the auction car saga (head gasket edition)

[rigel]

so, finally pulled the cylinder head (with intake manifold, separated later) on my 87 a20a1, and I was glad I went ahead and bought a spare carb from the JY because it gave me practice in disassembling it.

I had suspected a leaking head gasket because of rough running with lots of sweet smelling whitish smoke, but now I wonder if that was right. I has a slight loss of compression in cylinder 3 too, which supported the head gasket idea, and it had clearly been tunning rich for a while before, based on the condition of the plugs, they were hella sooty and maybe a bit oil fouled. other potential explanations could have been problems at the valve seats or seals I guess, but I thought (based on zero previous experience) that this was coolant smoke.

well, when I got the head off there was an ass ton of carbon, but no obvious problem in the head gasket. I lifted it off and (like the EGR valve gasket, same problem) it just disintegrated on me. I did note a misplaced intake manifold gasket on cyl 3 though, but it seemed to seal, just would have been thin in places.

gaskets that werent oil soaked or didn't fall apart on handling were brittle as hell, so I suppose they could have had hairline cracks?

stop leak had been used at least once because it was everywhere in the cooling system.

lord knows when the last maintenance had been done on this thing. and it still drips a little bit of oil (even after draining) and atf.

there is so much accumulated grime on the back side of the engine, good god.

its gonna rain for the next few days so I'm going to focus on cleaning up the head and valvetrain. then I will probably rebuild the oil and water pumps and try and scrape off some of this carbon before reassembling.

soooo, questions

what is a good scraping tool for all this gasket residue? I've used shards from broken CDs to remove crap from other metal surfaces without marring clear coat, so I'm thinking a polycarbonate ice scraper, given the extent of the crustiness here. the valve cleanup I have a nice procedure from YouTube, so I think I'm good there. I just want to be really careful about sealing surfaces.

also, I probably don't have the extra time for this project but I wonder how much extra work it would be to get down into the bottom end without an engine hoist? is that even possible? even the bad cylinder was producing 120ish psi on dry compression test but I suspect that might change significantly once I get rid of some of these carbon deposits.

basically I'm hoping that cleaning it up, replacing all the gaskets I can get my hands on, redoing the timing and adjusting the carb will at least get it back into running order enough that I can make a further determination about the tranny.

talking it out like this, I really have no idea why I'm going to all this trouble. "learning experience" I guess.

[Fixedit]

"even the bad cylinder was producing 120ish psi on dry compression test but I suspect that might change significantly once I get rid of some of these carbon deposits."

I'm not an expert by any means but I do want to share something I've learned; your statement above does make sense if a valve was not properly sealing due to a ton of carbon, but also if there is an extreme excess of carbon build up, compression would increase due to the reduced space in the combustion chamber. Sorry I'm not answering any of your questions really but I just wanted to share that with you.

Razor blades are okay scraper tools but not recommended for head sealing surfaces. Anything softer than aluminum and stronger than age-old head gasket crap. My window ice scraper has a brass blade that is pretty blunt; if you have one like that it may be okay to use. Not sure what aluminum these heads are made of but generally brass is a little softer.

That's all I can really offer without blowing smoke, good luck

[Dr_Snooz]

This is the scraper I use:

http://s7d9.scene7.com/is/image/GenuinePartsCompany/NWMDC?$Product=GenuinePartsCompany/1022404

NAPA AUTO PARTS (http://www.napaonline.com/Catalog/CatalogItemDetail.aspx/Scraper-Gasket-Scraper/_/R-BK_7769061_0421640376)

I have been very impressed with it. It seems to be the perfect pitch, sharpness, hardness, etc. for removing gaskets and has lasted a lot longer than I ever thought it would.

I also use this for especially difficult cases:
http://www.3geez.com/forum/attachments/3geez-accords/6865-auction-car-saga-head-gasket-edition-m27790040-jpg
Permatex 80645 on sale at StreetPerformanceUSA.com (http://www.streetperformanceusa.com/i-7274745-permatex-gasket-remover-4-oz-power-can-with-brush-tip-nozzle.html)


I would caution you to proceed carefully with this car as I have rarely (ie: never) found it to be cost effective doing what you are doing. By the time you buy all the seals to put this thing back together, you're going to be into some real money and time. My guess is you won't be far from the cost of doing a complete engine overhaul. Typically, you'll get it all back together and it will promptly break in a meaningful way, requiring you to tear it all down again and do the complete overhaul you're trying to avoid. When you do, you'll buy a rebuild kit that will include all the seals you recently replaced for half the price of what you spent buying them individually. After that, well, you'll have a nice new engine in a dreadful wreck of a car. And you'll have the heartache of knowing that you spent nearly double for that new engine. At that point, you'll have a serious case of sunk cost syndrome driving you to continue spending on the car to justify what you spent on the engine. The costs spiral and the project turns into an ugly war of attrition.

