Baked....

SO this weekend i took off my valve cover is paint it. THe previous owner :screwy: sed the car had overheated a few times, well i found a wealth of baked on oil all under the cover, on the springs and i think its falling into the oil ports. This can lead to bad things cause if those get clogged then i can blow a cam bearing and more fun things that id just love to deal with. Anyway, what the best way to fix this - Take the whole head off and steam clean it, or...vaccum the chucks out w/ a shop vac, then get some of that cracnkcase cleaner, that you put in for 5 mins then change the oil...Think that will clear out the oil ports? I dont want to do more then i have to, but i dont wanna half-ass it.

i would do both just to make sure u get all that crap out.

cant go wrong wiht steam cleanign but if u cant do that take head off disasemble and mayb an engine degreaser?

Degreaser wont do it, im prob gonna get this stuff thats meant to take off burnt oil in engines, degreaser might damage internals, then ill prob take the whole thing apart anyway and since the head will be off, i smell port and polish...

ok. ur prob gona have to take it off no matter what. good luck

I just have a quick question, as you all know I am a newbie. So when you say just take the head off and degrease it you make it sound like its easy. Cause I am replacing my head and it took me like 6 hours just to get the exhaust manifold and intake manifold off. So do you all have extra cars or do you just do it real quick? Just a question cause I must be struggling:(

hahahaha I did my own headgasket job once. It took me about 2 days (constant breaks though and only worked about 6-8 hours the first day also) Its easy but a PAIN in the ass. But If I were to do it again, I know I'd ZIP through it only cuz I know where everthing is now. I TRIED TO PRY OFF MY INTAKE MANIFOLD NOT KNOWING THERE WAS A DAMN BRACKET WITH A BOLT ON THE BOTTOM! I lost 2 hours there!!! Sweating and about to cry! Broke 2 screw drivers trying to pry it off after taking off all of the regular nuts. Wow did I feel stupid. And the Haynes manual didnt help me for SHIT on helping me find that damn bracket. Damn.... having to freaking undo most of my exhaust to only take off the exhaust manifold. Rusted fucking bolts. Tight spaces... and having a damn screw or nut fall in the engine somewhere! I love my lil magnet on a stick....thing...with extension... I put the engine back together in about an hour... more or less... It was fun and I was soo damn proud of myself... I had NEVER done anything like this before... But when you tighten the head, FOLLOW THE TIGHTENING SEQUENCE!

Djstorman, don't worry about it. If you're new at this stuff, it takes a while. In fact, if you've never done a particular thing before, it's likely that you'll need to do it twice to get it perfect. Take your time and do it right, don't worry about how long it takes us.

^ agree i have never taken mine off, but i helped my friend do his on his civic...we followed the haynes manual and we got it done fine, we wrote down odd thigs it didnt metion so everythign went back together fine...take your time and pay attention, and a second opinion is always good. OH yea, and im just gonna take the whole thing off, clean, port and polish, and i heard about shavingit down incresing compression ratio, my neighbor, the car god said he could do that...anyone else ever done it?

I helped my friend take his head off his LS once, the hardest part was getting the headbolts out without stripping them.