i'm refreshing my 70's internal balance 460 some replacing alot of the gaskets and giving it new paint i want to replace the head gaskets on it but never done it before can anyone give me some advise on what to all look out for and any tips/tricks to doing it i have it on a engine stand and have the intake timing cover oil pan oil pump and all accesories off only thing left is the heads before i loosen the bolts is there anything i need to mark like pushrods or can they get put back in in any order or use them in the same place they came out of? also can i get thinner head gaskets to raise the compression? or will this cause problems with valve clearance issues

 

I would recommend that you keep the rockers and push rods in order. The push rods have worn themselves to their respective rocker/lifter.
And I don't think it's necessary, but I keep the bolts in the same order as well; just a pet peeve of mine.

The only thing I found to be a pain in the ***, was making sure I had a little RTV around the coolant passages. I used Engine Tech gaskets and they were a little sketchy upon visual inspection. There are also straight up studs (on an EFI motor) that are usually all corroded; be careful upon cleaning those up.

Other than that, I say use a wire wheel with low pressure to clean everything up real well. Also if you're new to headgaskets, make sure to drain the coolant; it gets a bit messy if you don't!

Pretty much put it back together the way you took it apart, is generally the same order.

That's my $.02

 

Thanks does anyone know about using a thinner head gasket to raise the compression? I bought the felpro engine overhaul gasket set that included head gaskets wondering if these are good enougb orshoild i buy some better head gaskets

 

If they are the blue ones, they are the better Permatorque ones I believe.
And I wouldn't mess with raising compression with the headgasket. I don't know much about it, but lifter pre-load and all that jazz comes into account when you start messing with that stuff.

Did the headgaskets blow just because, or did the motor overheat? I would get the heads surfaced, and have the valves done too while I was at it if it overheated. My heads were way out, and my gaskets didn't even blow; it just overheated a little bit.

 

The motor was good from what the guy said that I bought it off of got it out of a parts truck the motor doesn't look like it blew any gaskets I'm refreshing it with new gasket to keep it reliable in my winter truck