Gday, i recently purchased a EA Falcon S pack, with the mpi 3.9l engine, it has a slight leak from around the timeing chain gasket, i spoke to some mechanics and they have told me that i will need to remove the head to fix the timeing chain leak, is this true? or is there another way to replace the gasket?

thanks
Chad

Removing the head is necessary as there's a plastic seal, on top of the timing case, that needs to be compressed during reassembly. It's a good idea to put a smear of gasket sealer on it too.

If you have to replace the gasket, you might as well replace the timing chain, sprockets & guides along with the head gasket. The timing kit doesn't cost much.

No need to remove the head, you can drop the sump around 5 cm whilst in the car.

As above with the compressed seal etc, but you can lever it up and get the cover on the dowels.

I replaced all my gears and cover etc without removing the head, however I did remove it from the car.

I've tried removing the sump by itself to just to get the bottom chain guide back on. I didn't enjoy lying on the ground trying to get sockets and spanners in between the sump & K-frame. And, if the sump gasket falls apart it's great fun putting a new one in. I had to unbolt one engine mount and jack up the engine to get some more clearance.

You can try either way. Taking the head off will cost you more for gaskets.

If it was me I'd go by what the engine might need. If the sump leaks, might as well drop it to do the timing cover and fix 2 problems at once. As others say it is alot harder to do sump gasket with engine in. If the head seems to weep under the exhaust or possibly other problems that the head might cause, then taking off the head is the way to go. Esp as you can get it checked out while it's off. Personally if there were no other probs I'd take the head off. Timing cover is way easier with the head off. Makes it easier to do a good job, and less chance of leaks esp between the head and timing cover.

Yeh it sounds best to do a proper job in the first place so you dont have to worry about it again, the biggest thing is it looks like the head gasket has already been replaced recently, as there is fresh looking gasket goo around the rocker and head gaskets.

Ive been told of another way in which you loosen off the cover and shove gasket goo in around it to stop the leak, its a stop gap measure but sounds a bit dodgy to me.

think i might use a slightly heavier oil and stabiliser and save up to do the head gasket and the lot, also gives me a good reason to get one of them Crescent head and cam packages lmao.

those stage two cam and head packages sound way neat.