My Cadillac mechanic friend did the same thing for Caddy heater cores. Somehow he found a way to cut a hole in the firewall and R&R the heater core, then pop rivet a stainless panel over the hole, made it look factory. I believe we did a Cleveland head gasket without taking the intake off, just unbolted it from the one side and popped the head off. It was a dry intake so there was no coolant spilling, what did we know back then? It had a bathtub intake gasket that stayed in place. It wasnt the gasket we changed, it was the whole cracked head after he put water in it after it lost it all and overheated. We may have even reused the head gasket...yeah. High school $3.35/hr job budget!
