Hello, thanks for having this forum.

My 2000 Honda Civic hatchback is leaking water directly from the engine. I limped it home yesterday by adding water about every 5 miles.

It was leaking less water last week and I added a half bottle (per directions for small engines) of Barr's Leak head gasket fix. and it immediately stopped leaking. I drove it around town for a few days and the symptom was gone. I needed to make a 50 mile trip to a neighboring town and it made it there without incident. On the way back however, after about 15 miles, it began to overheat. I pulled over and waited for the engine to cool down and added the second half of the Barr's leaks and topped off with water. Repeated overheating and adding water about 6-7 times and finally got home. During this adventure, it developed a new advanced symptom. Water began streaming out of a space between the distributor and engine. Naturally the interval between stop, cooling and adding water became smaller. It also seemed to show tiny bubbles coming out of the engine where the head gasket is.

What are my options at this point up to and including selling as-is?

Thanks for any and all help.

 

If the body and interior are in good condition, you could sell it as is and still easily get $5K+ for it, especially if it's a manual transmission car.

To fix this you're going to be looking at resurfacing the head, and a new head gasket at a minimum. You should also check to make sure the block deck is still straight, and based on what you said about the head I'd want that pressure checked as well unless there's an obvious answer for why you sprang another leak by the distributor. I'm not sure if you may have done some damage with that stop-leak stuff.

 

Hi Chance EG, thanks for the quick reply. I watched a YouTube on replacing the headgasket and I think I could do it. I've never done a project like this, but I have some skills and most of the proper tools except for a good click style torque wrench, which I would need to acquire. The presenter admitted that it was a cheap and dirty fix, but the head was reasonably straight as measured with a high quality straight edge. He said that if there is no more than .0004" deviation, a new gasket may be enough to fix it. I'm willing to give it a try and if the head isn't flat, I've got a friend with an automotive machine shop who would help. (He's 1000 miles away so there would be some shipping involved but I trust him and have been in this town only a short period of time so I don't know anyone here yet.)

If anyone knows of a good trustworthy machinist in Muskogee, Please PM me.

 

I have had my fair share of overheating issues so let me tell you what I have experienced.
I have a 98 ek hatch. The first time it overheated, it was leaking from the engine. I couldn't drive 5 miles without overheating. Stopping every few minutes because I'm overheating. I had about 5 jugs of water that day in the car. I even had to stop and refill the jugs. I know your pain. I found out it was leaking from the pee hole in the water pump. That means the pump was bad. I changed the pump, timing belt and head gasket.

​​​​​​The second time it was on the thermostat housing. The previous own used water and it ate through the housing.

Third time, the fan stopped working and I add to wire it straight until I got a new fan switch.

And now, I am still overheating if I go above 40km/h up any hills or above 80km/h for too long. My problem now is due to a bad transmission. I have delayed shifting, slipping, losing power completely on hills, I have to keep shifting from 2 to 3 manually to get any power and it's not down shifting. If I dear go into neutral and back to drive going down a hill it grinds and scares the crap out of me. Lol. I am about to do a auto to manual swap so that will soon be over.

Anyways. The overheating can cause oil to leak and bubbles coming from near the distributor or the valve cover. The water port in the intake manifold that's near the distributor could be streaming. There is a possibility the head gasket is blown on the outer rim. Using a stop leak can be a temporary fix for small leaks but it won't hold for bigger leaks.

Once you're changing the head gasket, go ahead and change the water pump just to be sure.

Anyways that's my story. Hope it helps.

 

The cost of shipping the head there and back would likely be the same if not more than getting the head resurfaced locally. I agree with the note above about taking this opportunity to replace the water pump as well, it's a cheap part and this will be a good time to do it with the head off.

Good luck with the repair! Pressurize the coolant system and check for leaks.

 

Thank you all for the support and encouragement, but I have sold the car to born again Honda enthusiast and he is excited to buy it as-is. Best regards, Jim

 

That's probably the best both for you and him. If your car's exterior and interior were in good condition, and if it was close to stock, then it's still a fantastic Civic for us enthusiasts.

 

Yes, it is well for all. The car is almost pristeen inside and out. I just had a fantastic paint job in November and with 144,000 original miles the interior is way better than average. The buyer is a busboy at one of our favorite resturants and he spotted it in the parking lot during our last visit to the establishment. He approached my wife and she thought he was "cute". The car is my wife's car so I'm staying out of the price negotiations, but in my opinion she gave it away. She just bought a 2014 yellow Beetle with 16,000 miles on it from Carvanna (paid way too much IMHO), and she is delerious thinking its "cute". It came rolling out of the "vending machine" and she nearly peed her pants. I can't call it mid-life crisis because she had that over 20 years ago. Go figger!!!

Thanks again, Jim

 

The best laid plans of mice and men... The prospective buyer backed out at the last minute. My wife and I had the title in hand ready to sign and he said WAIT!!!
After all that, I decided to install a new head gasket. I found a good YouTube on the subject and got into it. I should have given it a pressure test, because while dis assembling the engine I discovered a hole in the heater hose. That was the source of the stream of water coming from behind the distributor. I made an executive decision to continue the job anyway and now have a pristeen old head gasket in my hands. I have bought a complete set of hoses just to be safe. I'm about to begin re-assembling at this point and may well have it done tomorrow. Actually I started Sunday but over torqued a head bolt and have now installed a HeliCoil and am ready to start again. My torque wrench seemed to be working well. 9 out of 10 head bolts torqued up excellently but this one never clicked like the other nine. Oh well...

I'll let y'all know how it goes this time.

BTW, my wife and I have decided to keep the car as a spare vehicle so that was part of my decision to put in the new head gasket and replace all cooling system hoses.

 

The best laid plans of mice and men... The prospective buyer backed out at the last minute. My wife and I had the title in hand ready to sign and he said WAIT!!!
After all that, I decided to install a new head gasket. I found a good YouTube on the subject and got into it. I should have given it a pressure test, because while dis assembling the engine I discovered a hole in the heater hose. That was the source of the stream of water coming from behind the distributor. I made an executive decision to continue the job anyway and now have a pristeen old headgasket in my hands.I have bought a complete set of hoses just to be safe. I'm about to begin re-assembling at this point and may well have it done tomorrow. Actually I started Sunday but over torqued a head bolt and have now installed a HeliCoil and am ready to start again. My torque wrench seemed to be working well. 9 out of 10 head bolts torqued up excellently but this one never clicked like the other nine. Oh well...

I'll let y'all know how it goes this time.

BTW, my wife and I have decided to keep the car as a spare vehicle so that was part of my decision to put in the new head gasket and replace all cooling system hoses.
My other vehicle is going to be a Suburban so when driving around town I will use the Honda instead of the gas hog.

 

That's great to hear you fixed the car and are keeping it. You should continue to post and update the thread with pictures of the car. Also you should check here before selling the car, don't sell it to some teenager. You could easily find someone here to buy it from you. If you were closer I'd buy it myself.