Head replacement on '99 GrandAm GT 3.4

[NoBoB]

I'm trying to help my daughter with what we thought was a head gasket job on her '99 Grand Am GT with the 3.4. Turned out the heads were cracked, so we picked up a refurbished set from the machine shop that checked out the originals.

When I try to attach the lower intake manifold, I can't get it all the way down into the 'valley'. It never touches the bead of RTV at the ends. The bolt holes line up, though, so I'd think if it could go further down, then the bolts wouldn't go in (at least, the diagonal ones wouldn't). It's like the heads are too close together or something.

I suspect I've been given the wrong heads, but I don't know how to tell. I have no idea how similar the members of this engine family are, so I'm stumped. The two heads appear to be identical, but again, me know nothing, so I can't tell if swapping sides would matter (but I doubt it since they're not labeled or anything I can see).

I can't get ahold of anyone at the machine shop until Monday, but I'd like to know what's happening here. If they're wrong, I'd like to get them back off ASAP, but don't want to pull them if I've just missed something really obvious.

Any guidance on this problem? My little girl really loves this car, and I'm sure she's starting to wonder how much help Daddy actually is

Thanks

[bszopi]

First off, your are correct in that the sides don't matter. Second, the heads "should" be basically the same shape throughout most of the years, but you never know... But just to see how close you are on the years, get the part number (casting number) off the side of the heads. We should be able to tell from that what year (or range) they are.

Do you still have the aligning pin in the block? I wouldn't think that it would come out, but who knows. That should place the head in the correct position on the block and thus allow the manifold to sit correctly between them. How much of a gap are you looking at anyway? If its just in the corners, that might be correct. I know I normally put a pretty big glob of RTV in the corners to make sure everything seals up good.

Hope that helps!

[NoBoB]

Thanks for your quick reply!

Yes, the pins are in place. The gap is big enough that the manifold doesn't even touch the RTV at all anywhere across that surface on either side including the corners. (I too am pretty generous with the glob ).

I'm going to run over and get the casting number right now.

[NoBoB]

OK, I must be doing something wrong. The casting number is 10218170, and a little poking around here implies that casting is the stock unit, so the heads are correct.

Now I'm really stumped

[germ]

can you possibly get pictures of how it looks and the gap your talking about? does it look like all the intake runner ports are lining up correctly when you try to install it?

can you also take a few other pics of the valley and the gaskets your using. maybe the lower intake gasket is not setting correctly on the heads?

what head gaskets are you using? and did the machine shop say how much material was removed when they resurfaced the heads they gave you?

[NoBoB]

Success!

Well, I finally got this beast tamed.

germ's post made me go back and look at the intake gaskets, and compared to the original gaskets, they seemed to have an extra "tab" (for lack of a better term) on the lowest edge in the corner where they're closest to the valley. I tried the original gaskets and the manifold dropped in like a champ (of course, these have been compressed). I got the new gaskets from the dealer's parts counter as part of the whole head gasket kit, but the intakes just don't seem right.

I made a quick trip to the parts store and picked up a new intake gasket kit. These more closely resembled the OEM gaskets (no tab). The manifold dropped right in on those gaskets.

She's back together now and purring like a cat. A big thanks goes to this site for providing the sanity check. If I hadn't been researching this problem, I probably never would have encountered this forum, and I'm glad I did.

Thanks again to all.

[germ]

yes, some of the lower intake gaskets have a mis alligned "tab" for allignment onto the lower intake, thats why i mentioned if it is setting correctly.


glad to see that you got it back together and gained the trust of your daughter

[IsaacHayes]

NoBoB: you have a Private Message from me... oh and glad you got it together!