either way and obviously just slapping a new gasket is cheaper, especially if I dont need to get the head milled.

thanks for any help!

 

[ferretx9]

Well the last 1 got 105 k out of it...
Whats a couple of hours pulling a head & having
it checked out compared to the price of buying the unknown ?

 

[greg409]

As ferretx9 said, your friend's 4cyl. got 105k.

I imagine since you are going to "tear" into it, you have the where-with-all to pull the electrical, intake, exhaust, valvetrain, head, then determine if the head is warped (likely, as most blown headgaskets I've seen were due to severe or repeated overheating)

If warped, it'll have to be re-surfaced and possibly need valve work.

If everything is good and you just need an upper/head gasket set, you're looking at realistically one day turn around.

Two days if it needs resurfacing (assuming same day machine shop service)

That's more than enough time - costs around $350 w/machine work, I imagine.

luck,greg