gasket blown in 98 sohc.
whats approximate dealer tech labor hours for this job?
and if the heads warped can it be milled and if so whats the max it can be milled?

I've rebuilt several, common problem is external
leak at the block and head deck on the outside
from head gasket deterioration that also causes
external oil leak also because of oil return
being close to the outside edge of the two castings. My machine shop charge is around 260
and I believe repair shop charge is around 800 ?
As far as surfacing the head don't sweat it this
casting is a good strong heavy casting and in
most cases no more than .008 cleans up the deck surface. I don't have my spec book with me on
minimum head thickness. If you use a quality
machine service they will have the minimum thickness for the head. If the head has to be excessively milled to flatten the deck a .020
head shim is available for that motor,this would
be a rare case if you need that shim. Shims are
40.00 and the Hylamar sealer for the shim is
around 20.00. The head shim restores the compression to lower it back down after milling.

logan426

Define blown: external oil leak, or exhaust gasses entering cooling system. To me the latter is "blown", but many have described the oil leak as a "blown" gasket too.

I'm also curious as to which gasket is on the engine. I can's imagine there is still one out there that hasn't been upgraded to the MLS already.

If the MLS gasket is in place I'm betting you'll find heavy corrosion on the sealing surface near the coolant passages. I've had them so bad we've had them welded up before resurfacing.

i am just about to go through this on my daily driver beater. 98 dohc.
i see it has developed a rather steady coolant leak/drip when its running at the passenger side corner of the head. havent torn into it yet to see if its that. is there any hoses back there that could leak? its against the block right under the power steering reservoir.

these are horrid little cars to work on under the hood

Correct head decks on these heads do have a corrosion problem and in some cases need repairs before surfacing.

logan426

Chrisf...I would say head gasket as that is an area that I noted the above mentioned corrosion. Do you still have the fiber original gasket? Or the MLS one. If you look where the head meets the block along the front you should be able to determine that. The MLS has a couple spots where the layers are held together with a small rivet.

....and I think once you tear into it you'll find the lil Neon pretty easy to work on.

it has the MLS gasket in it. i am going ot tear into it this week, just have been looking for excuses for the last 4 days to not work on it.

I always spray the Mopar gasket spray on the MLS head gasket before installation as per the tech bulletin.
I think the Neons are very easy to work on.
I just did the timing belt/wp on my 99 in no time flat.
Got a couple of spare blocks and heads laying around my garage.

Where in PA are you maxwedge1? I have the puller for the balancer and the repair cd if you want help. PM me and I'll send you the repair cd pdf file.

thanks for info.
started with coolant into the engine(white exhaust) and went to external oil leak.

i'm assuming original gasket.