i just bought a 1990 integra to play with and the engine overheats it also blows a good bit of white smoke while idling and driving. i think i need a headgasket-any ideas?

also, my heater only blows cold air-can the car overheating somehow affect the heat inside the car? just curious-any help is appreciated

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hb_guy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i just bought a 1990 integra to play with and the engine overheats it also blows a good bit of white smoke while idling and driving. i think i need a headgasket-any ideas?

also, my heater only blows cold air-can the car overheating somehow affect the heat inside the car? just curious-any help is appreciated </TD></TR></TABLE>

it is pointing towards a head gasket since your getting a good bit of white smoke.

heater only blowing cold air could be an air pocket, or the head gasket.

open the radiator cap and then start the car, if after all the air has been out and you are still getting bubbles that means your headgasket is bad because your pistons are creating compression in the cooling system.

if its only a slight crack in the headgasket, your car would stumble on startup from the coolant seeping through the crack and being in the combustion chamber while starting. however the constant compression would keep the coolant out while the car is on.

i would not drive the car, your going to overheat it, and possibly warp the head or damage something more.

 

IVI, pretty much said it all, although you might be able to drive very short distances (few miles) before it overheats as I did, but I would get going and do a head gasket ASAP. I did mine last April. Definitely have the head shaved as with overheating they usually warp a bit. One other thing you could check as far as coolant levels is to open the bleed valve just to make sure there isn't a air pocket in the coolant system. COntinue to check the coolant level until you get he head gasket job done. Good luck.

 

yea the car stumbles bad at startup-that is when it wants to start-sometimes it won't finish firing/turning over. so basically head gasket!! thank god-i was about to put in my old spare ls motor from my eg. any more comments or suggestions welcomed-thanks everyone!

doing a head gasket tomorrow! will let you know how it goes! thanks


Modified by hb_guy at 12:29 AM 12/6/2004

 

OK, you probably want to plane the head, but if you think you are lucky and you checked for level and it is fine, you might want to chance it without machining. I didn't do it on my Nova, and I already put on 50- 60 K miles with no problem. It is a judgement call and a comfort call, but if everything is in spec. and you clean the head well, you should be fine. Keep us posted!

 

update 11am.

just went outside and took off the valve cover to see how the head looked-not bad for 200k-i've had heads with 110k that looked like chit. well my coolant level was low, i still started the car and to my surprise no smoke/almost none compared to how it was when i bought it and drove it 3 miles from the guys house to mine. i started to add coolant and water while the car was running. the car started smoking out the exhaust and idling a little different. so definately a head gasket prob huh? let me know what you guys think. thanks

12:15pm
head is about to come off. no 1 is at tdc -up marks on the cam gears and pulley marks match up correctly. i have one concern though. inside the valve cover(above the cams) there was this thin film of like light brown ****-kinda liquid but a bit thick(seems oily but not as thick as oil). when i took the dizzy off a little bit of this stuff also leaked out a little bit. when i took the factory intake tube off the tb there was a littlle bit of this stuff in there too-not much there but it was still there though. WHAT is this stuff? should i worry/continue and do the job?

also, once i go to put the cams and cam caps back in do i just put the cams in the way they came out? with the marks up right? just checking. sorry if it's a dumb question i just don't wanna do the job right then bend the valves on startup.
thanks everyone..