I'm only speaking from my own experience. It's tempting to think you can resurrect a car that has been severely neglected, but it rarely turns out well. Just think carefully and proceed cautiously.

[Fixedit]

100% Spot on, that's how I operate anyways

[rigel]

youre totally right. this thing is a white elephant. i know this.

i didnt have any real expectation that it would be cost effective, because part of what i'm paying for is the experience of doing this, which is far more than the maintenance/repair ive done of the few cars i've owned in the past. i have another car in much better condition that is reliable that i am hoping the skills are transferable to. the accord is intended as the inexpensive spare, though i really appreciate the time and energy yall put in to these cars. i have no intention of putting any work into the body, so once it's in running (ideally DEQ-passing, but i need it infrequently enough that a temporary permit now and again should be enough for the next year or so, if it comes to that) condition, that's where it stops.

thank you for prompting me to write that out. it helps.

[rigel]

SO. weeks later, an update.

engine has had the entire top end rebuilt. head gasket changed, pretty much every other gasket i could get my hands on as well.

(engine pretty obviously had previous leak at the filter holder, because man was that gasket beat up and it was like a frozen oil waterfall back there, gasket was hard and cracked like every other gasket ive seen here, but i digress)

i swapped the head with one i got at the JY. the cams were f***in destroyed, and half the valves were pitted to hell.

deciding not to take the exhaust manifold off caused me a few problems. i went full bore and took an angle grinder with one of those 3m bristle pads to all the main sealing surfaces (which work pretty great but are damned expensive). because i couldnt move the exhaust mani far enough out of the way, i cut a slight groove into the block. could feel it with my nail, but some of the puts around the fire rings were about as deep, and it was all within one of those areas that's just coolant passages. slapped it together anyway, kind of a PITA maneuvering everything but got it done.

torqued all the front side stuff to spec.

after i reassembled it and had it in what i thought would be working condition it wouldnt start. it crank pretty weakly and just die. took a couple trips to the JY for extra-parts as insurance. replaced the battery which i probably needed to do anyway. rebuilt starter, which bench tested fine. replaced the dizzy with a reman-marked hitachi i found there, which also was just a better choice overall i think. turns out the battery ground was not connected to the engine. ran a 10g wire and it started cranking beautifully.

and it started. ai let it run for a few seconds and cut the motor. started reassembling the more extraneous things, like that plastic air chamber muffler thing. adjusted the valves (lots of clatter)

started it again, let it run this time for 4-5 minutes. its idling pretty high so i obviously need to adjust that but i wanted to get it running.

then, the new thermostat kicked in, and i had forgotten to clamp the top radiator tube to the thermostat housing. WHOOSH.

so i have coolant everywhere. but the damn thing runs, and it sounds way way better than it did before.

whereas before the rebuild, it was making lots of whitish smoke from the exhaust. now, it's not stinky and the only smoke is from the engine, which after inspection looks like just grime and oil and coolant spills and what not just burning off as the engine heats up.

so i just need to put everything back together and make it a little neater and i think i'm basically done with the engine. (hooray!)

i think i might go ahead and change out the front main seal too, since installed the main pulley without the front cover and i'll have to remove that to replace the cover anyhow.

and the transmission was the most obvious problem i started with when i got the car, but while pulling it apart i noticed the throttle cable that goes the the tranny was basically disconnected. hard to figure how that might have happened from my end since i had no reason to touch it until i noticed it while removing cables and such. i am crossing my fingers that that was the shifting problem. if not, i'll be back with an update.

i still have to replace some stuff, PS pump, radiator fan, air cleaner, and i need to pump up one of the tires, but i should have a ride report here soon enough.

woo!

thanks everyone!

[Dr_Snooz]

Nice work. And yes, that cable will cause some very interesting shifting problems if it's disconnected.

[Fixedit]

Glad to hear about the awesome progress! Did you happen to replace the cylinder head bolts? I'm hoping to replace my head soon and looking to see if there is an easy source for bolts or studs