Changing head gasket 89 Accord

I have an 89 Accord SEI that appears to have a blown head gasket. One of the
symptoms is a constant stream of bubbles in the radiator overflow tank. I
also noticed that the cooling system(cold) had pressure after cranking it
with the coil wire disconnected. After filling and bleeding cooling system
and letting idle, the gage will eventually go to hot, even though the fan is
kicking in. I would then reloosen the bleed bolt in the thermostat housing
and steam would come out. Do it all over again with the same result. Idle is
smooth sometimes and rough others. New dist. cap, rotor, plugs, wires,
timing belt, injectors, thermostat, radiator and cap. I also just replaced
the struts and CV axles. Anywhooo .... I'm going to tear it down myself and
replace it. I was just wondering if anybody had any tips, tricks or advice
for me to help make the job easier. Also, if the head looks OK, level across
the surface etc, should I go through the expense and hassle of having a shop
go over it? What is a good brand of gasket kit? The car is a beater with a
lot of new parts. It has 220,000 miles on it. I know that the rings aren't
that great and really don't want to get into that job. I did a compression
test last year and the "wet test" raised the compression quite a bit. I plan
on keeping it about another couple of years and maybe putting about another
30,000 miles on it. Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

Save yourself some aggravation, and get rid of that piece of shit now.
Why **** around with a 20 year old car, just to get another 30k out of it.
Go buy something else. Sheesh.

 

Yeah, you're probably right. It's just that I have done so much to it that I
hate to call it quits now. My son has two more years of school left. He has
an 85 mile round trip drive 4 or 5 days a week. We eventually want to get
him a decent car but hate to "Use it up" right away. I think I can keep this
tin can going with some bailing wire, duct tape and a few more parts here
and there. If I had to pay for labor, it would definitely be out of the
question.

 

So, you're comfortable with your son driving 350-400 miles per week in a
car like this? You really think that's a good idea? How safe do you
think this car is? Get him a decent car now, before it's too late.

 

No worries, mate. He has a birthday coming up in a few months and I'm
getting him some seat belts.

 

that's dan's response to everything here - ignore him.

re fixing the gasket, the parts are cheap, but it takes a while. use
gasket remover rather than abrasives to clean the head and block. if
it's flat, do not machine it. google this group for my highly biased
opinions on this subject.

 

Yeah, real funny. You should be ashamed of yourself.

 

Thanks for the reply, Jim. I Googled your posts and found them very
informative. I tore the front end of the engine apart last night. I'm now
trying to figure out how to get the intake side off. Lots of fun. I snapped
a bunch of pictures with the digital camera, just in case my memory fails
me. I have a photographic memory ... it just runs out of film now and then.
Question about coolant in oil : Will it always turn milky or can the
coolant or water dilute it without showing a change, other than being
thinner? This car has always been an oil leaker and my son adds some every
day. He told me last night that he thinks that the level has actually risen
on its own a few times. Now he tells me .. oh well.
I wonder if he may have added too much or at least more than he thought he
was, by checking the dipstick before the oil had a chance to get down to the
pan. I'm wondering if the lower part of the engine has suffered damage from
diluted oil. No milkiness. I'll post about the head condition when I get it
off. Guess I'll put in a few more hours this evening.

 

that would be a classic leak symptom, but i've not seen a honda and it
would /definitely/ be accompanied by "mayonnaise" as the oil and water mix.

more likely.

you'll find out!

re: leaks, mechanical issues aside, the brand of oil you use matters.
my 89 civic used to run oil out of the main seal so it would literally
drip onto the exhaust and shroud you in smoke at traffic lights. that
was with cheapo ford brand oil. having bought all the seals, i decided
to flush my engine with some castrol, just because i had some laying
about the garage, for a couple of weeks before performing surgery. then
when i got down to business, no leaks! i cleaned it up, waited a couple
more weeks, still no leaks. bottom line, superior seal conditioners in
superior oil stopped it. i never did the seals and that's nearly 5
years and 75k miles ago. still doesn't leak.

 

forgot to say:

there's a bolt you need to do from underneath.... piece of cake if you
go under the car and look straight up.

 

Well, got most of the "brush" cleared off of the engine and am down to the
head with the intake manifold still attached. I removed the two bolts under
the manifold mount. I also removed all of the crap associated with a timing
belt change. I debated about removing the rocker arm assembly or not. I
removed all of the bolts and tapped on it ..... not moving .... am I gonna
screw something up with this, probably needless move? I put the bolts back
in and torqued them. Almost 10 PM ... better shut things down or risk
attack by estrogen monster. I don't see any way to remove the intake
manifold without removing the head. Is that possible? The lower manifold
nuts are tucked way under there and underneath tubular parts of the
manifold. No way they can be easily removed, and forget torqueing.

Soooo ... are you supposed to remove the head with intake manifold attached?
Are you supposed to remove the head with the rocker arm assembly intact?

