shamilton1975

Hello All,

I have a 1992 Honda Civic 1.5 with 219k miles. I bought it a couple weeks ago cheap knowing that it needed a new head gasket.
I changed out the head gasket and everything seemed to be fine (running good, no more white smoke coming out of exhaust, hot air started coming from vents when heater on, wasn't overheating, etc).

This past weekend I decided to take it on a longer 70 mile drive (mostly all highway). It did just fine up until about 65 miles and then the temp gauge started going up then back down a few times before it stayed towards the top. I got off my exit and about a half mile later I heard a loud noise almost like a shotgun going off under my hood and the temp gauge dropped all the way down below C.

I pulled in to a gas station, shut the car off and popped the hood. The heater hose coming from the block had exploded and coolant was everywhere. I had a friend pick me up and took me to get a replacement hose and replaced the one that exploded.

The next day I started making the 70 mile trip back home. The temp gage is still not working for some reason so I stopped at many exits along the way to check on it (usually not more than 10 miles between exits). Each time the resevoir was bubbling and hot, the top and bottom hoses were stiff and hot and I was losing coolant from the somewhere on the bottom of the radiator. I just kept stopping letting it cool down and filling the radiator the whole way home as well as putting some stop leak in the radiator as well that I had left over from putting some in before the head gasket change. What should have been an hour drive ended up being close to 5 hours!

I know one of the obvious things I need to do is replace the radiator. Are there any other suggestions as to what may have caused this or what I should look for or check? What would make the temp gage quit working after the hose exploded? What could have made the hose explode like that after starting to overheat? What could make it start overheating like that after running fine for a bit after the head gasket fix?

Thanks in advance for any input any of y'all might have!

Shawn

FrostyEG

iTrader: (1)

As the cooling system heats up, the pressure increases. Too much pressure/heat and something is gonna blow! The temp sender for the gauge is under the distributor, perhaps the wire was pulled off during the events.

Anytime I hear from a seller, "All it needs is a new head gasket" I run away. That head was probably already warped by the previous owners overheating issues so that the replacement gasket is not really sealing the head. A pressure test should confirm/refute this.

If you want to keep the car and engine, a resurface on the head is probably going to be the next step, but these engines are easy to find and you could swap the head or whole engine for little effort, provided you have the tools and space.

redm3turbo

my money is also on warped heat-
pull head off- take to a machine shop.

shamilton1975

That was exactly the problem and I didnt even think of the little plug under the distributor. Thanks for the reminder.

Unfortunately though, when I replaced the head gasket there was some warping and I should have taken it to a machine shop but being a full time single dad of a 3 year old I just wanted a quick fix to be able to get around until I buy a new vehicle next month. Anyway, I've decided to start parting it out..........

Thanks again for your responses!