Head Gasket

[steve-024]

hey does anyone have a thread on replacing a head gasket and how hard it is ?
thanx alot for the help

[shepherd79]

how good are you with motors?
if you know your way around the motor and you know how to rebuild it, you can do it in 1 day.
if you don't know jack about the motors, leave it to pros. to do it.

[steve-024]

not very good at all , it goes in the shop on tuesday and hes taking his time and only charging me the bare minimum and its going to cost about 500 $

[AZmike]

Are you certain that it's the gasket?

[steve-024]

yeah theres oil leeking into the antifreeze and the antifreeze is all sludge and brown and reeks like shit

[AZmike]

The job isn't too bad. I was able to swap heads in a weekend without a great deal of experience working on the engine. There are several critical steps that can mean redoing the job or buying additional parts if they're not done properly. I would not have attempted the job if I didn't have the Honda service manual. $500 seems like a pretty good price for such an involved job.

[accordlxi2.0]

i say the most hardest thing is making sure the cam timing is right and putting on the timing belt . . . . .
that's it. . . .

[steve-024]

thanx guys i think ill leave this one to the pros haha

[HondaBoy]

is it me, or is timing on our A20 engines fairly easy to get right? i had thought my oil leaks were a headgasket, but luckyly for me it wasnt. i will have to take my head off when and if i get the head tuned by a engine shop. i'll probley get some help with mine instead of doing it myself. but i dont wanna take it to a shop to have them take it off. none of the actual performance machine shops here will take the head off the block for you or put it back on, so i'm stuck with that task.

[AZmike]

i say the most hardest thing is making sure the cam timing is right and putting on the timing belt . . . . .
that's it. . . .

If I'm not changing the timing belt at the same time I just zip-tie the pulley to the belt and setup something to keep some tension in the belt like a piece of speaker wire tied to the hood. Then the only difficult part is getting the pulley back on the camshaft which isn't too bad.