2009 1.8L Cylinder head removal in car?

[edmagner]

I have a 2009 base 1.8 vibe with 220k miles on it that is demonstrating all of the symptoms of a head gasket blown between cylinder 1 and 2. Looking through the GM Service Info system it tells you to pull the engine & trans to remove the cylinder head. That seems a little excessive for a head gasket swap -- curious if anyone here has pulled a cylinder head and reassembled with the engine in the car. ..looks like there should be room and you would just have support the engine from the oil pan to pull the front mount off to get to chain housing....about to dive into in the car but it would be nice to know someone else had been down that road already...

Thanks

Ed

[zbyers]

I'm honestly not sure of anyone who's replaced JUST the head gasket. These engines are a dime a dozen. You can find one in a junkyard for a few hundred dollars, and just swap it out vs. wasting the time and energy tearing it down.

[edmagner]

I have a 35k mile complete head assembly to swap on - complete with cams, cam phasers, oil control valves, sensors, coils & injectors for $ 175. This would be an 8 hour job on a Quad 4 car in the vehicle..we've owned it since new and ran Mobil 1 every 4K so fairly confident in bottom end....just curious why they have the procedure this way....guess I will look up the Matrix on Techstream