Modified by hb_guy at 5:19 PM 12/6/2004

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hb_guy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">update 11am.

just went outside and took off the valve cover to see how the head looked-not bad for 200k-i've had heads with 110k that looked like chit. well my coolant level was low, i still started the car and to my surprise no smoke/almost none compared to how it was when i bought it and drove it 3 miles from the guys house to mine. i started to add coolant and water while the car was running. the car started smoking out the exhaust and idling a little different. so definately a head gasket prob huh? let me know what you guys think. thanks</TD></TR></TABLE>

This sounds like classic head gasket issue. Like I mentioned, I did an 1989 in April. When I took the gasket of I could see the leak on the cylinder 3. Before, I had no heat and it overheated in about 5-10 minutes of driving. Also, you see the wate rin th eoil when you looked at the dip stick. It is a whiteish,grayish color. Anyway, I decided not to take a chance since it had been overheating and I had the head machined when I did the job.. Good luck doing the work. Let us know how it turns out.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by chrisnova &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

This sounds like classic head gasket issue. Like I mentioned, I did an 1989 in April. When I took the gasket of I could see the leak on the cylinder 3. Before, I had no heat and it overheated in about 5-10 minutes of driving. Also, you see the wate rin th eoil when you looked at the dip stick. It is a whiteish,grayish color. Anyway, I decided not to take a chance since it had been overheating and I had the head machined when I did the job.. Good luck doing the work. Let us know how it turns out.</TD></TR></TABLE>

the car was not smoking when you started it because all the coolant had probably been depleted. once you added more the smoke began. i agree with chrisnova in saying this is a headgasket issue.

although one time i remember i had most of the signs of a bad headgasket, no heat, no coolant, overheating and it turned out that the radiator cap had a bad seal.

another way to check is open up the oil cap and look under it.

goodluck.

 

IVI, i just edited my post from 11am-check it out and let me know what that brown stuff is. also, what do i look for under the oil cap? my dipstick had water in it plus a spot of that brown stuff. let me know and thanks

 

)<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hb_guy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">yea the car stumbles bad at startup-that is when it wants to start-sometimes it won't finish firing/turning over. so basically head gasket!! thank god-i was about to put in my old spare ls motor from my eg. any more comments or suggestions welcomed-thanks everyone!

doing a head gasket tomorrow! will let you know how it goes! thanks


Modified by hb_guy at 12:29 AM 12/6/2004</TD></TR></TABLE>

The exact same thing happened to my DA just about a month ago.. the head gasket turned out to be blown from overheating (piece of **** 1-800 radiator ). But, I can tell you that the heater blowing cold air was likely a low coolant level. That could have also caused the head gasket failure. Who knows. Post up what you find when the head is pulled.

 

would it be possible to get some pictures of this?

under the oil cap look for a milky colorod substance the same whitish, grayish chris was referring to.

as far as the brown substance your having i believe its contaminated oil. drain the oil and see how the oil in your pan looks.

if you lined everything up at TDC thats how you would put it back.

 

take a look at this :

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1062140


its a very good write-up on doing a headgasket.

edit : also https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=810161

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hb_guy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">update 11am.

12:15pm
head is about to come off. no 1 is at tdc -up marks on the cam gears and pulley marks match up correctly. i have one concern though. inside the valve cover(above the cams) there was this thin film of like light brown ****-kinda liquid but a bit thick(seems oily but not as thick as oil). when i took the dizzy off a little bit of this stuff also leaked out a little bit. when i took the factory intake tube off the tb there was a littlle bit of this stuff in there too-not much there but it was still there though. WHAT is this stuff? should i worry/continue and do the job?

also, once i go to put the cams and cam caps back in do i just put the cams in the way they came out? with the marks up right? just checking. sorry if it's a dumb question i just don't wanna do the job right then bend the valves on startup.
thanks everyone..


Modified by hb_guy at 5:19 PM 12/6/2004</TD></TR></TABLE>

OK, good to see to have the cams perfectly aligned. MAke sure the lines on each cam allign exactly to one another. Recheck the crankshaft position too. OK, you pull the cams to remove your head bolts and then you put them back exactly as they came out. Be absolutely sure on the allignment of crankshaft, camshafts before slipping on the timing belt. Are you putting a new timing belt and water pump in?

