Having gotten the crankshaft pulley off, I’m getting close to the half-way point on replacing my head gasket. According to my 3rd party shop manual, whats left is to uncover the rest of the timing belt, remove it, then remove the rocker arm assembly and camshaft, then unbolt the head. I am wondering why I need to disassemble the rocker arm and camshaft. It looks like the head bolts are completely accessible without taking the rocker arms apart, and it seems like that would save a whole lot of fiddling around and greatly reduce the opportunity to put things back together the wrong way. Can anybody confirm that taking them apart is necessary, or is not necessary?

1995 Honda del Sol, D16Z6 1.6L 4-cylinder engine.

 

Well, nobody had an opinion here, but I decided not to take all the cam stuff off first, and the head did, in fact, come off the engine just fine.

However, the professionals I talked to both said that since the gasket had blown, the chances that the head wouldn't need to be resurfaced was extremely low, and it couldn't be resurfaced if any of the valves were sticking up, and the only way to make them not stick up was to take the camshaft off.

On the third hand, it was a lot easier than my shop manual made it out to be. It said I'd need somebody holding on to one end of the shaft while I unbolted it to keep things from lifting up or flying apart or, well, it wasn't clear as to exactly what would happen if somebody wasn't there to hold down one end. But that turned out to be nonsense. I unbolted all 14 bolts, loosening them a bit at a time, and then just pulled the retaining plate off and lifted the camshaft off the head. No drama at all.

As it turns out, didn't really matter anyway. My head's already been resurfaced too many times: there's not enough metal left to do it again.

 

snarke, Thanks for replying to your own post! Its now, Dec.2024. I'm having to pull a head off of a D16Z6, '95 Civic Ex. I suspect I may have an oil leak/seepage into the coolant galley via a tear in the head gasket somewhere. The coolant, now distilled water, in the radiator is always brown or rather a bright rusty color, and low. I've seen no signs of water on the dipstick. Theres no steam coming out of the tailpipe, either. Somewhere at some point in the past, I read something about somebody having similar symptoms and realizing a ripped head gasket. So, thats where Im at. I was wondering, is it necessary to install new head bolts? The odometer reads 160,000 miles. Besides all that, I appreciate your following up/through with your post. Its aggravating (passed frustrating) when you read about situations and don't get any solutions or outcomes. In my opinion, those threads/posts should be deleted completely. So, again, Thanks for the information you provided!

 

Well, nobody *owes* anybody a reply; it's all volunteer, and a post with no responses at least tells you that it's a difficult (or really uninteresting) question.

I'm pretty sure reusing vs. new head bolts is unrelated to the odometer reading. Head bolts are torqued to *very* high tension. On some engines, hard enough that they're actually stretched during installation. If you re-use them, you have to stretch them again, and they can only be stretched so far before they'll just break. Drilling a broken head bolt out of a block is a super-gigantic monumental pain in the booty. Well, at least I imagine it would be. I wouldn't even attempt it. On the other hand, my Haynes manual (which I don't entirely trust) seems to think I might want to re-use the head bolts, and the ones I've pulled out (of two engines, now), have looked to be in pretty good condition. A new set of bolts cost me $50. That didn't seem like too much to spend to minimize the chance of snapping off a head bolt in my block. But I don't actually enjoy repairing/working on old cars. I just do it because I'm not rich enough buy new cars, or have other people do all the work on the ones I have. If I had a garage to work in, more suitable tools, or more time, I might go ahead and re-use the head bolts once before replacing them.

As it is, my shop manual says nothing about using alignment pins, but I used them when I had to replace the head on a 7.5L Ford engine, so I figure I'll turn two of my old head bolts into pins. I'm going to cut the head off the bolt, and probably grind some flats onto it. Two of those get lightly screwed into the block, then the gasket and head go down over them. The pins cause everything to line up properly. Then a couple of real bolts get dropped into the holes, and the pins get unscrewed and removed. I can't imagine why my shop manual doesn't include that as part of the installation process. Keeping the gasket positioned while putting the head back on would be a big hassle if I didn't.

 

And, another lesson learned. If I ever have to replace another head gasket, I'll just buy the whole gasket set in the first place, and not think I just need a new head gasket. I'm pretty sure, despite my shop manual insisting that the valve cover gasket would have to be replaced if I dared to open it, that I could have reused it. It doesn't get all that stressed, and it was in good condition. However, I totally overestimated the odds that I wouldn't have to take the intake and exhaust manifolds off the head, and those three gaskets alone (head, intake, exhaust) cost about the same as a full kit.

