I just did a rebuild and upon first start up I didnt see much smoke but after a few seconds I felt as if a smoke bomb had been thrown behind my car. As I started it in the garage I couldnt see the ground upon exiting the car. It was very thick. I tried for another go just to see if it was something that needed to be burned off which after taking apart the whole engine I presumed a few minutes would work. I left it running a bit more this time and I started to notice smoke coming from under the hood. Now of course a crack in the block would be a jump to but I did not notice a crack and prior to the tear down and rebuild I did realize my flex pipe was holding on for dear life as everytime I put a decent load on the engine the cabin would fill up with a lovely unmistakable cloud of exhaust fumes. I did inspect the block quite a bit and never noticed a crack and nothing leaks while parked... (except one thing noticed after all of this, i'll get to that) Now with all of the white smoke I remember to check my oil to see if it has been contaminated. Now I did all of this to replace the headgasket/pistonrings/conrod bearings/ various gasket. Before I did all of this my oil was fine. no mixture what so ever and there was smoke however it was all from that flexpipe and since it wasnt going through the cat it was some real knock out stuff. After the change my oil looks like some grade F chocolate milk. I see no signs of leaks on the out engine except.... After all of this I noticed I have transmission fluid leaking from multiple areas (I think) alot the crack that mates with the flex plate. It isnt a large leak and it only occurs when I try to start or run the engine and I'd guess its just maybe a table spoon of liquid every 30-40 seconds if that. It was however not showing any signs of leaking prior to this, I am perplexed on what caused this as I did not touch anything to opposite to the flexplate except the torque converter underneath the car. (That may be te actual issue now that I remember correctly. I did knowingly replace a few bolts in holes that fit width ways but could tell it was not the correct length...) assuming it mates through the converter housing through te flex plate and to thhe transmission housing though.... Either way one step at a time.

Summary.... Changed headgasket which caused an unusual amount of white smoke. I did not change headbolts I did not resurface cylinder head. I did however quickly run a feeler gauge with a straight edge that probably wasnt the best but from waht I tried it passed .002 not allowing through passage but slipped under a little bit. My oil is contaminated which is a new issue happening after install. smoke does not seem to yield much and especially not when applying load. no visable leaking coming from the block/cylinder nor the timing belt area. Basically nothing at all leaking aside from the transmission issue... Changed blown hoses. have not compression test or any test or thhat matter due to not knowing if it was even worth while with obvious coolant?


I ultimately want to make sure the head is not cracked without having to take it to a machine ship and pay a 3rd of what it would cost to buy a whole used motor

 

If you have chocolate milk, you have oil in the coolant. From your description of the smoke bomb it sounds like the gasket blew again and now you have leaks everywhere. I don't know enough about these bolts, but in any case there are multiple rounds to tighten them. If they are torque to yield, it's like this:
(these are not the correct numbers for your car, just an example of what I am talking about).
Step 1.....29 ft-lbs
Step 2.....Tighten an additional 90-degrees
Step 3.....Tighten an additional 90-degrees
Step 4.....Tighten an additional 90-degrees

if they are not, then it's like

Step 1.....29 ft-lbs
Step 2.....50lbs
Step 3.....90lbs

and there is usually a specific order to the tightening process.

Did you follow this?

Good luck.

 

I did follow the torque specs I didn't do the additional 90degrees is that for both descriptions? You got the lbs basically spot on 29/51/92 I think? My torque wrench may be out of spec I have dropped it and it's in inch lbs and sort of hard to read. I'm going to retry once I get a new gasket. Went cheap and bought a Amazon graphite. It was obviously destroyed upon taking the head back off. I resurfaced the head this time around with multiple sand paper passes with different grits. It was a little off but my straight edge was off a bit to. Either way it's smooth and imperfections are cleared. Going to get a MLS with new bolts and try it out again. I replaced hoses that were worn and sealed up the thermostat housing.. one day at a time. Just stoked I was able to get it started after seizing it and a first attempt on a rebuild with no knowledge of the process aside from this forum and you tube. Thanks again

 

Okay...first off....you're torque wrench is in inches-lbs? I have a hard time believing you're torque wrench goes high enough to torque down your head bolts seeing as 90ft-lbs is 1080 inch-lbs. Does your wrench read that high? Secondly, anything short of a precision machinists straight edge is pretty much worthless for reading head warpage. A warped head is past spec at .05 millimeters. That's super tiny and any regular straight edge (ruler) is going to have more distortion than that. So you did effectively nothing when you tried to measure for warpage. And last, I don't know about sanding down your cylinder head to resurface it, but that does not seem like a very accurate way of flattening it out. Doing a head gasket job takes a lot of attention to detail and doing things the "right way". I'm sure there's other stuff that you didn't even mention in your post that was also bad work. Get a copy of the service manual (not a haynes), a precision straight edge, and re-do it the right way.

 

I have to agree with the above. Without precise measuring , you would not be able to see a warped or uneven head or block.