Thread: Head Gaskets
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Unread 12-14-2006, 12:07 AM
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Smithers Smithers is offline
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So this has been a pain in the butt for me lately. I ordered a complete head rebuild set for this 1UZ-FE off of eBay for $100 a while back and has proven to be worth the money even though there are a few gaskets I would not use. The head gaskets were of horrible quality and I would only use such head gaskets on my Briggs & Stratton Lawnmower. I laughed when I opened the package and threw them over my shoulder into the trash instantly. Who would use such shitty gaskets on such a high quality engine?

So then I go to my friends at Carquest and they order OE approved quality gaskets for me. They only list a set of gaskets for rebuilding the heads so I thought, "what the hell, i'll use the head gaskets and save the rest for another engine or sell them to someone who needs em." When they came in the were the same type that I got from eBay! What a bummer!

My friends over at Lextreme sell the Cometic multi-layer (ml) gaskets for a lot of money but they are just not necessary for my build as I don't plan on boosting and IF I DID I would surely go through the bottom end of my engine and be replacing studs with ARP's for sure. At this point I just want some NICE quality regular gaskets and not the crap I've seen so far.

I got the Fel-Pro gasket # for my engine and looked up a couple prices online. Amazon.com has the 9805pt and 9806pt for the convenient price of $54.95 each SHIPPED FREE. Very nice. I went to Kragen Auto and they wouldn't even budge on their 400% markup price of $78.90. If I found a cheaper price on their own website or from a competitor like Napa they would match it but no someone like Amazon. So I spent a whole 30 seconds more and bought them from Amazon and they will arrive right to my door without anymore hassle.

Apparently the picture is showing a gasket of high quality. It might not be ML but the engines never came with ML gaskets until much later on with the vvti versions (so they say).



I'm sure whatever I get in the mail will look MUCH better than what's on my engine. I should dig through the trash and get a picture of the crap that I got from eBay and they also had listed at Carquest. My friend at Carquest had a conversation with someone high up and told them about the quality issue. I was told that Carquest Inc. apparently is going to pull the item from the "OE" approved listing for that particular engine model and is going to contact me with a ml type (if they ever find a mfg) and supply me with that part at the same cost as the 1st set. I'm not holding my breath.
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