The nice Lady who owned this Monte got some good advice from the guy who sold her the car. Get the Extended Warranty. It payed-off! The Lowers started acting-up and before they completely failed, the Warranty Company replaced the Gaskets before any extraneous damage occurred to the Engine.
I think they knew the history and didn't want me to make matters worse.

Under the Terms of the Agreement, The Warranty Company would only use Genuine GM Parts. I told them I'd pay for the Parts acquired elsewhere and they said OK.

I spent $180.00 on Fel-Pro Gaskets, new Bolts, Mobil-1 and MoPar Permanent Anti-freeze so now I no longer have the anxiety that comes with a 3400 60-degree V6 filled-up with DexCool!

The job took a talented technician 4 Hours.
He removed the Rockers rather than use a Push Rod release tool.
He tightened-down the New Bolts, ... "Incrementally"
The DexCool is History.
The New Gaskets are Guaranteed for the "Life of the car"!

Now. ... I'm psyched.
I might even get a U-Bend delete and a Cold Air Intake with the money I saved on the pending storm.

 

That definitely came out for the better. And I saw a monte like yours but a darker grey, and different rims. I really like the top in person.

 

Sweet! Glad you got it all fixed up!

 

Ah, dammit! I thought this topic would be about GM finally fessing up and admitting the problem with their crappy plastic 3100/3400 LIMGs. Instead it's a 3rd party handling an extended warranty claim.

Good call on insisting to replace them with the metal Fel-Pro ones, though! FYI, the issue isn't specifically with Dexcool, as the gasket failure is common on all 3100s (including those in 94-95 Berettas which still used the green stuff). I replaced my LIMGs with the new Fel-Pro metal ones, re-used the original bolts, and filled it with Mobil1 and cheap generic green stuff. Three years running and no problems whatsoever!

 

The LIM gasket is a problem with many GM V6's. The 3100, 3400, 3800, and 4.3L (used in the Blazers/ Jimmy's mainly). Head gaskets can also be a problem with these engines, although not so much on the 3800, but on the rest of them, yes, head gaskets too.

I just got my fingers crossed that GM DID fix the problem with the new 3500/3900 V6's. I've read in multiple places that they did fix it, so lets hope its true.

There was a class-action lawsuit against GM for Dex-Cool equipped cars between 1996-2003, with certain engines. I guess that means they wouldn't cover the cars filled with Green coolant from the factory. But depending on how soon in your cars life you had to replace a gasket (head, or intake) you got a certain amount of money. The engines affected were all the one's i mentioned above. I checked what the payout on my mom's Bonneville 3800 was, and it was only $100. We had to replace the LIM in 2006 a little more than 6 years after the car was purchased. if you had to replace it within 0-5 years, the payout was actually pretty good, I want to say it was around $700 bucks. So we missed the good payout by a year. I didn't even bother applying for it once I found out it was only $100 bucks for us...to much hassle. But if it was the $700 I would have. I'm pretty sure the date to fie a claim ended about a year ago though.