515k miles on the same engine.
I am the original owner
Need to replace the head gasket.

I over heated last year while on the freeway.
Car turned off while driving, towed it home and was able to restart the car without any problems.
I had been dealing with bad valve stem seals and was experiencing smoke at idle.
Drove this way for at least 3 years.

Car runs really good. I have only driven the car a few times and for no more than 10 miles round trip.
Car does not seem to over heat. Temp gauge stays at normal operating range.
Have not checked compression due to a cross threaded spark plug (#1). If I remove the spark plug i have a feeling that I'm not going to be able to get the spark plug to screw back on.

I drained the coolant after the over heating incident and the coolant came out dark, probably oil.
No noticeable coolant in the dip stick.

I have owned this car since new, purchased it in Oct of 1990.
The car has been a workhorse.

I want to give this car another chance but need advice from those guys that know these engines.

How can I find out to what extent was the head gasket damaged?
The car has some real strong power. There is no hesitation or rough running. The engine runs and idles smooth.

I have no experience replacing a head gasket so I thought that it would be a good opportunity to give it a shot. Nothing to lose.

I don't want to replace the engine with a used one and I don't want to get the head rebuilt. Too much money and the with what I've been told, the higher compression from the rebuilt head might just blow the bottom end.

I also don't want to continue driving the car to test the power or to see if it will over heat again. Maybe this is the time to just do a head gasket change and go from there.

For those who have driven these 3 door hatch backs will understand that its not easy to give up on them.

This car is now a project car.
It is no longer my daily driver and would like some advice. Yes, same engine, 515k miles

Any advice or recommendations is greatly appreciated

 

Unless you are blowing out white smoke, you are probably alright.

The only thing to do is pressure test the cooling system since you don't want to roll around in the car.
This will show if you have any leaks in the system. It could even tell you why your car overheated in the first place.
Perhaps a tiny leak in the radiator from an accident, that happened to me once. It only leaked when the system was pressurized.

Otherwise, you could check the coolant for signs of combustion gases (which requires turning on your car).
The cheapest way is just to smell it but there is some detector dye which changes color at the auto parts store.

Good luck.

 

How much driving does it take before the white smoke begins to come out of the tail pipe?

I do remember a driver honking at me prior to my car shutting off on the freeway. This makes me think that there was white smoke shooting out of the tail pipe.

No maple syrup or sweet odors at all.

 

White smoke usually appears once the car is warmed up, the heat pressurizes the coolant and it finds the path of least resistance which will be the overflow tank (normal car) or a leak somewhere in the system.
With the heater in the cold position, it should take less than 5 minutes of driving to warm up the car since it is almost summer time.

Look for signs of dried up coolant in and under the engine bay, it should be fairly obvious as you would see white residue and that will point you in the direction of any leaks.

I wouldn't look into the honking driver too much, it could have been over anything.
Driving on the highway, you might not notice the smoke as much since you are going at a higher speed but if you are driving around the neighborhood, you can't miss the white cloud behind you.

 

A head gasket job on these old cars is a tough DIY. The old fiber head gasket will be quite petrified, and extremely difficult to scrape off. Even the paper intake manifold gasket had to be sanded off the intake manifold. I did this job on mine 2 years ago and it took me a month just to scrub the block surface clean with aircraft paint stripper (to my ridiculous standards). During re-assembly, I used the updated head bolts and 1996+ 3-layer metal headgasket for a tiny bump in compression (now I run 89 octane).

Send the head off to get resurfaced. They will possibly try to sell you on a valve job and re-sleeving the exhaust valve guides. I think it all cost me $300 locally. I called a local performance shop to find out who they use for their head work.

Disassembling these old parts is quite difficult. Prepare to have broken exhaust studs in random places. Heat exhaust nuts with a propane torch if you can reach them with it. Separating the cam caps, and separating the head from the block is quite tough. I also had a tough time removing the old dowl pins in the block. Had to borrow a bearing puller from Autozone, but it worked! Also you can cut grooves into an old head bolt and chase/clean the head bolt holes. This ensures torquing of the new head-bolts goes smoothly.

This was on a desert-life car with zero rust.

 

No visible coolant leaks to be found.
I will pressure test the cooling system

 

I don't mind parking the car in the garage for an extended time period.
Want to get my hands on a shop manual to follow the steps on removing the head.
I do have a Haynes Manual in the garage.

I have nothing to lose and want to just try to do the work myself and see where it takes me.
I'm going to try to find a local shop that can mill the head.

Questions:
Is resurfacing the head always required when blowing a head gasket?
What about the surface that the head will rest on? Doesn't that surface also get warped or damaged? How do you resurface that?
Is this a good time to replace the valve stem seals and other seals that were causing smoke out of the tail pipe and causing motor oil to get to my spark plugs?

Can't I just replace the gasket and the seals and go from there?

 

You can buy the Bisko CDrom on RockAuto for only $22 + shipping. This is the OEM shop manual, and it's searchable in Adobe acrobat reader. Best deal by far.

1991 HONDA CIVIC 1.6L L4 Repair Manual | RockAuto

 

Resurfacing the head is only "required" when the head is warped. The problem I ran into was that it was 100x easier (your time is worth money too) to simply resurface the head instead of scrapping off that damn fiber head gasket crap. It's also cheap.

The block should be fine. It's an open deck design and doesn't warp....just scrape it clean with plastic tools and aircraft paint stripper. If you wanted to resurface the block, you are looking at a total engine rebuild. The bottom end of the engine is very expensive to rebuild properly.

Yes always do the valve stem seals. They are cheap and easy to replace. You could even do them with the head still in the car (but it's tricky). Since you want the head milled, you will have to fully disassemble it anyways (remove entire valvetrain) which means ALL seals have to replaced.

 

Also if you overheated the engine to the point of turning off there is a chance you may have cracked the head. Taking it the the machine shop and having it checked before they mill it can save you a lot of heart-ache down the road. Its almost impossible to detect small cracks with the naked eye.

 

If you're not losing coolant, consider yourself lucky and just keep driving. Clearly leaked oil into your coolant before if it came out dark, but if you're not overhearing now, your engine is fine, just old.

It's obvious if you're smoking out the tail pipe, you won't need anyone telling you.

I don't consider rebuilding the head preventative maintenance. Just keep driving until it really craps out on you again. And then get the gaskets replaced and seals done.

​​​​​​

 

How much should it cost to replace a head gasket?