Hi Guys, I recently replaced the intake manifold gaskets on my VY, they were well stuffed, rebuilt the engine and thought that would be it, but the problem of coolant loss hadn't gone away, so that pointed to the head gasket.
I pulled the heads off and sure enough there was burning between two cylinders and there is a water gallery hole in that region. The heads looked OK but not wishing to do the job 3 times, I had them skimmed and new core plugs fitted ( $170 at west coast cylinder heads) Rebuilt the engine, the exhaust manifolds had originally been face to face but there were gaskets supplied in the top end set that I bought so I fitted them and it all works good. Car is running great now, I took my time to do everything and it took 4 hours strip down, 2 hours to clean everything and 6 hours rebuild. I also cleaned and reset the idle control valve on the side of the throttle body and that cured a rough idle problem I have been having.
These are solid engines and easy to work on, I think the crap inlet gaskets cause overheating and that in turn causes head gasket damage.