Help! dam head gasket lmao

[Craut240]

I have a 1990 240 with a 1998 ka24de in it.. i know the head gasket is blown but don't know how to replace it myself. (wish i could) I got and estimate from a mechanic saying it would be about 600 just to have him take it apart and look to see if the engine would be worth having the gasket replaced or just getting another swap. I really dont want to do that cause if i need to swap the engine ill have payed him 600 bucks to take apart an engine im gonna scrap anyway, is there anyway to find out if i need a new engine myself. I REALLY dont want to do another engine swap. But if i need to what are the price ranges on sr's and rb's nowadays. But i still prefer to keep the current engine. Also what is the usual price range to have a gasket replaced, i just wanna make sure i know a good price so i don't get ripped off.

[r3v_v3ng3]

do compression test. depending on how much he charge per hour, it seem a little too much. $600 installed sounds more like it

[Craut240]

thats what i thought too, i was pretty sure it would be less then a 1000 at least, but i've only called one place cause it happened on a sunday and everyplace was closed, is a compression test the only way to be sure of how much damage was done by the blown head gasket, after it blew i only drove it home. But now it wont start but It still cranks.

[Craut240]

also what should the compression readings be around for each cylinder??

[leonelrr]

Yes each cylinder should be compression tested. The stupid gaskets are not even expensive they're less then 100 bucks the labor is what's killing you.

[Neil]

How do you know the head gasket is bad? only because if you know it is, then compression testing it most likely won't tell you anything you don't already know. Not unless one cylinder ends up reading like 30psi, and all this time you somehow never noticed the car running funny.

Also, Your mechanic is totally trying to play you for $600. Dismantling an engine is not what you do to "see if it's worth" replacing a head gasket.