If you take it slow and steady, in a garage, with a large piece of paper to write down everything you have done, following the Haynes manual page by page, instruction by instruction... You may find that you need a few tools that you don't yet have, you will DEFINITELY need a torque-wrench, which you may be able to hire or borrow. Having removed the head, you should take it to have it checked for flatness, as it may have warped. Your local engineering workshop should be able to skim it flat for about ￡30, if it needs it. Do some research online and find if there is an owner-recommended replacement head-gasket, or if you are better buying original LR parts.
THE most critical thing to remember is that ALL the parts, every last nut, bolt, washer, spring and clip need to go back exactly as they were removed. I've seen a guy fudge this, eager to hurry up and get his car working. He used a short bolt that was NOT exactly the one that he should have. The tiny bolt fell into the inlet tract, got past the inlet valve and immediately became the sharp piece of metal that wrecked the inside of Cylinder number2. A wrecked engine, all because of impatience and the wrong bolt. Some people use the system of either labelling or dabbing a dot of coloured nail-varnish (buy a number of them cheap in a pound-shop) on each bolt, and the hole it came from. Use a few colours, and it would be very hard to mix up a given bolt with a given location.
You need to figure out what really happened to your heads that is causing you trouble! ALL EUROPEAN engines require special european fully synthetic oil with special specification numbers. They also require special coolant and as your car is over TEN YEARS OLD< you should begin with a full power wash using GUNK ORANGE engine cleaner, original..I am assuming that your LEAK is not very great and that you overheated this BUICK DESIGNED engine. What may happen is that your HEAD BOLTS have over s t r e t c hg e d and you now need NEW ONES! You cannot re-use the originals anyways, so I suggest that you get NEW HEAD BOLTS and try replacing them ONE by ONE and use a torque wrench that is set correctly for the job! Since the HEADS are an ALLOY< they are vulnerable to warping if overheated. HEAD BOLTS are made to save the cylinder heads in case of an OVER HEATED condition! THEREFORE if you only replace the HEAD BOLTS< with the engine FULLY HOT< you may rescue it cheaply and quickly! A new set of HEAD BOLTS for most euro engines is about $40-60, and it takes a MINIMUM Of experience to replace them! I would try this FIRST< and also replace your INTAKE GASKETS as well!<<
You will need to check the head out for cracks and flat. If it is a V8 you have to do both to replace the valley plate.
If you have a good specialist you can use leave it to them
The Diesel is a great engine and the V8's are all fine if they are loose after correctly. I have a 1986 Rover V8 which is fine.
Would help if you could tell us which engine it has - - those were available with a variety of engines in different countries: I-4, I-6, V8, diesel . . . . unfortunately, they were all junk.
I have a 2000 land rover discover with a blown head gasket. How easy would it be to replace it myself with someone who has a little bit of mechanic experience
