Don't know about head gasket as I haven't done one but the brakes are really easy. New parts should be readily available at most foreign auto parts stores. Just take your time.

Blair

That seems quite high. I bought the necessary parts myself (thermostat, intake/exhaust/head gasket) and paid for the labor, including machining down the head. It ended up costing me $350 for labor, and about $150 for the parts. If I had done it when the headgasket first started leaking, I could have saved myself the $500 I spent replacing 3 radiators due to overheating over the course of 6 months.

-Jon '91 Coupe 162K "Gustaf"

My mechanic told me 400 dollars for a headgasket repair.

I agree that it would be a shame to lose the car over a head gasket and you are risking very little at this point. It is not that hard to do. The head removal part will be easy, especially with a half inch socket set. You will need patience cleaning the old gasket off the block and you should take the head to a cylinder head shop for rebuilding. No better time for a valve job. Then you will need a good long torque wrench and clean cylinder head bolt threads and a little help placing the head. Button it up and make sure you torque it by the book. Your confidence about future work will be huge after this. Good luck and ask if you need help.

I would say that if you are contemplating doing the headgasket yourself, then you should just go and do it. If you look at it, it's not that bad really, just yank the intake man, exhaust man (ok the studs can be trouble), timing belt, a few other things, and the head comes off. I have done 2 headgaskets, and both were on turbo cars. You've got it easy, because you won't have to fool with oil feed lines and such.

You need to have the head checked for warpage if you are doing this job. It is a waste of time if you don't. A full head job which would mean valve job, valve lash, and head resurfacing would run around $300 probably. If you just want a resurfacing, it's pretty cheap.

So all you really need is a headgasket set, which should be around $100. I got mine on Ebay for $50. Look for that guy, newandusedvolvoparts.com maybe he's selling some more. You will also want new exhaust manifold nuts and maybe you will need some new studs. Also nice to have is new head bolts which are kinda expensive, but a good idea.

So to sum up, you can do headgasket yourself, and it could be a couple hunnerd bucks. As for how long, it took me about 16 hours total the first time, about 14 the second time. Figure about a weekend. But like I said, non turbo will be easier.

About your brakes, what exactly do you mean by all the way around? Rotors are not expensive, and are easy to R&R. Same with calipers and pads. You can definitely tackle this yourself. I don't ever like to use junkyard brake parts myself.

Good luck!

Greg

Jon -

First invest a couple bucks and get a Haynes shop manual for your car. I saw one - still in shrink wrap - at AutoZone today for the 740-760. It was about $15.

Read the job and consider what it needs and what skills/tools/time/nerve you have. If it were me, I'd set out to fix the thing myself.

What's wrong with the brakes that a new set of pads all the way around won't fix? Post with symptoms - on the headgasket, too.

Good Luck,

Bob

:>)