Just thinking about cylinder heads during my coffee time this morning and started to wonder if availability is or will be a concern as we keep these old trucks going at 20+. I know you can only deck them a few times and would guess most have had at least one pass if they had a head gasket job done. Which is, as we know, a common procedure. I read somewhere SAI heads are scarce, I think. Will this be the death-nail for D2 Buick motors? Or will we all be having our heads TIG welded over the entire deck and machined back down to keep them going. Let me know your thoughts on this.

 

Well that depends - I did my head gaskets 3 years ago and I figure they are good for at least another 7 or so and I have a spare set so that should be 17 years. But yes eventually there will be no parts, but if the climate change force to electric continues fuel will be a far larger issue unless you are diesel and even then it is dodgy.

 

There is always the option to swap it for a different motor (if you jurisdiction allows that easily). The truck can get only better from that ... reliability, fuel economy, power.

 

This is the reason “head saver” shims exist. I haven't specifically looked, but I'm sure someone makes them for old Buicks. If not, they would be easy to have manufactured.

Alternatively, the Pistons can also be milled to bring the compression ratio back into spec if you ever get to the point heads are hard enough to find.

All that said, I think the factory spec for maximum head deck removal is pretty extreme. I would have no concern having a bit more material removed than is technically "allowable".

One day, yes, but that problem is a long... Long way off.

 

Shims! I never knew there was such a thing! How do they work, just insert above or below a new head gasket or do you use two head gaskets to sandwich the shim. Looks like rover is an option here - https://innomach.com/images/IMS-CATALOG.pdf

 

also, cometic makes head gaskets for our v8's. Maybe they also have different thicknesses.....

 

I am going down the rabbit hole of an engine rebuild right now. Just read about the advantages of Cometic head gaskets in another thread. They make head gaskets of different thicknesses from 0.027 to 0.120 compressed. As often as regular gaskets fail, maybe that is a more sustainable solution?