It's leaking coolant and oil upon startup. Dealer says the gasket is going. They want $1000 at least to do the work.

Before anyone starts lecturing me on how I should do the work myself I want to know what's involved. What needs to be moved out of the way before you can get the head off? Intake obviously but what about the exhaust manifold? What else?

Thanks

 

its pretty straightforward, im sure you could find a DIY/Write-up on here if you looked for it.

 

Really? The dealer made it sound like it was a real pain in the ***.

One of my concerns is the age of the car. 20 years old. Most of those bolts are not gonna turn willingly and I don't have a torch. All I have is some PB blaster and elbow grease.

 

its pretty easy you have to unbolt the header, intake manifold bracket or intake manifold your choice, disconnect the gas line and return, distributor, disconnect some of the wiring plugs and the ground, and maybe a small hose or 2 but thats bout it

 

Easy? Easy is changing your oil. Easy is flushing your coolant system. Easy is changing a tire.

A head gasket is not easy. There's a reason mechanics want $500 absolute minimum to do this job.

Now is it easy compared to certain other things you can get into like completely pulling the engine and doing a full rebuild? Of course. But in no way is this an easy job compared to the million other things a person can end up having to fix on a car.

After going through this thing I found here I can see this is no piece of cake. And after having been in there for 20 years who knows. One bolt breaks and we could have to pull the engine entirely.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Head...1_Honda_Civic/

 

i saw a write up in the faqs section.


says dont remove the intake manifold, just header, valve cover dizzy, intake piping and all disconnect all necessary wiring

 

its not that hard at all! my friends dad did 2 in 1 day and it was the first time he worked on a honda

 

lol no way in hell this takes less than a day to do in my back yard on jack stands. I don't believe it. Just rebuilding the alternator on this car was a pain in the ***.

 

Just get a service manual (not that Haynes Chilton crud).
It walks you through step by step.
Make sure you have a torque wrench.
Also read up on removing the crank pulley - most likely it's going to give you problems and it makes it easier if you know how the different methods of removing it before you start.
There is also a nice post about removing headgasket material - very useful! Don't do it with a razor or paint scraper.

 

Where can you get a service manual for the car? I have a chiltons for it already..

I can't seem to find the writeup on this site, if it exists, for the job but I'll keep looking.

 

i promise it can be done in hours...... i have never timed myself taking a head off for my car but i have a d15b2 and i would say me by myself with no help, 3 hours to get it off

 

I bought mine years ago from the Honda dealership.
Helminc.com sells them too.

 

*torque wrench is a must.

do you have an air compressor/ impact? that would make light work of the crank pully.

 

If any of you think you can do it in 3 hours then you need to work for the honda dealership. They could use your help. And yes I'm being a smart ***.

I have a compressor but no impact wrench. I do have torque wrenches and a decent socket set along with some gearwrench ratchets.

If I can find someone to do the work for $500 or less I'll have it done. If not then I'm either gonna do it myself or drive the car until the motor dies.

 

Depending on how mechanically inclined you are most people here are on base.

If you don't know your way around a car already then it might not be the best idea, but if you have a good grasp of the fundamentals it is fairly straightforward. You will need a repair manual, and you will need to know the basics of engine timing and things of the like.

It is not as easy as changing a tire, but if you are patient and careful you shouldn't have too many problems.

Tips:
Don't loosen the tensioner just grunt and fart to pull the timing belt off the gear, it makes keeping everything in time a lot easier when reinstalling the timing belt.

Doing this you shouldn't need to take the lower timing cover off, and therefore don't need to remove the crank pulley bolt (thank god)

Clean all the old gasket off all the surfaces, head, intake ports, everything. A bit of material here will cause leaks and render the brand new gasket useless.

Clean the head bolt holes out (chase the threads) then blow them out with air. That way you know that the bolts aren't bottoming out on crud and torquing too early.


Go get your hands dirty and come post in this thread with any problems you encounter. We should be able to walk you through and save you some cash.

 

http://http://hondaswap.com/general-tech-articles/how-change-head-gasket-lots-pics-71528

If the pictures dont show up then register and it should work. Hope this helps.

 

If I do it I'll have help from someone with experience. I'm skeptical about this being as easy as some say because I've been bitten by the whole "Oh it'll only take a couple hours" deal with old cars before.

We're talking about a 20 year old car that's been leaking coolant. Who knows what's rusted in place and ready to break right off when we try to remove it.

My wife's truck needed a thermostat gasket. 15 minute job right? How does 20 hours worth of work sound? That's right a bolt head snapped off on me. A drill bit broke off next. Once we drilled the drill bit out of the hole, which took hours, then the damn extractor broke off. So we drilled that out. Hours later we tapped it. The tap broke. We drilled it out. Hours more. Luckily we had enough threads left to finally get the gasket on and secure the thermostat housing.

My point is this is an ancient car. Who knows what's gonna happen.

 

rofl at posting the link i gave you that you couldn't find

 

It's going to take longer to take the head to be resurfaced and cleaned than it will to bolt in back on. Use the proper tools and you'll be fine

 

dude, it's not really that easy.

I am doing it now and one thing that I am surprised no one mentioned is the need to deck the head. The head is aluminum and chances are, it's slightly warped. When you put the new gasket on, it could still leak.

Here is my blog that I started when I bought this car (with a blown head gasket)
http://91civicwagon.blogspot.com/

The biggest tip I can give you is to take your time. I am taking a little longer than I expected, but I also decided to have the valve cover powder coated and I had the head milled.

The basic things you'll need to do is:
disconnect plugs and clips (mark them so you know where they go)
remove Intake/Exhaust Manifold
disconnect vacuum lines
remove the under tray
remove valve cover
remove head
I had to take the timing chain and crank pulley off, but I am replacing the water pump too
Then there is all the cleaning, and spec'ing
Reassemble

So this is a light run through, but there really is a lot to it. Good luck, Use the manual first, then implement tips and techniques from the DIY threads.

 

in a perfact world it can be done in a few hours, thats if all the bolts come out fine, and you have no other problems. but id say youd have no problem at all getting it done in a weekend! its pretty straight forward. id buy a engine from the junkyard for a few hundred before id spend $1000 just to get headgasket replaced! but thats just me.

 

The engine block heater is rusted in place on this car btw. It's been in there 20 years. Who knows, maybe some coolant leaked down onto it and helped things along. But that is exactly the type of thing I'm afraid to run into when it comes to pulling the rest of this thing apart.

 

Even if a bolt breaks and all, it could be time to get a new engine. It is non sense to pay $500 when the only thing youll probably have trouble with is the timing if you are not mechanically inclined. Also you could buy another d15b2 for a fraction of what a mechanic will charge you. D15b2's are a dime a dozen and probably the most common d-series to find.

Ive never had a struggle to get a head off a car. I am currently doing a mini me swap. and ive read write ups and it can be done in just a few hours. with all the necessary parts and tools of course.

maybe its time to upgrade a few things while you get some extra dough.

 

Well I got another estimate. This guy blows the dealer out of the water.

For $1100 he would replace the head gasket, deck the head, replace the water pump, replace the timing belt, put new plugs in, and do the obligatory oil change/coolant flush.

 

That is still too much! buy all the parts yourself, get a torque wrench and follow the link provided. Save yourself the money and learn in the process.

Head resurfacing and a cleaning shouldn't run more than $40.
Timing belt should be another $40-50
Tensioner is about $30
Water pump is about another $45-50
Headgasket is another $55-65
Approx $250 dollars in parts if you decide not to change valve cover gasket and others miscellaneous ****.

$800 for labor??? You're out of your fvcking mind if you pay that much for this.