Head Gasket... main cause?

Tagging and labeling bolts is A way of noting where they go but another way is to take a piece of card board and poke them through in the order of where they came from incase you have one strip the threads ect..It also is a good indext to help speed up the process of reassembly,when un simmilar sizes of bolts (length) are involved.But in all cases clean them it just makes the assembly prosses easier and will give you more accuate tork readings.

in cleaning all mating surfaces. Clean off all the bolts. Clean out all the bolt holes and run a tap down into them. Use a good brand of torque wrench. Bag and label all the bolts so you know where they go. take polaroid pictures of stuff so you know where they go back. Especially the backets on the front of the engine. Label all the connectors, chevy likes to use common connectors for different sensors. And tha's just a start.

Make sure you have the head checked for flatness and have it milled in need be. Never reinstall a head on a engine that had a blown head gasket without checking head for been warped because it is this warpage that usually causes the gasket to fail.

Can't thank you all enough for the help... really appreciate it! Never had a HG go bad, so this will be a new experience... but lookin' forward to it. Ain't gonna give up my old Chevy, especially with the way things are goin' now.

Thanks, GC