As it turned out (as mentioned earlier), I found out my head had previously been resurfaced badly, and was no longer usable. I pulled a head off my parts del Sol, which *can* be resurfaced, but needs to have the valves reground, so I need a whole set of 16 valve seals, and there's at least a dozen other gaskets that I might as well replace along the way, and probably ought to.

I found a Fel-pro gasket set in stock at a local parts store for about $190. I also found gasket sets *with head bolts* on Amazon for $70 or less. Brands I didn't know, and that I could not find any reviews or comments on here. That seemed alarmingly inexpensive. I really really don't want to have to take this stupid engine apart again.

 

Felpro or Honda only for head gasket. The 96-00 d16y8 is cheaper and mls. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel and just follow the direction given in the manual. Head bolts are reusable and you don't need alignment studs for a head that weighs 40lbs. Be a man. It's not hard to set the gasket on straight and lower the head onto it without it moving. There are dowels in the head that align to the block and that's all you need.

 

"mls?" I have absolutely no idea what that's supposed to mean. For that matter, I haven't a clue what the entire sentence is for.

Since the manual I have has already repeatedly demonstrated that it has errors and omissions, I don't think this is terribly good advice. If I'd followed my manual's instructions, I'd have stabbed a screwdriver into the flywheel to get the crankshaft pulley off, instead of using the Honda Crankshaft Pulley tool.

Are you always this rude? I don't give a f*** how heavy it is. I want the gasket spot-on where it belongs, and why would I cross my fingers and hope it doesn't slide around while I'm placing the head, when I could absolutely guarantee it stays put by using pins? Answer: I wouldn't. Because I'm not an idiot.

 

Sounds like you are.

 

MLS = multi layer steel.


Looks like Chris provided all the info you need. Good luck with your question thats been answered. Keep us posted on cutting the head bolts to use as an alignment tool.

 

{baffled} So Chris is suggesting I should get a head gasket for a D16Y8 engine? Or get a whole new D16Y8 engine?

Picked up the machine cylinder head, and talked to the machinist. He told me that, yes, normally, of course you'd use alignment pins, but, for this particular engine, they wouldn't be precise enough. That's why there were two short metal tubes zip-tied to my block when I picked it up. They go into sockets around two of the head bolt channels to establish the alignment of the gasket. So the "easier" plan would be to drop them in, set the gasket in place over them, then carefully put the head on.

I have now disassembled two D16Z6's, one of which (the '95) had aftermarket manifolds. I took that head off with the manifolds still attached. The '93 I took the exhaust manifold off before removing the head, but there was one nut on the intake manifold that was seemingly impossible to get a wrench on, so in the end the '93 head came out with the intake manifold still attached as well. (I found another thread here where somebody else had the same problem.) I'm thinking that it's going to be nineteen times easier to bolt the manifolds onto the head before I put the head back on the engine. (If I were putting the OEM intake manifold back on, it would seemingly be impossible to install it afterwards.) As it happens, I now have two sets of used head bolts as well as my new ones, so chopping and slotting two of my spare head bolts to make alignment pins makes all kinds of sense. They'll keep the head straight and lined up as I lower it into place, and ensure I don't bend or muck up the two aligning bolt collars, even with the extra weight of the manifolds.

The only potential issue I can see from here is that the bolts might be very difficult to cut through. If the cut-off wheel on my angle grinder doesn't seem to be making much headway, I might switch to the water-cooled diamond blade on my tile saw.

 

Those are the dowel pins that Chris mentioned.

 

Whatever you make with a grinder is not going to be more precise than the dowel pins.

You seem to be adamant that alignment pins are necessary, but even your machinist said they wouldn’t be precise enough.

 

I guess I wasn't clear. The dowel pins (dowels are solid) are going to be in addition to the positioning tubes. The tubes only stick up about 6mm, and are very thin-walled. They're fragile. The dowels are going to be at least 30mm long and very solid.I use the dowels to get things lined up, and the tubes to ensure precision right as everything comes together.

 

You’re overcomplicating this. Please do post pictures and/or videos of your progress though!

By the way, do some googling and download a digital copy of the Factory Service Manual, and not your third party manual. It’ll be more instructive.

