Head cylinder gasket

[tcshooter]

Do you replace the interior and exterior head cylinder gaskets everytime you do a 6k service? I see on the Sierra site they send the small gasket with their service kit, but am wondering if I should order them. I am doing my own service this time on my 04 1150RT it currently is at 18k. All other service has been done by the dealer. So I am trying to figure out what I need. I have the service CD, but can't find if they need replaced. thanks for your input.

[Ken H.]

Presuming you are asking about the valve cover gaskets, not the head gasket, no, they are designed to be reusable. Unless you have a leak, no need to ever replace them.

[tcshooter]

sorry you are correct the valve cover gaskets, are both the small and large gaskets reusable? why do they put them in the 6K kit if not really needed, just to make more profit?

[T__]

sorry you are correct the valve cover gaskets, are both the small and large gaskets reusable? why do they put them in the 6K kit if not really needed, just to make more profit?

 

Norm, as Ken said they are reusable but look closely the inner seal (around the spark plug access depression) as those tend to get hard or crack with age.. Might not hurt to have a couple in your possession so you don’t have to chase them down if needed (either now or at some time in the future)..

 

Twisty

[Steve_Witmer]

I bought both inner and outer gaskets to do the valve adjust and the dealer said replacement was not required, but that I should not be surprised if the inner gasket needed to be replaced. Sure enough, there was some oil in the right-side spark-plug hole (took half an hour to clean out the oil and the grit it had attracted with swabs before I could remove the spark plug) and both inner gaskets looked a little ratty. Definitely worth having them on hand in case you need them, and the inner gaskets are pretty cheap (I seem to recall about 3 bucks each).