1990 civic ex with 209k
bought from old lady, car was very well taken care of.

lady said that it needed a head gasket, i could drive it home but it overheated and used oil. i had it towed to my house the other day and this is what i found when i looked at it today finally.

i pulled the plugs and the two center plugs were really dark(black-charcoal almost). i looked into the center holes and the piston tops were the same-dark black and kinda sludge looking. the two outer plugs were worn but not as bad, the piston tops in the outer plug holes(cylinders 1 and 4, were not black and shitty looking like the others.

i put the plugs back in and started the car up and let it run for a while(like 20 mins), and it did not over heat, but there was an antifreeze smell and very slight smoke(barely noticeable) coming from the head/block area, but nothing out the exhaust and no weird noises.

Is this my headgasket? i am going to do a compression test tomorrow and a leakdown if i can borrow one. there was also oil sludge buildup on the block where the engine code is stamped, pretty thick. not too sure what to think, so once again i am turning to honda tech for some direction.

 

it sounds like the head gasket..i would change it anyways...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by kulangot &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">it sounds like the head gasket..i would change it anyways...</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

UPDATE: fans work, does not overheat sitting at idle, let it run today for almost an hour.

i do notice a very light ticking noise coming from the distributor area-it is not my valves-it is coming from or around the area near the distributor-right by it or in it. any ideas to this? just curious, doesn't seem to be a prob but concerned nonetheless-head is coming off tomorrow!

 

cracked dist. cap

 

dizzy bearing could be going bad...mine went after 139k miles and god did it sound horrible...take the cap off and check it out and see if you have any play in the dizzy shaft

 

will do later

 

UPDATE AGAIN:
did compression test today and these were the results ( 191, 184, 179, 185) respectively. i forget if they are supposed to be within 5 or 10% of each other, i forget. should i still do the headgasket?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 91CivicHatchback &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">dizzy bearing could be going bad...mine went after 139k miles and god did it sound horrible...take the cap off and check it out and see if you have any play in the dizzy shaft</TD></TR></TABLE>

red dust inside the distributor and an extremely hot distributor housing also indicate a failing dizzy bearing.

 

if the car sat for a while the distributor might be going.. i made the mistake of going to a junkyard and getting a distributor that had to have been sitting for a long time, and my car ran great for a week until the bearing seized.

 

thanks for the info on the dizzy but what do you guys think about the compresion numbers? i have searched and read mad topics but i still would like some feedback-makes me sleep better

 

your compression numbers are pretty consistent. if your headgasket was blown, you would see very low numbers on one or more cylinders. i wouldnt be too worried about it. basically i would say that a head gasket is not your problem. either way, if you drive it and your head gasket is about to go, it will if you drive it enough. i would look more into your distributor first.. but.. i tend not to replace parts until they visibly fail or i know they are soon.. the distributor may not be something to wait on though. if you have any signs that your distributor is going bad, then get a new one.

 

well the car overheats when it drives, spark plugs look like ****, and i have some oil on the porcelain part of the plug in cylinder 2 and 3. plus the person i bought it fromsaid it was using oil. i haven't personally seen this but why not the head gasket?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by sanimalp &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">your compression numbers are pretty consistent. if your headgasket was blown, you would see very low numbers on one or more cylinders. i wouldnt be too worried about it. basically i would say that a head gasket is not your problem. either way, if you drive it and your head gasket is about to go, it will if you drive it enough. i would look more into your distributor first.. but.. i tend not to replace parts until they visibly fail or i know they are soon.. the distributor may not be something to wait on though. if you have any signs that your distributor is going bad, then get a new one. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Actually, you CAN get decent compression numbers with a blown head gasket if the leak is small. And such a small leak may be sufficient to cause overheating.

 

hey...did you check the distributor yet...it seems like youre ignoring the distributor advice...you keep talking about your compression check and not the distributor....so go check it for shaft play and whatever other advice was given and come back with the results and we could help you figure out your problem!

 

Given the age/mileage, I wouldn't put a lot of money into that engine. Today its the headgasket, 3 months from now its a bearing and by next spring it going to need a valve job etc etc.

If I were just looking at keeping the car running, I would be looking for a sohc zc as a cheap replacement. For $500 you get a sub 100k engine with 10 more hp.

 

well my dizzy seems fine, just checked it out. prob just my injectors.

as far as the motor you guys are right, i am just going to pull the motor this weekend and swap in my 72,000 mile z6 that my girl bought for her car-she ran out of money , keep you guys posted as i am also going to begin the 5 speed swap this weekend. interior is already apart, cruise is out. sunday i will pull the rest and prep it for the z6 for the following weekend. thanks