The brown sludge is usually a mixture of oil, and coolant that sometimes contains rust. Normally the oil/coolant mixture looks grayish/whiteish though. You may hav e had some additional rust in the cooling system to add the extra browish sludge. I wouldn't worry about it too much as it is probably a result of the car sitting for an extended period of time before you bought it. You could give the guy a call and find out I guess if you are curious. Anyway, go for it and let us know how your pistons and cylinders look when you get the head free. Good luck!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by IVI &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

the car was not smoking when you started it because all the coolant had probably been depleted. once you added more the smoke began. i agree with chrisnova in saying this is a headgasket issue.

although one time i remember i had most of the signs of a bad headgasket, no heat, no coolant, overheating and it turned out that the radiator cap had a bad seal.

another way to check is open up the oil cap and look under it.

goodluck.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I agree with your first paragraph absolutely.

Regarding your second comment, I agree some symptoms can point to a radiator issue, but if you have things like billowing white smoke with a definite smell of coolant or bad compression readings with those symptoms, then it is normally a head gasket. I did mine in April and actually I had a bad head gasket AND a bad radiator. As the previous owner attempted to fix the head gasket problem he added a lot of liquid glass and destroyed the radiator, so in my situation I had both problems.

 

well the car had a new rad put in around the time of the overheating prob ehich supposedley started about or over 6 months ago, so that makes sense. i will be draining the oil and finally removing the head and taking it to the machine shop tomorrow morning. i will keep you guys posted. thanks again

 

So then probably a certain amount of rust coming from somewhere (probably the block) mixing with the oil and coolant to make that lovely brownish sludge you described. I believe I had some too but not as much as what you were saying. Mine sat for 6-12 months before I bought it too, but it was run on and off. Forgot to mention one other possibility. It could be the stop leak the guy might have added to seal the head gasket. In my case the color was pink and the stuff made a mess. Like I said, it clogged the radiator to the point of destruction. Good luck!

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hb_guy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">well the car had a new rad put in around the time of the overheating prob ehich supposedley started about or over 6 months ago, so that makes sense. i will be draining the oil and finally removing the head and taking it to the machine shop tomorrow morning. i will keep you guys posted. thanks again</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

well i now have a stripped head bolt so off to sears in the morning

keep you guys posted

 

If after all of this your heater is still not working, here is osmething to check.

The header *** is connected to a small wire that actually opens and closes the heater core. On my old 90 this wire came off the lever on the heater core. I had to search a while, and i finally found it by having my dad turn the *** and i looked for somehthing moving, well the wire moved but it was not connected. Connected the wire, crimped it down and the heater worked just fine after that.

Good luck with the head work!

 

That is a real drag about breaking the head bolt. I guess you are planning to drill and tap it out. Sears does have a good set of those. Of course the alternative is to completely drill it out and retap the the threads. The first option is preferred of course, assumming you can knock it out. You may wish to torch it in case the reason it snapped off is due to massive corrosion. I had a couple of the cam retainer bolts break on me, but it was because my torque wrench had the wrong setting.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Racermech &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If after all of this your heater is still not working, here is osmething to check.

The header *** is connected to a small wire that actually opens and closes the heater core. On my old 90 this wire came off the lever on the heater core. I had to search a while, and i finally found it by having my dad turn the *** and i looked for somehthing moving, well the wire moved but it was not connected. Connected the wire, crimped it down and the heater worked just fine after that.

Good luck with the head work! </TD></TR></TABLE>


I suspect this wire broke off on my 1989 Integra. Right now I justhave hot air blowing. At least it is winter time so it is not so bad. How hard is it to access this wire?

 

It was not bad. I think i had to remove the plastic bottom below the radio. Like i said I had my dad turn the *** untill i saw the wire move.

 

Thanks for the info.! I'll probably workon mine the next few weeks.

 

If u lose enough fluid ur car will blow cold air with the heater on... mine did that when the radiator started a slow leak.

 

well i am off to sears to get a set of easy outs. wish me lluck-i'll post later to let you know how it goes

 

OK, good luck!