My brother owns a 95 accord lx, we recently had the heads rebuilt at a local machine shop, new guides, new retainers, new seals, all the usual, my brother also had the machine shop take .010" off the heads to raise compression a bit and make sure we had a nice gasket surface. Anyway while the head was off, we managed to clean all the carbon off the pistons and do the timing belt. Now everything was put back together and the car ran like a dream for like a month. Then the problems started, it started missfiring at startup and the plugs showed signed of coolant in the pistons. Then when we bled the cooling system we could never get rid of the air, then coolant loss came. Now the car would go over half the temp at times and it started wanting to overheat so we put it away. So all the symptons point to a blown headgasket. Anyone got any other clues? also we'd redo it again but we think the same thing will happen, so when we take it off we'll have it checked for cracks and have the machine shop check it for straightness should we look for something else? thanks.




Modified by slowcordreal at 5:57 PM 3/6/2006

 

edit: the head gasket brand was ROL, also how much do new head bolts run and from who?>

 

Are you getting white acrid smelling smoke from the exhaust? That's usually the indicator you've a blown head gasket. That and finding coolant in the crankcase.
When you attempted to purge the coolant system of air, did you use the bleeder bolt? On extremely reluctant cases, you sometimes have to raise the nose and let it purge out of the Radiator Cap opening.
A protracted Cooling system Pressure Test will bring the question to an end. Pressurize the system to 18psi and see how long it maintains that pressure. If it does so indefinitely, you're home scott-free. If it doesn't, either your garage floor is going to get wet, or you are going to fill your crankcase.
Where it ends up will determine where you have to start digging.

P

 

oh yeah, it got progressively worse, and yes there is white smoke with coolant odor coming out the tailpipe. Just about the only other test i haven't done is coolant system pressure test. But at this point im pretty sure its a blown headgasket, are ROL gaskets any good? also since i shaved te head .010" that raised compression as well as heat in the chamber right? could that have cause the head gasket to blow, like i said it ran awesome for about a month then problems started showing up one by one, and yes i did bleed it with the coolant bleed bolt behind the themostat housing. WHere can i buy new head bolts and get a better than stock quality head gasket?

 

I haven't hear anything one way or the other with regards to ROL Head gaskets.
Believe me, I'd love to say with certainty that it's a head Gasket related problem; but I've strong suspicions it's a cracked head. My reasoning?
The .010" shave job
I was taught long ago that if you found a warped Aluminum Head, it was garbage and was to be scrapped. Reasoning being possible hidden cracks.
The tough part about Aluminum is because it's non-ferrous, Magna-flux inspections will not work. You have to rely on a special dye.
Another thought being the .010 may have been enough to have weakened the Heads Deck Surface enough that the head subsequently cracked.
In either case, you've got to pull the head. Have it checked (thoroughly)

P

 

yes exactly what i was thinking had the head pulled, but we still can't seem to explain the whole reason behind why the headgasket blew. I was going to have the head inspected, and get new head bolts, a higher quality headgasket but my brother has decided he doesnt want to throw any more money at the engine, and according to him after selling it he wants to buy a toyota supra, oh well, something about the supra being faster. Anyways im still thinking what could've caused this to happen and with the gasket running in the sub 100 range, there is probably no turning back. Guess ill always have to wonder what an h22 accord could've been