GSRMatt

I'm having all kinds of trouble with my 99 accord 4cyl 5spd (101k miles). About a month ago I arrived at work, shut the car down, and heard the radiator bubbling. Turned the ignition back on and the temp gauge was pegged. I haven't watched the temp gauge in this car at all, it should be (and has been) stone reliable, and I got out of the habit of glancing down all the time.

So I opened the overflow cap and there was dark brown and thick liquid inside. Under the oil cap in the valve cover the oil looked maybe a bit milky, but not very bad. Brought it to one mechanic for reference and he told me what I thought already - probably a blown headgasket, won't know damage until you take it apart.

After his quote was way high, and I learned that I had access to borrow a car for a couple weeks, I took on the job myself. Ran a compression test (with the car somewhat hot) and it was something like 160-160-171-180. Now my compression tester is old and has been somewhat flaky, but this at least says that I have some trouble with #1 and #2.

I needed to do a timing belt & water pump job anyways, so I got all those parts and found a head gasket kit a few dealers away. None of the parts guys stocked head gaskets, and had never heard of one going bad on this engine.

When I got everything apart, I took the head to a machine shop. They checked for cracks (none) and shaved .007" to get it back to flat. Also had the injectors cleaned, all flowed 58-61 cc/min, and one had a bad flow pattern. After cleaning they all flowed 70 cc/min. So I figured maybe one cylinder was running lean, detonated, and blew the gasket. There was zero evidence on the gasket that anything was wrong however. There was a bunch of carbon on the pistons which I cleaned off.

Other than the main pulley bolt, which is a royal pain in the ***, the job went rather smoothly. Got everything back together in about a week and a half between chasing parts and tools that I needed. Cold compression was 120 psi on all cylinders. The slight ping that I had before under heavy load at around 3500 rpm was gone, even on 87 fuel which I couldn't run before without the ping.

Drove the car for about two weeks. After the first week I noticed the coolant (had only replaced with straight water) was a bit milky again, and I figured I hadn't done a very thorough job of flushing the system. Also got an intermittent check engine light for the oxygen sensor. Cleaned it and it went away for a while, then came back. Made plans to order a replacement but hadn't got to it yet. Put about 1000 miles on the car including a road trip.

Then last night it overheated again, but I caught it before it got real bad. The coolant water now looks like capuccino again. Compression test (on the same flaky tester) is 140-140-142-148. Also the oil is pretty low, had changed it after doing the last job so I know it started full. One other thing I noticed is that one fan on the radiator never seems to come on (driver's right). The other (left) comes on whenever the a/c is turned on. This probably doesn't make any difference in normal driving, would for stop and go or aggressive slow speed, but i don't do much of either.

So now I'm stuck where I was a month ago, out $600 in parts and a bunch of my time, and work is too busy for me to do anything about it myself. Somehow oil is getting into my coolant and eventually causing an overheat.

Possible causes:
-block/sleeves arent flat, allowing a head gasket leak
-internal block crack
-internal head crack that wasn't caught at the machine shop
-some other location where oil can leak into water
-any others???

I have no idea how oil can get into water other than at the head gasket interface. I cleaned everything real well, and I know the head was flat. Was careful with my torque sequence, and used new honda genuine parts everywhere.

My options are limited, but at least I'm able to borrow a car again in the mean time. The dealer is probably going to give me the run-around and charge me a ton of money to fix it, but I'll call anyways to see if I can dig any info out of a service manager. I don't know any local reputable honda/japanese car mechanics. Unless anyone can offer a reason how oil can get into my water other than the head gasket, and find a fault in my job on the first replacement, I'm tempted to find a used engine and have a shop replace the whole thing.

I haven't found any other info about accords with similar trouble. Other than a shop doing the headgasket job over again I have no idea where to go with fixing the current engine.

Any info or a lead to a shop in South Florida / Treasure Coast is greatly appreciated.

Matt


Modified by GSRMatt at 1:55 PM 8/2/2004

GZERO

sounds like one of those problems in which you have to start to check everything.
Now, you mentioned the fan never coming on, when the AC is on both should be blowing, maybe you have one bad fan and the car ran hotter than usual and you blew the head gasket again? that could be one reason. But if i have to take a shoot, sounds like either your block or head have a crack somewhere.

When the problem first started how long do you think you drove with the car overheated? also, did you checked your temp after the head gasket change?

BTW: you should use coolant.

GSRMatt

The car always sits at about 1/3 on the temp gauge (no numbers on it). It ran there for the two weeks after the head gasket until it overheated, when it got to about 3/4 on the gauge.

I'm pretty sure the cause of the overheats is oil getting into the water and decreasing the effectiveness of the cooling system. Obviously I didn't cure the oil into water problem the first time.

Ran only water so I could flush it a couple times after the first job, just got busy and never did it.

The first overheat was a short trip, the car would have only been up to normal temp for a couple minutes. Second time I caught it as it was happening.

jweller

there is an issue with these blocks developing cracks in them, although everyone I've seen or heard of has developed the crack between the water jacket and where the oil is pumped up to the head. oil pressure keeps water out of the oil typically, but makes the soupy mess of your coolant. yours is obviously different, but I'd definately have the block presssure tested before you spent any more time dealing with it. I understand that they can hook a compressed air line up to where your oil filter screws on and do some sort of "leakdown" test from there, but I don't know a whole lot about the test.

I replaced 2 headgaskets and a head chasing this around and in the end, replaced the motor. used f23s can be found for like $350. If you can do teh work yourself, it's almost better to just replace the engine than to EVER replace the headgasket


the drivers side fan should always be on, but if you don't sit in traffic, it's not too big of a deal. the other fan is on a thermo switch that should turn it on when the coolant gets to about 200 degs and it turns on with the A/C


good luck

GSRMatt

How many of these have you seen/heard of?

Didn't see any cracks in the block but I didn't look particularly hard for one other than on the head mating surface.

$350 for a shortblock, longblock, or entire engine?

jweller

how many?

mine
one person I talked to on here
one over on honduh.com that is dealing with it as we speak -not yet confirmed, but sure as hell looks that way

and a report from a honda tech that I spoke to on this board that said that he had seen a "few" of them, but "not as many as he had seen with the auto tranny problem"


I never saw any visible cracks in my block either, but didn't know what I should have been looking for until after the motor was gone.

$350 + shipping for an entire motor if you watch ebay. or try http://www.car-part.com. there are like 30 pages of f23s that come up. theres like one parts yard in ohio that has a shitload of them for right around 3 - 350. never called so I'm not sure if it's a longblock or an entire motor. shortblock might be cheaper and that would be all you need, but pulling the whole motor is soooo much easier.

GSRMatt

Re-read my title, should be "oil in water". I think my oil is actually pretty clean.

Did you ever race your car? Is it modified?

Mine is bone stock, never really been driven hard, but I do tow a small boat with it occasionally. Only on flat land and usually for short distances. The engine should hold up to that.

Definitely need to check on that fan that doesn't come on, and replace my O2 sensor to get rid of the CEL.

Now I'm off looking for engines and a shop to do the swap. Wish I hadn't put the time and money into the headgasket/waterpump/timing belt at this point, but thats bygones now.

jweller

modified with bolt-ons. I won't say I never raced it, but I never did anything stupid with it. nothing it shouldn't have held up to.