I've noticed white smoke and coolent in the oil of my 68 Charger that has a 383. I'm assuming I should not even try to mess with the block sealants.

What is the typical cost and hours involved? What are the best gasket choices?

My regular mechanic wants to use PermaTorque gaskets and quoted a total of $110 parts and $250 labor. I can't find a book rate hours for the job. I bought the car with the engine already, I assume its stockish, probably a aftermarket cam, and has a performer intake and edelbrock 750 carb. I can probably get someone else to do it for $25/hr but not sure how much time is actually invovled.

Last head gasket job I did was on a ram with a 318 and I charged $500 including parts and the guy said I was the cheapest he had talked to Trucks and cars with nice paint cost more because extra time involved. Trucks are a pain to work on and anything with good paint takes lots of extra care and sometimes a helping hand to prevent anything from getting damaged. This is just my mind set others may disagree with my comments

Agree the cost is reasonable. The permatorue is a good gasket. It is around .038-.040" compressed thickness. If you have the OE steel shim gasket now is about .018" compressed thickness. You would loose a little compression going to the thicker gasket.

Doing work at home I wouldnt even get my tools dirty for $25 an hour.I agree the price is reasonable.Id also have a valve job done when the heads are off.If they havent been done now is the time.That and replace the valve seals if they are older.The parts must be what they cost as FelPro 1009s are about 80 bucks a set and then 25 for the intake gasket and another 20 for good valve cover gaskets.Rocky

No way in he** I'd do it for that... If you trust him, let him do it... But if your smart you'll have the heads taken to a machine shop, checked for cracks & a light surface cut taken... Wait, I just doubled the cost...

The car is probably getting sold soon. I'd rather not loose compression but a good seal is more important. The quote was from my company's fleet maintenace director, who has build several BB Olds and a BB Chevy for me in the past. Parts are probably at our wholesale cost I would guess.

How do you know it has a blown head gasket?

I'd be skeptical of any show that would say "sure we'll change the head gasket for $xxx" without wanting to know WHY it has coolant in the oil first.

Good luck!

Why don't you change it yourself? I'm no professional and have pulled heads many times. If I can do it, you can too.

hate to say it but you need to tear it down and investigate first. not just blindly go in and swap head gaskets.

how do you know it's a head gasket? what if you have a cracked head? what if it's a cracked block?

I had a cracked cylinder wall, and its the same problem as a head gasket--water in the oil, steam out the exhaust, etc.


that was a $100 sleeve job to fix...and a full tear down of the motor, which means you also need a full gasket kit, and why not toss new bearings and rings at it while you have it down to a bare block?

then when you sell the car, you can say the engine was recently overhauled/rebuilt.

Was the engine overheated recently???

I agree, a proper diagnosis and teardown should be done if not already, then you'll know what you're up against.

You could have a cracked head or maybe just a blown intake gasket.

Tearing down and old Mopar is easy and fun. All you'd need for special tools would be a torque wrench. You don't even have to pull the distributor and mess with the timing.

Update.... My brother is actually a mechanic and opened his own shop (and dealership) a couple weeks but they usually turn quicker jobs. The person/shop they outsource major jobs to said it would cost $200 in labor and I can pickp the parts on my brother's dealer acounts at napa or advance. They are closer so I may just go this route, as I feel a lot safer changing the oil and running it 8 miles than making a 40 mile trip or having to rent a trailer or have it flat bedded.

I have no idea if its the head gasket, I just assumed it was the most likely source. This is where you would start anyways right, looking at head gasket and head?

To answer the other question, I guess it depends on what the line is on overheating. When I got the car it ran up to ~230deg (?), its hard to remember, I think it got up to 215-220 and I got scared and cut it off, then it ran up higher sitting. It had a 195 thermostat, a reverse rotation fan, and some small coolent links, it would stay at 195 on the highway but heat up in traffic. I put in a 160 thermostat, a regular flex fan, and got the coolent pressureized correctly.

I'm not sure if this helps but I think it may have lost coolent into the engine while the car was sitting overwinter. I pretty regularly check the level and I'm fairly sure it would have been full when I was driving it last summer. First time I cranked it up this spring I had to add a inch or two.