 

Yeah and don't try to bolt the manifold on first. You just reach the middle nut on the manifold from the bottom.

 

Im a lazy and I put my intake manifold on the head before it goes into the car. Like you said be a man and use muscles. Its not hard.

But using/making alignment pins? Lol. You're doing too much.

Stick the oem dowels into the block, stick the headgasket on the block with the dowels going thru the gasket. Set the head on, looking thru the headbolt hole to see your target corresponding hole on the block.

IMO I would never install a head with head studs sticking out. Or similar. Its too easy to gouge the face of the head. Head studs go in after head is set.

charm.li has manuals

 

I have spend almost two hours running online searches for the FSM. I have visited more dead links than I can count. There's lots of places it used to be, but I cannot find an actual usable PDF or any other factory reference anywhere on the web. I have looked, and looked, and looked.

 

It's perhaps worth mentioning that I don't actually get to do any of this work in a garage. I don't have a workshop to use. The gasket blew while I was on the freeway in North Seattle, about 15 miles from home. I have had to do all the on-car work with the car sitting in front of a friends' condo. November in Seattle tends to be cold and wet. And dark. I'm not sure I can even get in a position that I can look down through the head to line it up. This is another strong motivation for installing the manifolds before installing the head.

 

Cool, people have literally made threads on here swapping their head gasket in parking lots lol.

 

As requested, some pictures of progress to date.



The previous owner of the del Sol had planned to have a lot of fun with it. So it has Skunk intake and exhaust manifolds, a sway bar, and had racing seats with 4-point harnesses. He also had a turbocharger he'd planned to install, but then he had to move and the new place didn't have a garage, so the mostly-finished del Sol sat around outside collecting moisture, which, around here, means in no time at all you've got mold growing on your steering wheel.

The racing seats were interesting but the harness was rather jury-rigged, and a hassle to put on. And for passengers, it meant they had to spend a few minutes adjusting all the belts. A bigger problem was that the racing seats were about two inches higher than the factory seats, and that was enough to put my head right against the roof. So I pulled the fancy seats out and installed the original seats from my parts car, the '93 del Sol that I had with a broken piston rod. I also transferred the A/C from my '93 to the '95 that this engine is out of. (THAT was an interesting project!) The A/C compressor and the tuned exhaust manifold pretty much use up all the space that the previous owner had intended to use for the turbo, so I don't think I'll be trying to squeeze a turbocharger along with the rest of the go-parts.

Making positioning pins turned out to be easy-peasy. The head bolts were no problem to cut with my angle grider and a cut-off wheel.



My current plan is to spin those a short way into the block, put some rubber caps on them, horse the cylinder head w/manifolds into position with the help of a friend, get things lined up by feel and/or by looking at the underside of the head to make sure the pins are close to the holes, lift it up enough to remove the rubber caps, gently slide it down into position (which will probably involve repeated attempts as we pull all the hoses out of the way, get the wires moved so they don't get pinched, jiggle the exhaust pipe so its bolts mate with the end of the manifold, and so on and so on and so on), and then remove the pins (because the hollow tubes will be holding everything in position by then), and torque down the head (a bit at a time, in the proper order). I've found I can work on the car for about an hour before my hands are too numb from the cold to get anything done, if I'm wearing gloves for as much of the time as possible, so I probably won't be able to finish putting it all back together in one day.

 

I was wondering, how did your head gasket replacement go? in the midst of that myself, same drivetrtain....

 

Carefully followed the instructions in my mini-manual. Scraped and solvent-cleaned the block. used the pins and the collars to gently settle the head in place, after carefully using a tap to clean the block holes for the bolts. Dipped the bolts in clean oil, as instructed. Torqued them all down to 22 ft/lbs. Went back to torque them to 52 ft/lbs (or whatever the correct amount is. Something in that neighborhood) and the #2 bolt promptly stripped the block threads.

So now I'm trying to find a shop that'll install a Heli-coil or otherwise do one of the things one does to put threads back in a hole.

At least the machine shop that resurfaced my header was supportive. "Aluminum block? Don't feel too bad, it just happens some times, even if you're being really careful. It's definitely fix-able," and they recommended a couple of shops for me to contact. He did mention that dipping the bolts in oild was not, actually, a particularly good idea. If there's too much oil, it can drip into the hole, puddle in the bottom, and hydro-lock the bolt, causing it to strip the threads. Wiping a thin coat of grease is better. That's probably not what happened here, since I'd let most of the oil drain off before I started inserting them, and I'd successfully tensioned the bolt to the first stage, but yet another good tip for me to add to my notes.

