A month or two ago I posted a topic called "dirty oil" in which I posted my problem (milky, sludgy oil) and a bunch of you had really good suggestions. Unfortunately, the problem has persisted and it appears that I have a head gasket that is compromised and/ or a bad water pump gasket. I am leaning toward the head gasket though because on the outside of the engine, you can see sludgy oil leaking out of both the head gasket and the valve cover gasket.
I have ordered a head gasket replacement kit (surprisingly cheap!) and have a couple mechanic friends that are willing to help me tackle the job, although I have recently been getting discouraged by a couple other mechanics I know. More than one person now has told me that I am better off finding a new engine :(
Is replacing the gaskets really that difficult of a job if I get someone who knows what they are doing to help me?
I couldn't find a good procedure on Eaglepedia for this either and any suggestions on helpful resources would be greatly appreciated!
They are super cheap, it's the labor to do it.
It's not that hard to do, especially on an older engine, just a bit time consuming as long as you have decent mechanical knowledge.. If not, I wouldn't touch it.
However, the thing is if it's been overheating, etc you might have caused some damage internally.
At the very least, it's a pain in the butt to flush the cooling system and block a few times to get all the sludge out.
I looked for a writeup for you, but I couldn't find one.
You'll definitely want to get the head checked for flatness.
x2 on check the head for flatness. Also the 258 heads are quite heavy so you may want to have a cherry picker handy to help ya get it out of the car. Best of luck on your repair