Just recently noticed i was leaking coolant out of one of my head gaskets. Past couple days have been scrapping and cleaning my heads, intake manifold, block, and just some spring cleaning under the hood. Heard from a reliable source that i had to be careful when resurfacing my heads becasue if i get it too smooth and flat the adheasive will not stick the gasket to the head and the block. Is this True?

 

Adhesive? Where are you getting your information from? If needed you can use some copper spray on the head gaskets, but that's it. And it's not an adhesive so much as just an added insurance that they will seal properly. And depending on the gasket used you don't even need it.

As far as having the heads resurfaced take them to a machine shop and have the checked for straightness and they will tell you what, if anything, needs to be done to them.

 

Trying to find the haynes manual for my year and model of my car but for some reason online they are not letting me select 71 Olds Cutlass. I read on another forum that 20* should be what it should be set at before the advance. Do you know?

 

The initial timing will depend on what distributor you have. If you are running the stock points distributor then st it to 8° - 12° BTDC @ 1100 RPM. If you have a stock transplanted HEI then set it to 20° BTDC @ 1100 RPM. And make sure to pull and plug the vacuum source to the vacuum advance when setting the timing.