well, i saw a few bubbles coming outa the radiator yesterday when i had the cap off. i am pretty sure the head gasket is leaking a bit. although i plan to put a 350 in the jeep soon, i want to be able to sell the 4.0 for a few bucks. thatd be tough if it was seized up, so i am gonna put a new headgasket in it tomarrow. i figure i can just leave all the hoses, intake, exhaust header, and all on it and just lift the head off and slide in the new gasket. is their any flaw in my thinking? anything i should look out for or be aware of when i do this? its gotta get me to school on monday so i need to have it running by sunday night. thanks in advance.

My question would be what caused the gasket to start leaking? Did it over heat? if so you probably warped the head and just slapn' a new gasket will not fix anything. Most of the time (but not always) head gaskets don't just "start" leaking. There has to be a reason and if the reason is not fixed you may be doing a lot of work for nothing.

your right, thats exactly what i was thinking. i have gone through a few thermostats, and in the process i have had it get up to about 260 degrees or maybe even more. i dont know if the head is warped or not, it is a possibility for sure. it still runs great, it has 120,000 miles on it. anyway, i was hoping puting a new head gasket on it would fix the leak until i have enough money to swap motors.

Just do it right and pull both manifolds. Remove the head and have a machine shop check it for cracks and warpage. Have them repair as necessary and reinstall.

You cant just slip a new head gasket in there. You have to thuroughly clean the block and head, and remove any debris that falls into the cylinders.

Don't forget a new set of head bolts.

OK, well today i ran a bunch of block sealer stuff through it, so hopefully that fixes the problem.

as for taking the head all the way off, decking its warped ass, etc. thats not gonna happen. i barely could afford the 25 bucks for a headgasket, let alone a bunch of machine work. the whole point of doing this is to make it last until i have got enough $ to put a small block in it.