4.1, 4.5, 4.9, and Northstar

[kdaddy]

As you may know I just purchased a 91 Fleetwood with a 4.9 V8 with a bad head gasket. After some searching the internet for answers I came across a site that claims that problems with the head bolts striping is common on ALL of the afore mentioned engines. Is this true? To the best of my knowledge the Northstar had this problem where the other Aluminum caddy engines had problems with the gaskets not the threads. Please shed some light on this before I go tareing into my motor thinking its the head gasket and not the bolts.

Thanks

[KHE]

As you may know I just purchased a 91 Fleetwood with a 4.9 V8 with a bad head gasket. After some searching the internet for answers I came across a site that claims that problems with the head bolts striping is common on ALL of the afore mentioned engines. Is this true? To the best of my knowledge the Northstar had this problem where the other Aluminum caddy engines had problems with the gaskets not the threads. Please shed some light on this before I go tareing into my motor thinking its the head gasket and not the bolts.

Thanks

Be careful not to take everything you read on the internet at face value... there is one cretin who has a Northstar hate site that talks about all kinds of design defects - it is really obvious he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Some Northstar engines pull head bolt threads - by far, the most common cause is poor cooling system maintenance. It is very rare for the 4.x engines to experience damaged head bolt threads in the block. See my post in your other thread on your 4.9 engine.