Well it finally happened to me. I noticed that my car began over heating and sputtering yesterday evening, so I brought it home, parked it and figured I'd let it cool and check it out later. When I popped the radiator cap today, I found that the water was low. I looked around but found no signs of a water leak then I immediately went into denial about the possibility of having a bad head gasket. I decided this was a good time to get lunch... in my wife's car. After lunch (Mmm... Taco Bell) I filled the CRX up with water and started it up. After the usual blue smoke (caused by the bad valve guides) it stopped smoking like a BBQ and I thought everything would be fine (note aforementioned denial). I was wrong. After letting the car idle for a while it started blowing white smoke... lots of white smoke... It was blowing like a tea kettle. Damn, I was hoping my motor would last until I was able to swap in my D16A1.

I guess there is really no point to this post, I just wanted to vent a little steam.


HA!

i know EXACTLY what you mean, i think i'm about to face it again if i don't get this motor finished soon. i had to replace mine again (number 4 or 5 i think....) about 3 months ago and i really didn't want to do it. oh well, at least it's just an afternoon project, that goes into the night :P

NEVER USE ADHESIVE ON A HEAD GASKET!

When I tried pulling my head to change the gasket I found that it wouldn't budge! I had to call a friend to help me figure out what was going on because I've never had a head that just wouldn't come off before!
We ended up using a 6 foot pry bar on the cam gear side along with a jack balanced on top of the transmission pushing on a rod going through the cam caps. We finally got it off but destroyed the head in the process (good thing I was replacing it anyway). It took me about an hour to scrape the old gasket and adhesive off the block with a razor blade and rotary scotch brite pad!

THIS SUCKED!