A friend just came to me with a problem with her '96 SL1 Saturn (4dr, 1.9L SOHC engine). It seems the head has cracked internally. A little investigation turned up that Saturn WOULD have replaced the head, if the car was under 6yrs old/100,000 miles. No such luck. (7 years, 100,100 miles). She has taken exemplary care of the care, even checks the fluids before every trip (!), which is how she caught the problem very quickly. The questions are: Can I trust a junkyard '96 head? (I think not.) Does a post-'96 head bolt on (the thought is that they are improved)?? Can I bolt on a twin-cam head, without modification?? Other suggestions?? Trying not to involve the local river The car will be traded immediately after repair. I apologise for the OT post, and my general lack of posting, but my life is STILL undergoing trauma (divorce STILL not over, two years down the road) and this is where I am at, right now. Thanks for the suggestions, Cosmo
My baby momma has a 96 saturn. I changed the head at 106,000! It was a bad head casting... I bet it cracked on the drivers end cam bearing boss. I bought a reman head and new timing set from the local auto parts store and a gasket set from the dealer and went to work. It's actually REALLY easy to do, and if you had the new head it could be done in one day. I think when everything was said and done I had about $600 into the job. We've put 40K on it since then and it's still going strong.
I agree. I was a porter at Saturn (watch it, I was the head porter) and there were a few more than normal head jobs when I was there. The job is pretty simple, and I think the techs only booked 6 hours or so for the job. You should be able to tackle this one, Cosmo!
All I work on is Saturns. I have over 100 parts Saturns in the yard I manage. You can't use a Twin Cam head. 95-97 SL1 were notorius for this. They updated the heads in 98(I think). If you're gonna trade it in, run a used head. Spend the extra money to have the head checked out.
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