sdwhite Posted November 18, 2005 Report Share Posted November 18, 2005 Hello all- '95 Cutlass Supreme, 3.1. 200k. Some of you may remember my ongoing saga with this car. Dies at idle, no power, runs extremely rough. Did the regular stuff: plugs, wires, TB clean, lower intake gasket, upper intake gasket. Still ran like crap. So, I broke down and brought it into a shop. The mechanic was a genius...by listening to it trying to start he heard *one* cylinder had no compression. The starter would speed up for the 1/6 of the time it was pushing against nothing. Clever guy. Anyway, he did a compression test on all cylinders and discovered that #5 had no compression with and without oil (naturally, this is the rear head). Head gaskets have been replaced so he belives it's a burnt valve. They want in the neighborhood of $1200-1400 to do the job. Apparently the "no power" symptom is a result of a bad vehicle speed sensor f'ing up the tranny. My question is: do you have to do a complete valve job on both heads or can you just replace the one valve? Keep in mind it's a $400 car with 200k on the ticker. Since I just replaced the upper and lower intake gaskets, can I re-use them? Literally, they have about 10 miles on them. Has anyone tackled this kind of project before? Any suggestions? Is it really worth it? Actually...I wonder if a new head from a junk yard would be cheaper than paying someone to do the valves. Is this an option? Everybody's been a great help in this project...thanks for all the info! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TurboSedan Posted November 18, 2005 Report Share Posted November 18, 2005 My question is: do you have to do a complete valve job on both heads or can you just replace the one valve? Keep in mind it's a $400 car with 200k on the ticker. you can easily pull a valve out with a cheap valve spring compressor and replace the one valve. well....on a 3.1 MPFI anyway. i'm not sure about the 3100. it takes me less than 1 minute to pull a valve and put it back in. just gotta make sure the valve keepers don't go flying across the garage intake gaskets aren't reuseable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan94Z34 Posted November 18, 2005 Report Share Posted November 18, 2005 i;ve actually done that once, putting permance springs on my 350 when I had it. The garage walls were sheet rocked, and the spring went into the wall. 3.1/2.8 are easy to take apart and due head jobs on them. Even if the head is fucked. You can proabably get a good used one at the bone yard cheep. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pabz Posted November 19, 2005 Report Share Posted November 19, 2005 I ran my engine after replacing LIM & Upper, tore it apart again to replace a lifter and used the same gaskets. IMHO if you can get a head from a junker it would be easier/cheaper. Might as well do the headgaskets, dont forget to get exhaust gaskets too!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gp90se Posted November 19, 2005 Report Share Posted November 19, 2005 junkyard head off a low milage car, have it checked to make sure it isnt warpped by a machine shop and throw the sob on the car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian P Posted November 19, 2005 Report Share Posted November 19, 2005 junkyard head off a low milage car, have it checked to make sure it isnt warpped by a machine shop and throw the sob on the car. ^ what he said Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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