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I'm looking to replace my head gasket soon, and I thought i should have the cylinder head checked once it's removed.
I've never dealt with a machine shop before, so I'm not sure what to ask for or expect...
Should I just ask for a clean and check? Plus valve seal replacement?
How much should I expect to pay for this service?
I know that a reman cylinder head can be purchased for as little as $315. I'm hoping it's only half that or less.
When I go I ask them to clean and check the head for flatness. The shop I use looks up the specs and calls me if it's out of spec before milling. I've never asked them to replace valve seals, not sure if that's a standard process. I think hot tanking can damage the seals, not sure if they just always replace them. They also pressure test the valves to ensure they're properly sealing.
My shops price without being milled is around $60 I think. If it needs milled it's around $100 after tax.
Cost me $120 for a local shop to check, deck, and hot tank the head. They offered to assemble the head for me for an additional $50, but I decided to do it myself. I replaced the valve seals because they were included in the head gasket kit. Kind of a bitch to get out, fairly easy to install
So I guess I'll expect $100-$150 for cost. If it's less, then great.
I'm on the fence with the valve seals. It's in the parts list in the head gasket sticky thread. All the seals add around $30 to the cost of parts, and I don't think I really need them. The head gasket is leaking oil but not burning it. I get a little white smoke at start-up, but I've never seen any blue smoke.
I think if I just ask them to check for flatness and pressure test it that should suffice. I would think if they cleaned it (hot tank) they'd have to replace the seals then, correct?
I should take some compression readings soon and maybe that will give me some indication as to what the head needs. If the numbers are good, then I'll just stick to the minimum.
So I found a shop that can do a "standard" service, which includes pressure check and cleaning. The guy on the phone told me they only replace seals if they find a problem during their testing. I said that's fine. I'll give them the seals and have them call me if they need to replace them. I'm expecting the head will not need them.
I was told it will only take a day to do the work, and the cost will be around $200. Based on what you guys have told me, that's a bit expensive. However, they are the only place I know of around here and if they do this type of work all the time then I'll pay the extra to ensure good work. Besides, I know this cylinder head is in good overall condition, so I'd rather pay $200 to have it checked and cleaned than to pay more to get a completely different one I know nothing about (even if it is remanufactured). I would be concerned that the reman would have inferior valve seals installed.
I may have to disassemble the head a little to have a close look at the camshaft bearing caps. I'm wondering if the end ones have sealant like they're supposed to.
QUESTION:
How does the machine shop expect to receive the head? I'm pretty sure the cam sprocket comes off, but what about the rocket arm assembly and camshaft? I just keep those attached right?
They will expect the camshaft and rocker arms removed. At least mine does. You can follow the steps in the service manual to remove, they're not difficult. They really only need the bare head with the valves still installed.
I have the cylinder head at the machine shop, but there was some deep scoring in the camshaft that could not be ignored. They were going to try to sleeve it, but having trouble getting the correct sleeve. The sleeves come from the other side of the country and I don't have any more time to wait...
So I went to car-part and ordered a used cylinder head from a local salvage yard. The head is from another '05 Civic EX so it should be an exact match. I'm just going to take the camshaft from it and anything else I may need (I may have misplaced a couple alignment dowels for the rocker assembly...didn't notice until yesterday).
I'm not sure what the machine shop charges are yet, but the used cylinder head was $140 shipped and should be here by Thursday I hope.
Cost for checking the cylinder head was $112. Not bad. They didn't have to do much. They just checked it and cleaned it. The new seals were not used since no problem was found. The deck must be flat also since they did not mill it.
Below are some pics of the scrapes on the end of the camshaft. You can see how I tried to fill it in with JB Weld. It wasn't enough apparently.
The cylinder head I purchased arrived super fast. I received it three days ago, so that was awesome.
I removed the camshaft from it and it looked pretty good...no scratches or scoring. The only difference was the part # (code) etched into the shaft. This one was "RJ5" while my original one was "RK8". I laid them side by side and they appeared to be identical. A few measurements with the calipers showed the bearing surfaces identical. The lobes may have been ever so slightly different...maybe .005"-.010" difference. But I wasn't being all that precise taking the measurements so I don't know.
I went ahead and installed it. I think it'll be fine, but we'll see.
I installed the RJ5 camshaft, and got everything back together. I've been driving the car now for over 500 miles with no issues. I did get a knock sensor fault code when I first started the car up, but it never came back after the code was erased.
The engine performs identical to the way it did with the other camshaft, as far as I can tell. So I'd say the different codes might be related to origin of manufacture location or something.
