Head gasket job...

[sageuvagony]

Well... As some of you now know, my car's head gasket went again after only 4 months of having it replaced by my mechanic. I was fed up with this car and am going to buy a prelude. I didnt want to get a new engine for this civic nor give the civic away so I decided to try to fix the head gasket myself. Well I had a few hours to myself today so I started to work on my car to see what I can get done. This is the first time in my life I have ever worked on a car engine this far, by the looks of this, I'll have this engine running tomorow again :-)



Here is my engine with my valve cover off and timing off and distributor off



Side view of my car showing that im doing this in my own drive way



After so much stuggling, I finally got off the header. I had no idea we had to take this off. Damn this thing is heavy as hell!!!!



Header off, still cant get the stupid head off. The stupid intake manifold wont push back. After an hour I just realized it had a damn bracket supporting the manifold on the bottom (UGH!!)



Finally got the head off and HOLY SHIT! I had no idea this would happen. That thing was dripping oil all over the place and all over my leg and white shoes (ehh they were old anyway)



After taking the head off look at what I found... ahh! Antifreeze in the cylinders! Well... that I already knew since my car was burning it in MASS quantities in the first place.



Stupid leaky head!!!



My head after smoothing it :-)

Well... I have to finish this job tomorow after school so hopefully I can get everything working. I have a few questions though. When I drained my oil from the oil pan, the damn pan was FILLED with water and antifreeze and oil. Will little drops of water in the crankcase hurt the engine? Will it eventually boil away? If there are any tips any of you would like to give to me about this job, let me know. I'm afraid that water may ruin this engine. Right now I have the oil drain plug off and have a oil pan collecting any oil. I am leaving this overnight to eventually dry out. Is this a good idea or bad? I already have bought the head gasket, intake manifold gasket, valve cover gasket with o-rings for spark plugs, and exhaust manifold gasket (which I really doubt I needed to buy). I was also wondering if I should replace the O ring on the distributor. Well I'll let you know how everything turns out tomorow. I am just an 18 year old guy in school with time on his hands who felt like trying to fix his own car to use it as a back up incase his prelude (in a few days I will have it) breaks down. Ohh hey! one more question, should I use any sealant for any of these gaskets?

Thanks all!

Richard

[sageuvagony]

I finally got everything done this morning and started it and...........it worked! It smoked a lil, burning out the water that was inside but after that.... perfect! I cannot believe I did this job myself and actually suceeded. I'm sorry if I am bragging but I am just kinda proud of myself. It wasnt really hard to do but it takes ALOT of labor to do this crap. No wonder they charge so much for this. For the first time ever, I had no screws left over :-) I was looking at my old head gasket and saw where it went bad but I am wondering why they are made so cheap... its like half crap and half metal..... the crap part is the part that goes bad... that sucks... Ohh well... I'll let you know how everything is going later today...

[Miataracer]

pics no worky for me anyways?