Head/Head Gasket issues

[funnyperson1]

My 96XLT burns both coolant and oil at decent rates, I have to refill (depending on how much driving I'm doing) every 1-3 months.

When my dad had taken it to Ford to get normal fluids service, Ford told us that the truck burned coolant and that it was possibly a failed head gasket or a cracked head. They said it would cost from 1-3000 dollars to fix it.

We had another mechanic look at it and he said it burned coolant for the first 15 minutes and then stopped. He indicated that there was a small leak in the head gasket and that we should not worry about fixing it as long as I keep an eye on the fluids.

Now if its a cracked head that would take a couple thousands of dollars to fix, then I would probably try and sell the truck, seeing as it has $153, 000 miles on it and is probably worth around $2-3k in good running condition.

However, I was wondering if the second mechanic was right, and how much it would cost to get a head gasket done in the Southwestern VA area. If $500 or lower I would like to fix it.

What are your thoughts? Would fixing it help gas milage/power (I am currently getting 14/18 mpg and power is horrid especially when the car first starts up)

Thanks for the help in advance

 

[Premierexplorer]

I had the head gasket problem a week ago. I took my 1992 explorer into ford and they wanted 1800 to fix it. I got two new heads and all new gaskets for 540 and did all the work myself.

 

[funnyperson1]

Well I did some googling and a gasket shouldn't be too expensive, how much you think a mechanic who charges like 60 bucks an hour (seems like a normal rate in Blacksburg) would charge to replace it.

Also anyone think this would help http://www.rxauto.com/index.html Looks shady to me, but if it would help or fix my problem I'm down to try anything.

 

[TheRookie]

I did a headgasket in a second gen once and believe it called for 8.5 hours. of course this was like 2 years ago so i could be off. but that gives you an idea of where to start. Now you may want to think about having the heads shaved a tiny bit while they are off just to be sure the new gasket works for a long time. This obviously will cost you more money.