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I do stupid **** while people are watching.

 
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I sorry to bother you with questions, but the thirst for knowledge is always there.

Why do you think these HG's fail like they do in this generation? Is is because this is the first generation that required a 20W oil vs 30W oil meaning you may operate at a slightly higher temperature because you're using a thinner weight?

Is this just as common in older generations of civics?

As always any info is appreciated and sarcasm is expected.

 
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My guess is strictly design. I still think my idea of TTY head bolts would improve it.


Absolutely not, and your assumption about temperature is false.

Our factory rep has said 5w20 is ok for almost all Honda cars back to early 90s (some exceptions though).

I think the 0w20 would be just fine for dang near everything I see these days (as long as they don't have sliding cam followers):
I once looked at bearing clearance specs in Civics back to about the mid 80s.....the clearance specs back then are the same as new engines that use 0w20 oil. The only concern I would have would be about any high shear sliding parts wear, and possible oil consumption. Our newer engines all use rollers on the cam followers so the high shear forces are virtually nonexistent in them.

I run our 5w20 in all of my other gas powered stuff except the Hog. Even my Honda lawnmower gets it.
Same for other cars I take care of, my family and GFs family.
Many say 10w30 on the cap.

 
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And that's why I'm here so I learn not to make false assumptions.

Thanks, once again, for the great info!

 
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She lives to drive another X amount of miles! Yeah for me.
I did a solid valve adjustment. Went over each set of valves like 4 times and set them all to the exact same spec. .008 on intake and .010 on exhaust. They could be at .007 and .009 depending on how you interrupt "subtle amount of drag". I feel they're closer to the middle based on common sense "subtle amount of drag". I've always heard looser is better than tighter, at least as far as valves are concerned.

Torqued everything that could be torqued and used common sense for the rest.

Did the idle learn first and then burped it on the jack stands.

Changed the oil and filter twice.

Noticeably quieter and feels like it runs noticeably better as well. No leaks and no CEL.

Thanks again for all the advice and info ezone. Very much appreciated.

 
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Agree.
Loose valves just make noise. Tight valves burn, among other things. Yer Welcome. Dang this turned into a long thread.

 
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So this "gasket slide" you spoke of about lifting the head a half inch and putting a new gasket in if you knew for a fact the head didn't over heat, is there any cleaning of the surfaces involved there and what about oil in the water jacket once the heads lifted? Just curious how that process works.

 
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Basically remove only enough stuff to lift the head--far enough to clear the dowels-- and slide the old gasket out and the new one back in.


That's like pull the exhaust manifold out and let it drop down out of the way, take out the hardware for the brackets on the bottom of the intake, take the timing belt down.
Obviously, no cleaning can be done, there isn't any room. On an MLS head gasket, cleaning is very minimal because the only residue is black paint (or teflon, or whatever the black coating is-IDK for sure.)

A composite gasket normally leaves huge lumps stuck to the surfaces that would (IMO) keep another gasket from sealing properly, but SOME mechanics do the gasket slide with them anyway. I have heard a LOT of stories about Mopar 2.2/2.5 (K-cars) engines, and the early 2.0/2.4 (Neon/Stratus/Breeze/et.al. leakers, and Toyota V6 head gasket recalls) getting the gasket slide under warranty. Speed is time, time is money. Get it in, get it out fast, gets paid more. Who gives a F*** if the job is done right.


Cleaning the oil out? Yeah right.
Actually, most of the oil SEEMS to get dumped as the head is tilted one direction or another. If you can lift it straight without rocking or tilting, oil spillage should be minimal. Or try to cork the oil return passages...


I hate when I get to do internal engine work... I'm far too meticulous with it to be fast and make lots of money.

 
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I'm assuming (always dangerous) that you have no issues with people bringing cars back in when this type of work is performed.

So basically, the fact the I scraped both surfaces very carefully with a razor blade and did a meticulous wipe down with acetone on both surfaces, I should be good to go. Does that sound right?

 
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I don't do that type of (hack) work.

I HAVE had to redo the work of others, and it sucks. Especially after the customer already spent damn good money for someone else to do it, and they won't honor any warranty, or tells a BS story to make the customer go away.
A former co-worker owned the Toyota truck that got the head gaskets done under the recall, and they leaked again within a month....They wouldn't redo their work. "Pound sand."


Yep. Good yob.

 
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I didn't mean to offend you or imply you do that type of work.

You seem like a "professional mechanic" who takes pride in his work and always does it right the first time. I would think you have a good balance of quality vs time spent on a vehicle in order to finish in a reasonable time, make money and not have repeat customers.

 
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Thanks.

It seems, from my own observations, that I have been held to a higher standard than most others in this business.

I spent some of my "formative years" at a Benz/Porsche dealer run by a staunch German from the Old Country. Quality and integrity were first and foremost in all departments.

Image is everything.

Sales sells the first car, Service sells the rest.

On wheel fasteners: Too loose is too loose, and too tight can be too loose too. (ALL wheels were removed and installed by hand. Torqued by hand. No air tools allowed on wheels.)

Mercedes Benz: Engineered like no other F'n car in the world.

And many more.




Too bad these don't seem to apply very many places these days.

 
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So I have subtle amount of oil weapage in the areas circled below. I'm thinking either the head is warped even though I know for a FACT it didn't over heat or the uncalibrated torque wrench I used didn't tighten it all the way to the final torque. I was think of re-torquing the head to the final 49 ft/lbs spec when the engine is cold. Other than seeing this the car runs better than it has in a LONG time. Oil and coolant level are unaffected so far.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

 
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Just clean it off with some brake parts cleaner.

The MLS gasket can trap oil between layers of steel if you dribbled, and can ooze if you did.
A moist stain isn't necessarily a leak.

