Ford ST220 head gasket help

[markCSC]

Hello

A mate of mine has an '04 ST220 (3.0l). His head gasket has gone on one bank and has been told that both need doing at the same time for compression reasons. The cost of this has been quoted at between £1000 and £1200.

Anyone know of somebody that can do this for a lot less money and if he really needs both banks done at the once?

Somewhere near Mildenhall, Bury area would be ideal.

Ta very muchly

[pk500]

sure its a head gasket not just some garage trying to rip him off

[markCSC]

Yeap definitely a head gasket. Misfire from cold, lumpy idle and I think he had a compression test

[2BarTurbo]

You need to change both head gaskets if there is water in oil to ensure that there is no possible leakage that can result from the other gasket. Could cause another head gasket failure if the other is left alone. I think around the £ 1000 mark is about right if a single HG would be £500-600.

[browny,s blower]

Hi you will need to do as a pair, as the heads may need skimming and you can not do just one

[neiljohnson]

Need to be done as a pair & tbh its not actually a great deal more work to do both as the engine has to come out to replace them & actually removing the other head once all the gubbins have been removed to allow you to remove the first head you may as well do both.
Make sure the water pump impellor has not come off, the only v6 duratec head gasket failures i have ever seen have all been caused by this.

[markCSC]

Thanks guy, I'm not that hot on V6's

Any ideas on where to take it? Failing that we'll have to have a go ourselves (he is quite handy with the spanners and I'm good at making tea! )

[neiljohnson]

Best bet is to look on the owners club for recommendations on who to do it, if going it alone it is a long job but actually fairly straight forward to do once the engines out.
Worth thinking about doing some preventive maintaiance while the engines out too although that will bump the price up