Went ahead and replaced my head gaskets due to a suspected blows hg on my 01 dmax. First thing you will need is about every tool you have and then some more cause theres alot of things that have to be removed just to get to the heads and remove them. I chose to do mine while the motor is still in the truck and with the core support still intact.

My parts lists consisted of:

ARP Studs
Grade B Head Gaskets L and R
Injector sleeve O-ring (16)
Coolant crossover tube Gaskets (2)
Turbo inlet gasket
Injector return line seal (8)
Fuel Return Line Seal (4)
Fuel return line seal (1)
Engine Sealant
Water pump o-ring
Locktite 272
Injector Lines



The Tear Down:

everything up top has to come off, i took everything off of the valve covers and valley of the engine including the intake y bridge. then worked on removing the alternator and ac compressor brackets along with the fan pulley. i unbolted the steering shaft and held my steering wheel in place with my seat belt to keep my wheel from moving around.

Removing the driver side manifold is not bad at all, the passenger side is harder because you must remove the turbo down pipe first to get one of the 12 point bolts on the uppipe/ manifold flange. i resorted to using a 18 inch long flex head socket wrench to remove the downpipe bolts which were very stubborn.

after getting all the hard stuff out the way getting the valve train assembly, push rods, and injectors were the easy part then everything should be out of the way and the head bolts can be removed and the heads can be pulled off about about 16 hours of work.