See what happens later on after you clean it off a few times.

Make sure you aren't seeing wet carbon/soot or something from the exhaust ports leaking (headers).

Those circled ports are oil returns, there is no real pressurization there. They are open into the crankcase, top to bottom.
If you had a warped head, I'm reasonably sure you would still have a bigger problem with continued bubbling into the cooling system.



Other thoughts, since you mention torque:

Did you suck out/clean out the head bolt holes before you reassembled? Liquid standing in the bottom of the holes will stop the bolts before they can clamp the head down properly on the block. AND fracture the casting due to hydraulic pressure within the hole.
I use a suction pump (fluid extractor), brake cleaner, and an air gun with a long piece of brake line brazed on it.

Did you oil the threads and heads/washers of the head bolts before reassembly? (as per the shop manual) Not lubing also can lower the clamping force at a specific torque value.


HTH

 
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Good information. I really hope it's just trapped oil between the layers. Definitely not carbon/soot from the exhaust ports leaking.

Understand.

Nope. I hope this isn't my fatal mistake.

Fudge....I didn't do this.

Yes I did do this.

I guess time will tell. I'll keep cleaning the area with brake cleaner and see what happens. Fudge.....

 
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If you really didn't, this can cause the head to warp from uneven clamping. The liquid can literally keep the head bolt from going all the way down. You literally torqued against liquid in the hole instead of against the cylinder head.


You could pull each head bolt out one at a time and redo it. Retorque before moving to the next bolt.
Use a long straw and suction gun to pull liquids out of each hole, fab up a long blowgun.
Git bizzy before it is too late.


HTH





Side note: Would you be scared of this feature? http://imgur.com/gallery/MwJmX

 
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Will do. Thanks man.

Should I go through the untorquing sequence and undo all of them or literally just undo each one completely and then re-tighten to the 49 ft/lbs spec?

 
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If you try to loosen all at the same time, you break the seal.

I would do one at a time. I'd use an air impact, remove one, clean it out, reinstall and torque properly.

Then move to the next one.
This part I would probably do in a sequence though, like start in the center and work outward.

Make sense?

 
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Yes makes sense. I don't have an air impact.

 
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Done. I feel better.

My fab cleaning tools.



My 10 year old dirty cylinder head.

 
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Yay.

Looks damn clean in there.

 
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I hope it's indicative of how the rest of the engine looks.

Thanks, yet again, for all you're advice and information. I would have just gone and re-torqued the bolts if you hadn't recommended going back in and removing one bolt at a time to clean the holes.

Yay for you.

 
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don't worry, yer being a great customer to him, so he is venting (nicely )
and he enjoys seeing a guy actually doing the job well and asking the smart questions along the way, be them wrong or not :P (darn, ezone, yeh have a hefty more experience and forgot more than i will ever know...)

 
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You have been studying my style huh?
I have actually been making a conscious effort to stop being an azzhole to everyone at work, and everywhere else. Nobody at work has any idea what is going on. Everyone expects me to run my mouth......like I must be sick since I'm not doing it (as much, I still go off on rants at times).

Where have I heard this before?

 
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^nope, no need to study you, I am kinda like you

 
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Small update:

Just got around to doing a compression check finally. All four cylinders were identical with just being a tad under the 210 psi mark. Last time I did this I didn't wait until the needle actually stopped moving. I followed what ezone has said in the past and waited for the needle to stop. I had various readings before.

Anyway, yay, moving on now.

 
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This is why almost everyone that posts compression numbers on most modern engines (like 125PSI, 140, 160 etc.) looks sooooooooo wrong to me. I KNOW they should be a lot higher.

Exiting the test before a maximum reading is achieved completely invalidates the test and can lead to seriously wrong conclusions......if anyone can actually draw a conclusion using the readings in the first place.

 
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ezone, on a side note, I was thinking couldn't you use a compression test to looks for bubbles in rad to find an HG leak? This may have been mentioned before, but I was just thinking about when I was doing it. I'm thinking it's same as putting 170 psi shop air into the cylinder except you're just using the engine to create the pressure. If the leak was bad enough, you could have somebody crank while some one else looks for bubbles in the rad as you move from cylinder to cylinder.

Just a thought. If I'm off let me know please. If it works, it would be a great alternative for us DIYer's who don't have access to an air compressor.

 
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It CAN and DOES work, but it only works really good on really bad ones. Really bad, meaning there should be other obvious symptoms by the time this method would do any good......And at this point you only need to use the sparkplugs to cork the holes, not a compression tester. Hell, You don't even need all that....all you need is to see the coolant level change while cranking. The rest of the testing is pretty much just narrowing it down to a specific location.

This will not reveal 99% of the HG leaks on these engines because the leakage rate is very sloooow...... The combustion leak detectors from the parts stores can't even find most of these because they are so sloooow.

(Unless it overheated and warped the head. That makes leaks go a LOT faster.)

Even applying shop air pressure to these sometimes takes a lot of time to reveal a leak.


When I see the symptoms of a full reservoir and low radiator:
I really only have to stick the funnel-fill funnel in the radiator neck and let the engine run...I could powerbrake the engine for a few seconds at a time to increase cylinder pressure too....watch for bubbles to come through. I might stabilize engine temp by jumpering the radiator fan switch to ON, so the coolant level doesn't go up and down in the funnel.
The sight of bubbles proves to me there is a problem. There is only one place they can originate (as long as the water isn't boiling, hence the use of the radiator fan jumper).
THEN I will use shop air pressure because I want to KNOW which cylinder(s) has the problem.

If I can't prove a head gasket, then I'm looking for other things like a bad pressure cap or a suction leak between the radiator and reservoir. There has to be a reason for what I noticed.

HTH

 
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Good info as always.