Today's Progress & A Few Updates

[it's paid for]

. . . most of this stuff is for my 2G web journal . . .

. . . here's one of the old bolts and one of the new ones . . . big difference, eh?



. . . here's how I've been keeping up w/which fasteners go where . . .



. . . here's how I cleaned the cylinder head bolt holes . . . spray in WD-40, let soak, then wipe out at least three times . . . repeat . . . this took forever . . . then I took a new bolt and ran it into each hole two times, wiping off any gunk before threading . . . these holes are now clean & ready for use . . .



. . . here's my helper - my daughter loves to help me do anything . . . and she doesn't complain . . . wish her mom was like that (jk) . . . in this photo she's helping me clean the cylinder head bolts . . . she does a great job . . . and continued helping me clean many other parts . . .

[k-roy]

Looks like you are doing a nice quality job. Too bad when its all back together its still going to be less than 100HP.

[it's paid for]

Too bad when its all back together its still going to be less than 100HP.

. . . so . . . you're jealous . . . right?

[Mike's89AccordLX]

I have to say that is one of the best ways to organize parts that I have seen. That is a very important part of doing jobs right. Hats off to you man!

[TJ89Accord]

hey good job man. Glad your sticking through with it. Keep up the good work!

tim

[it's paid for]

. . . Saturday night . . . I installed the head w/the intake & exhaust manifold attached . . . bolted down the exhaust to engine block mount bolts (2) . . . connected exhaust manifold exhaust down tube . . . installed new water pump . . . removed a gasket from the distributor/thermostat housing thing (that took nearly an hour) . . . haven't torqued down the head yet . . . the head bolts are in but I've only hand tightened them . . . installed spark plugs, new oil filter and oil drain plug . . . I'm taking Sunday off . . . will hopefully finish this thing on Monday . . .

. . . still debating if I should put in the p/s pump or not . . .

. . . I think I overlooked the obvious - I didn't get new belts . . . of course I got a new timing belt, but I should've gotten a new alternator/water pump belt too, right? I guess that can wait until Monday . . . I'm guessing that belt can be had at just about any auto parts store . . . right?

. . . I bought a new thermostat this afternoon . . . the head gasket kit already had the gasket's for the distributor/thermostat housing . . .

. . . I'll give you an update on Monday . . . thanks . . .

[NXRacer]

sounds like youre moving right along! Now its all down hill from here. Me and nospeed just started pulling the blown motor out of my car today. Didnt get as far as i had hoped, but we got pretty far. I'm not organizing anything. I'm just dumping all the bolts and stuff into a bucket. Hopefully i can figure out where everything went......lol i'll figure it out, its not that hard.

[A20A1]

Are those upper exterior threads Oil cannals or actual threads?

[it's paid for]

[shepherd79]

looks good. i would really recomend putting PS pump back. you will be thankful when it comes to parking.
if you really want to remove PS, you should also replace the main steering rack to manual one. it has higher ratio so it is not as hard.

[joker2]

Yo, I'm loving the attention to detail and the pics are nice as well, keep up the good work......

[danronian]

When I restored my malibu I used hundreds of zip locs baggies to organize little parts. But the envelope idea works too. Did you scrape off the engine block with a razor before installing the head and use degreaser on the mating surfaces? I've been following your project updates but I think I missed it if you said something about it.

[it's paid for]

When I restored my malibu I used hundreds of zip locs baggies to organize little parts. But the envelope idea works too.

Better idea than envelopes . . . I doubt my wife would've let me have any zip loc baggies . . . that would've had to have come outta my budget . . . envelopes work . . .

Did you scrape off the engine block with a razor before installing the head and use degreaser on the mating surfaces?

. . . yes & yes . . . previous to this project I had no idea how to do it right . . . I bought a gasket scraper (& new blades at WalMart) . . . I also bought brake cleaner . . . I had the head squeakly clean but then I got some WD-40 on it and had to clean it again w/brake cleaner . . . anything I have touching a gasket is clean & oil free - this is thanks to the advice I was given by . . . oh well, I forgot . . . but yeah . . . thanks . . .

. . . I'll put the p/s pump back . . . I can always get rid of it later . . . and it was working fine before I started . . . a/c is history . . . it aint coming back . . . is there any way I can turn the a/c components into some PayPal cash?

. . . my wife asked me last night about the sources from help on this project . . . the "useful" advice . . . it breaks down to something like this:

~65% 3Geez
~20% Haynes manual
~15% help from my ex-Honda mechaic friend

. . . again, I'm going to put this on one of my web sites so someone . . . at least one person . . . will avoid the pitfalls I've encounterd and also - even more importantly - to help someone to take the initiative to do the work themselves . . . this sounds pretty bad, but several times during this project a thought has come to my mind "many of the so called mechanics are really just total idiots - you can do this" . . .

. . . we'll see . . .

. . . thanks for the remarks . . . this wouldn't be possible without all the help from you guys . . .

. . . maybe we should have a party . . . I'll buy the dip . . .