I'm working on a fun project, Guess what it is?

moore89

Registered User
Headgaskets, They went out on me the other day and I knew this was comming just not this soon. The car just rolled over 80,000 miles but my heavy right foot probably added to their demise. Anyway I have had the car in the garage for 4 days now. I have the drivers side done and I did it without droping the exhaust and just unbolting the exhaust manifold, but the passenger side is my worst nightmear took me 4 hours to work the manifold bolts out of the head and remove the spark plugs. Oh yah and I'm doing this with basic hand tools and a torque wrench. I've almost used up all my patience with the car and I am ready with a gallon of gas and a match, my nuckles are gone, my palms have no feeling in them ,and my finger tips feel like they have needles in them. But when I look at the car I cant hate it because I remember that the sooner I get this done, the sooner I can get back to smoking little hondas again.
 
I just got the pass side head off and I was wondering what it means when the exhaust valves on cylinders 1,2,3,and 6 are white? is that a byproduct of the coolant entering the cylinder and evaporating in the combustion cycle?
 
Clean them up and you'll be good.

Don't forget to mill the heads and change the valve stem seals. Replace the head bolts also since they are one time use.

You can also get rid of the power steering to water pump bracket, and run a hose from the coolant line on one side of the block to the other line on the other side of the block to get rid of the heated throttle body lines. I just used small rubber heater hose and ran it around the back of the block.
 
I finished puting it together last night, or should I say this morning 5:30AM. I read this post too late to know about that bracket but thanks for letting me know, I'll do that next time which will hopefully be 100,000 miles from now or more. I got up at 10 to finish tweeking it and to start it up, it started on the first try (cranked the key a couple of times to let the fuel pump build up pressure). It did smoke alot when I started it (and still smokes some), I assume that that is just crap burning off the engine, exhaust, and the gaskets heating up for the first time. It does have a small boost or vac leak wants to stall at idle, I'll look into that later today.
 
I'm doing that project too :p.... only my car has been in garage since 2 days before Christmas. I'm waiting on time, money, engine hoist, short block, parts, etc to put it back together :(. It's a real drag now that weather is getting nice driving the S#!T-Scort (my nickname for my Escort). Beats walking, but it's not very sporty or fast or good looking and now it has two cracks all the way across the windshield from a Wal Mart shopping cart :(. Oh well, hopefully soon I'll have it running 13s and i'll be happy and it'll be happy and the escort will be gone (YAY)

I won't complain too much, i mean, i am still 16 w/ 2 cars (i pay/paid for them myself still)

Nick
 
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