My First Hiccup, finally put this to bed after the 3rd try Options

[76-914]

When we returned from Rt66 '16 I pulled my exhaust system down for a little trimming and noticed water in the left bank muffler! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/WTF.gif) We did drive through a ton of water on that trip. Then when returning from Costco yesterday it acted as if it were starved for fuel when it stumbled during acceleration. The fuel filter was the same one that came on the engine so I ordered another one. When I looked at the filter to check which one I had I noticed the coolant level in the expansion tank/reservoir had dropped. Well, there you are. Head gasket time. Now, I'm wondering if the stumble was due in fact to the head gasket failing? Decisions; should I fix this one which presently has ~ 185K or buy a JDM replacement. After perusing the net I found a few peep's whose JDM experience was less than stellar. Apparently it is a crap shoot as to what you get and the 40-50K avg mileage is (IMG:style_emoticons/default/bs.gif) . So, for about 1K I can pick up another engine and hope I bought a good one or open this one up and hope that is all it needs since it wasn't overheated. What does the the Wasser family think?

EDIT: It's an EZ30D 6cyl

[rnellums]

I'll be interested in what you find. The EZ30s are supposed to be far more reliable head-wise than the 4-cyl engines. My recollection is that changing them on the ez30 is a bit of a pain since tou have to deal with the timing chain and cover.

[76-914]

I'll be interested in what you find. The EZ30s are supposed to be far more reliable head-wise than the 4-cyl engines. My recollection is that changing them on the ez30 is a bit of a pain since you have to deal with the timing chain and cover.

You know Ross, if you don't count the ~60 bolts it doesn't look very difficult. There are a few chain guides that will require bolt replacement as their stretch bolts. The chains supposedly have color coded links and the gears have arrows to aid indexing them. It will be interesting to see what the head gaskets look like. Who knows, I may find loose head bolts from previous work. It's got about 200K on it now and I run the piss out of it. Anyway, I'll drop that thing this week(end) and post what I find.