Hi all,

We changed the head gasket on our 92 civic LX, torqued it to spec per the manual. When all done, we started it up and it ran fine, except the TWS was bad and we had to replace it and also replaced the lost coolant.
Now when we start up the car thick white smoke comes out the exhaust and when rev'd, coolant gushes out. What could be causing this?

 

Headgasket. Do a compression test.

 

Also check intake manifold gasket.

 

Did you get the head milled? If not it may be warped and making the head gasket leak. Or you have a cracked head or block.

 

Ok here's the scoop. I had a hole in one of the exhaust runners, and coolant was leaking into the #4 cylinder.

I checked several local cylinder head repair shops and no one could weld or plug it. One shop did have a head with the identical stamping as mine, for $300. They hot tanked it, did a leak test, rebuilt it with new exhaust seals, reground and lapped the valves, and milled it. So now I have a question.

My engine has 80K miles on it. I don't know how many miles were on the rebuilt head. I looked at the cam in the rebuilt head and I can see what look like wear spots on the cams. So my question is:
Should I swap my original cam shaft and rocker arm assy's to the rebuilt head, so I at least know that the cam and lifters are smooth and have life in them yet?

 

That sounds like a good idea. That head might have been run with no/sludged oil at some point in the past. The cam bearing surfaces in the machine shop's head should also be examined.

 

Good point, I'll check the bearing surfaces.

I'm guessing that since I took out the original cam with the timing gear at TDC with the crank, I should be able to just drop it into the new head the same way and my timing will be correct.

UPDate: Got the engine back together and it fired right up. Still need to adjust the gap on the rockers but it sounds good.

Thanks for all the helpful input!

Ray