Tomorrow's job is to open Pandora's box.

 

pointless - leave the cam and rockers where they are.

should remove the manifold /before/ the head. technically, i guess you
could leave it on, but it makes for bigger hunks of metal to be lifting
out of the bay in one piece...

not true. lie on your back under the car and use a long extension on
your ratchet. easy access, easy removal.

use a spirit level [in good condition!] and some feeler gauges to check
the head for flatness. yet again, do NOT use abrasives for cleanup, no
matter how tempting. that includes scotchbrite [that green pad used in
the kitchen] - it's one of the worst engine-killers out there.

if you don't have the honda manual, [not haynes which is CRAP], you may
be able to download parts online. check tegger.com for info too.
you'll need it to get the timing belt adjustment correct on reassembly -
there's a trick to it to make sure tension is correct.

also, check the condition of the head bolts. they're re-usable, but
some positions are "wet" and can get rusty threads. if that is the
case, visit a junk yard and get yourself some new ones from the "oily"
positions, and chase the block threads with a tap. this will allow you
to torque the head properly on replacement. use a bending beam torque
wrench, not clicker.

 

Okily, Dokily, Neighbors,
I finally got to open up the box of chocolates. I never could figure out how
to get the intake manifold off, so just pulled them off together. I might
possibly have gotten the manifold off but would have had a hell of a time
bolting it back on after the head reinstallation. The only part that would
come off was the top of the rear part and did no good for removing the rest
of it. No biggie, it's apart and the head gasket looked as though it had
coolant leaks into a couple of cylinders (the end ones). The inner two both
have some carbon on the tops of the pistons, not much, but some. The end
pistons are clean on top. The gasket tore upon removal and is hard to tell
exactly what was leaking where. It looks to me as though the end cylinders
were both getting coolant into them. I've had white, snow like , coating on
the plugs and O2 sensors for some time and attributed it to a possible
vacuum leak or lean condition. Is that more probably just coolant residue?

I got started removing some of the old gasket material with a one inch putty
knife, being careful not to scratch.
I noticed that a lot of the coolant passageways were very restricted by the
size of the hole in the gasket. Does that mean that it's not the original
Honda gasket? And, while on that topic, I think Jim and others mentioned
that one should forget Felpro and any other aftermarket and just use the
Honda one ... for that reason.

How and where do you get a reliable straight edge? I have a couple of
aluminum straight edges but wouldn't trust them when it comes to thousandths
of an inch for looking for warp.

The only other engine that I have rebuilt was the 289, in my 66 Mustang. I
don't think it had more than 80K, when I got it, but it did have to be ridge
reamed. This puppy is smooth all the way up and down ... or at least from
what I've seen so far. Haven't turned it over at all, after pulling the
head.

I'll clean up both surfaces tomorrow and check for warped. Where to buy a
good straight edge for the job?


UP.SO. Jim, the bolts all came out oily, or at least not rusty. My back
still hurts.

 

use a solvent gasket remover to get rid of the last residues. aluminum
heads need a very fine surface finish and scratching is /bad/.

no, it means the flow is carefully controlled to achieve even
temperature distribution given that the coolant flows "sideways".


? And, while on that topic, I think Jim and others mentioned

stick with honda.

use a new spirit level - it's close enough. you're looking for warp,
not machining tolerance.

don't even consider it. and to ensure you don't need to in the future,
that's why you're being so careful to avoid abrasives.

building supply store - see above.

good! it's still prudent to chase the bolt holes though - if dirty, the
head bolts can stick on tightening and that makes correct torque a total
crap shoot.

should do the job more often then!

 

I got a couple of more hours in tonight. I worked on cleaning up the head's
gasket surface. Jim, you mentioned using :

"solvent gasket remover" to get rid of the last residues. aluminum
heads need a very fine surface finish and scratching is /bad/." ....

Do they sell a product that you like for it, or are you just referring to
using solvents? I gave acetone a try and didn't get much out of it. I found
a half can of lacquer thinner and used that on a rag over a wooden paint
stirring stick. Worked pretty well but have a lot of crap to get off of the
block still.

As far as I can tell, I don't think that the head is warped. The only
anomalies that I can see are, what appeared to be a couple of spots that
look a bit corroded next to the outer coolant ports. They might be just a
tad depressed there. Not much and not toward the cylinders. but outward.
I figure it's a go as is, after clean-up.

What about the white crap on the bottom of some valves? I was thinking of
rotating the camshaft for each cylinder to have a closed valve position, to
keep crud from getting under valve seats, and then using a drill brush to
clean them up a bit. Is that Kosher?

 

for solvent, use that gel paint stripper stuff you get from the hardware
store. paint it on, leave, then wipe. repeat until cleaned. it takes
a while. you'll find it does a great job of cleaning carbon from the
combustion chambers too.

the white deposit stuff, i don't think that's much of a problem. if you
want to use a wire brush, that'll be fine - just don't brush the sealing
surface of the head.