nus_dogg

Ok, my bro drives a '96 Civic EX Sedan 5spd; D16Y8. So today the car overheated on him and he told me that it did that to him couple of times before too where it hits the red mark on his temp gauge. So today, he called me and said that there's no heat at all now, and it did have heat before. So I asked him if there's coolant in the radiator and he says yes, in the resevoir but I told him to fill the radiator up if it's empty, because coolant is what carries the heat through the heater core and radiator known as a heat exchanger.

So I have him bring the car by the shop. I did an oil change and topped the coolant off for him; both the coolant resevoir and the radiator. While I have the radiator cap off and radiator full, I want to see if the coolant's gonna get pushed out by cylinder pressure when I start the car and sure enough, it did with the cap off. So this tells me that the headgasket did blow. Anybody have any experience like this in the past?

My dad's '94 Accord EX(F22B1) blew a headgasket and it did pushed out the coolant too just like my bro's Civic with the rad cap off. After I replaced the headgasket on the F22B1, it didn't do that anymore. And the coolant is very calm with the cap off where you won't see each cyl fire which will cause the coolant to be all wavy and sh*t.

94EG8

Yep, blown headgasket.

nus_dogg

Dang it. Now another thing to do. I won't touch it til Spring is here cause it's way too cold.

Texas4door

Well, the good news is those things are EASY to replace
^^
Hardest part is keeping your parts organized and torquing everything down correctly.

May wanna do a couple other things at the same time:
Replace Timing belt and water pump and timing belt tensioner, and since the car is getting up there in miles, I'd do the oil pump/front main seal as well, since it'll all be apart to get to anyways.

You CAN do a head gasket without removing the timing belt by simply slipping it off the cam, but you'll still have to make sure the tension is set correctly when you put it back on the cam.

And MAKE SURE to have the head checked out by a machine shop to check for level and what not...heck, might wanna do the valve stem seals and have the seats checked/reground while you have the head off anyways ^^

It's all up to you and your bro!
Good luck!

nus_dogg

Yes, they're cake to do. I'm a neat freak when it comes to organizing my parts, so I can put them back in the right order. It's a good habit. I have acess to All Data for torque specs & sequences, so no biggie. Timing the engine to it's precise markings is not a problem for me as I've done it on couple F22s and H22. Also, totally will have to replace the t-belt, water pump, and t-stat while it's all part but weather at this time of the year sucks.

We'll see for other things that may need to be done.