Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2000 19:48:50 -0800 From: "Rick Mogensen" <rickmogensennopsams.net> Subject: Re: Cylinder Head gasket for 1984 900 16V changed shape?
I recently replaced my cylinder head on my '88 900 (& of course my head gasket as well) and YES the replacement head gasket I bought, like yours, was configured such that some of the cooling system holes appeared to be blocked. I was told that the holes that you see which look like they are going to be blocked by the gasket are, in fact, not a vital part of the cooling system but holes that are made in the casting process when the head was being manufactured. Anyhow, my car is functioning perfectly with its new head & head gasket so I suspect yours will also. You might want to have your head pressure tested or hydro-fluxed (or whatever it's called) if you didn't see any obvious "blow-marks" where your head gasket blew. We couldn't see any evidence of gasket failure when we pulled the head off my engine so we had it pressure tested (we couldn't see any cracks in the head either). Good thing we didn't just throw the head back on with a new gasket because it turned out that there was a hairline fracture in the head on cyl#3 right next to the spark plug threads. good luck, i hope this was of some help, Rick Victoria, Canada