Noticed a little oil around the exhaust side, might as well replace the head gasket just to be safe. Apart from the Head gasket, would I need to replace other gaskets as well?
inlet valve seals, exhaust, inlet, half moon, camshaft oil seals?

While the head is off, what should I do? replace the valve stem, hydraulic tappets and what else?

It's my first time taking the head off, so I don't really know what to replace, the car has done just over 60k km. The tappets are a touch noisy after I used some 5W50 engine oil. Any suggestion will be a great help, thanks!

 

Hi Arnie,
are there engine reconditioners by you,
it may be worth letting a engineer
see it and check it over properly,
if you reuse normal oe spec gaskets you may be ok,
or you may have a big leak on your hands pretty soon

when i had a head go on a 4x4 cos sierra,
i had the head skimmed AND made sure that baby was
100% then put it back together with gpA headgasket kit
with cometic reuseable gaskets.
i don't use my cosworths much so a week or so later,
when i took it out i was less than impressed to see more condensation
coming out of the exhaust, went straight back to my mates garage
where he diagnosed water still in the exhaust from when it had gone
pop, i got told to drive it more so i did and it was spot on,PHEW!

 

There is no cosworth specialist within a 6000miles radius from where I am I am going to let the mechanics do their magic, but I want to provide them with correct information as to what to look out for etc. The car does about 600miles a year, so it doesn't really go out that much, but since I don't know what the previous owner has done to it, I don't want to take any chances. So basically all I want to find out is which parts would YOU replace if the head is coming off.

 

One of the problem with cossie ownership is that the car doesn't get driven enough!!