Hey y’all. I’m currently fixing up a hand-me-down ‘07 aveo5 for my teenage daughter to drive (god help me…) it has over 200k on it, but I figured with a little TLC it’ll last another 100-200k easy.

I tore it down and pulled the cylinder head. It’s not in bad shape. Honestly there was very little gunk under the valve cover. Almost no wear on the cam lobes and bearings. Looks like my FIL took decent care of it.

anyway, I’m taking the head to a shop to get cleaned up properly as my fat fingers just can’t fit all the way into those tiny intake and exhaust ports, not to mention getting all the little passages cleaned out. (Compared to when I did the cam on my LS3… those ports I could almost put my finger all the way through.)

for reassembly, I noticed some fluid on some of the head bolts. It looks and smells like oil not coolant, but that had me wondering, do any of the head bolts go into a water jacket or oil passage? Or are all of them blind and that’s just fluid that leaked down from the head when I pulled it off. I’ve already ran a tap down the holes to clean out the gunk and any burrs and it wasn’t too bad.

so yeah, thread sealant on some of the head bolts on an L91 or no?

 

Use some Alumiseal. It is cheap, and may stop the head bolt leaks. Get the motor hot before you add it then run it for awhile. I've seen it plug up small seeps and leaks from head gaskets even..