How do you change a head gasket on a 350 in a 1988 truck?

Answer 1

Disconnect the battery before you do anything else!

# Put the engine at #1TDC and note where the distributor is pointing. If the rotor isn't pointing at #1, turn the engine one complete revolution and verify that the distributor rotor is pointing at the #1 wire. # DON'T turn the engine while you're working on it, or if you have to, make sure you put it back. # Remove the peripheral stuff that's in the way (carb, distributor, intake manifold, rocker cover, rockers...) # Remove the heads using a good sized breaker # Clean the mating surfaces and verify that the engine isn't too far worn. If you have a lot of cylinder taper (wear) you may as well rebuild the engine now rather than putting all this work into something that's about to go bad anyway. # Immediately take the heads to a reputable local machine shop to have them checked for cracks and to resurface them. ANY blown head gasket is reason to suspect a warped head. Seriously, don't bother messing around with this one, just have it resurfaced and tested. # When you pickg up the heads, get the torque specs and tightening sequence from the machinist. # Make sure your torque wrench is in good shape (calibrated and ready to use) # Put the heads back on the engine with the new gaskets, making sure to follow the specifications that you received from the machinist. # Put everything else back where you found it cleaning all gasket surfaces and using new gaskets and paying special attention to the distributor rotor. It needs to point right back where you saw it when you took everything apart. If you do all that, the job should be reasonably smooth, if you ignore the advice about resurfacing the head or watching the distributor orientation... it will be a painful experience.