First Car Help!

[pastorjeep]

I just bought this 02' Liberty for my 16yo daughter. It was obvious that it had a blown head gasket and the owner just wanted it gone. It has 180k miles and is super clean inside and out. I have a folder full of maintenance records that came with it. It seems the right head gasket was replaced by a local shop in Nov 22' for $1900. The head was sent off and machined at that time. It is the same side that has blown again. My question is should I bother sending this head to the machine shop again or just look for another? I am worried that it has already been milled and can't be done again and don't want to waste any time/money. Any tips or tricks on doing the head gasket on these. My daughter and I will be doing this together.

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[KJowner]

Without taking the old head off its impossible to say if it's reusable, you would need to get it cleaned up and put a straight edge on it and see what it looks like + inspect the top of the engine block. If you are lucky it may be down to bad workmanship on the part of whoever put it back together... I've worked on cars and machines that people have forgotten to torque up key components or left bits out when they've reassemble it!
The Jeep looks like it's in nice condition so it's well worth doing.

 

[pastorjeep]

Thanks for the reply. We got it most of the way torn down today. They exhaust rocker arm was off on #6 cylinder. Not hard to figure out from there. Every time the cylinder would fire and nowhere for the exhaust to escape. What I haven't figured out yet is how the crankcase filled with coolant. All that is left tomorrow is to remove the exhaust clamp and head bolts and we will be able to see the damage. She is excited to get it on the road and I hop to have it done by next week.

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[KJowner]

Sounds good. You have a daughter like mine, keen to get on with the job. Mine is like my right hand when we are doing jobs at the weekend.