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Hi Travis,
I bet you might be leaking some coolant too, besides the oil leaks. I think that when these engines reach 200K-300K some headgasket degradation is probably normal. When I removed the gasket - it came off in one piece - you could see where it was thinner and a different color adjacent to the coolant ports. The machinist, Rick, also commented that he was surprised that the headgasket wasn't leaking between cylinders. This was because when he put his flat straightedge on the underside of the head, he noted that it was out some .005 or .006 at the area between #2 and #3 and #3 and #4. The machinist used a heavy bar that looked like it had been around for 100 years. Keep in mind, again, that as far as I know, the car has never overheated. I think this kind of warpage is probably normal with the higher mileages that these cars attain. You might use your precision straightedge and see if you come up with the same numbers as your machine shop. Again, though, it was in the center where the thickest feeler gauges could be inserted - which he said was normal.
Despite the car never overheating, Rick was quite emphatic about the need for "resurfacing" the head. He similarly alerted me to ensure I had prepared the block properly by removing all traces of the old gasket and gave me a strip of something akin to a scotchbrite pad to go at it with. I tore little pieces or rag and carefully stuffed them in the open ports and when the block was cleaned I pulled the rags out with my hemostats. I brought the head in on a Wednesday with valves and cam in place and got it back Friday. Put the engine back together on a Saturday. I don't think he ever saw "hushers" before. He didn't do any valve grinding other than grind the ends of the stems to compensate for the amount milled/ground? from the head. He did replace the seals - I believe only on the intake as the exhaust valves don't have stem seals. He also commented that in these older engines it is sometimes risky business refurbishing the valves as increasing the compression could impact the bottom end so we decided to leave well enough alone.
There were very few problems with this project. I was lucky to remove all the manifold nuts without any issues. Rick commented that even if I had broken off some of the studs, he regularly sees this and it's not an issue drilling out the broken one(s).
Lots of luck and spray those manifold nuts!
Marty
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