I'm pretty sure I have a blown head gasket.
I got white smoke out the exhaust and antifreeze is dissapearing from the radiator.
I got a puddle of oil on the ground which seems VERY wattery. (oil n water,duh)

Antifreeze is still green on radiator and reservoir. Oil was just changed, but now it's wattery. So does $500 bucks seem like a resonable price? I was told about $80 for headgasket and $350 for labor. Plus I'm guessing tax. What else should be done while the head is out?? Timing belt and all related maintance??

Thanks all.

 

If you are able to deal with a turbo Prelude you should be able to do the head gasket yourself. It's not very hard really. Definately do the timing belt and water pump if they are old. You may also need various other little gaskets like and IM and throttle body gasket if they come apart.

I have been quoted $350 before, though...

 

If you tear it apart that much you might as well do everything you can reach imo. Especially if things are old. I just had my water pump go and I ended up doing all of this.. lol.

- front/rear mains
- IM gasket
- cam seals
- timing belt
- water pump
- both accessory belts
- exhaust gasket
- balancer shaft belts
- manual tensioner conversion
- valve cover gasket set
- balance shaft seal
- oil drive / pump seal
- ex mani gasket
- oil pan gasket ( I need this, you prolly won't...)


I did all the work over a weekend, and it didn't total up to too much $...

 

when replacing the head gasket how can you tell if machine work on the deck or head is needed?

 

if you have the head off, then you should take it to a machine shop and get it resurfaced.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by carnot &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">when replacing the head gasket how can you tell if machine work on the deck or head is needed? </TD></TR></TABLE>

The best way is not to risk it. Take the cylinder head to a machine shop,
have then pressure test it and resurface it. It shouldn't be more that $80