 

You will want to "TimeSert" that head bolt hole... do NOT use a Heli-coil.

 

As far as I can tell, Time-serts have a flange at the top which means they can only be flush mounted, and thus would be totally unusable in this situation, where the threads are nearly three inches deep in the hole. In fact, the helicoil kits I got nearly failed to work as well. Based on the measurements I took, by the time I had tapped the hole deeply enough that the helicoil would engage the threads of the bolt to the same degree as the original threads had, only the last 1/4" of the tap was still visible. Just barely enough to hold the tap wrench on. More detail in next post....

 

At last! At looooong last, my del Sol is back on the road.

And, as requested, here's a final report, albeit probably way too late to be of any use to thkilroy.

First of all, to follow up on an earlier thread: by the time I was done, I'd had to put the head on, and take it off, multiple times. Some of those times I had the alignment pins in place, and some I didn't. I will definitely make/use alignment pins if I ever have to do it again. They were easy-peasy to make, and it was so much easier to position the head on the pins when it was three to four inches away from the block, than when it was almost touching. Plus the head gasket never slid around out of position like it did when I didn't use the pins. But, clearly, it can be done without them.

So, when last I posted, I'd stripped the block. I found a shop that was willing to install a helicoil, and towed the car to them. They called me a few days later to tell me they didn't have the right kind of helicoil kit, so I should come get my car and take it home. Why they couldn't just get an M10x1.25 kit at NAPA and do the work, I do not know. But the machine shop assured me that I could do it myself. And they were mostly right. Sadly, despite knowing full well that I needed an M10x1.25 kit, and carefully shopping online to try to get exactly the right item, I still somehow ordered an M10x1.0 kit, and I didn't realize it was the wrong pitch until I'd installed it. Between the time it took the first kit to arrive, then me finding time to do the work, figuring out I'd put the wrong kit in, and then ordering the right one, more than two months had gone by. And, as I was totally expecting, the 1.0 tap had cut enough aluminum out of the hole that there wasn't enough left for the 1.25 helicoil to engage with. It didn't hold. So now I had a hole that was really messed up. One guy at my friendly machine shop suggested just retapping for a slightly larger bolt. He was going to check their supply of random left over head bolts to see what they had that would be about right. When I called back the next week to see what he'd come up with, I got a differet guy who said he thought that was not the best way to fix the problem. Instead, I ended up calling a specialty auto part company in California (I can't remember the name, it was something like "Auto specialty parts" or something equally unmemorable), and they sent me a stud and nut. One end of the stud was M11x1.5 threads, and the other, well the other end was the same as the nut. I think it was US/SAE threaded. It was def. not the same on both ends. The biggest advantage of replacing the bolt with a stud and nut was that the torque specs would be the same as for the other bolts. So I ordered yet *another* helicoil kit, pulled the M10 helicoil out, drilled and tapped it for M11, put the stud in, and started installing the head.

That's when I discovered that the nut was an extra special fancy nut. My regular six-point socket got it to 22 ft/lbs, but when I tried going to 46, the socket started slipping. The nut was a 12-point nut (I didn't know there was such a thing!), and I needed a 12-point socket to grip it well enough to finish torquing it. But, because of the stud sticking up, I couldn't use a standard socket. I needed a deep socket. It took me another two days of calling hardware stores and auto supply shops to find somebody that had a 12-point *deep* 1/2" socket. But once I finally found one, I could get back to work.

And, totally as I was expecting, another of the holes stripped on the way to 46 ft/lbs. But this time, I was all ready with my M10x1.25 helicoil kit, and it only took me about 30 minutes to take the head back off, drill, tap, and insert the helicoil, and start once again tensioning the bolts. I will note that both times when I ordered the kits, I also ordered special long inserts. The ones that come with the kits are always as deep as they are wide. So an M10 (10mm) helicoil is 10mm deep as well. But the original threads were 23mm deep, and the bolt (weirdly) was contacting about 17mm of those threads (even though the bolt had some 25mm of threads, they didn't overlap nearly as much as they could have). With the first kit that turned out to be the x1.0 version, I'd ordered M10x1.25x20mm inserts, and what they sent were actually M12s, The 2nd time, they managed to send M10sd, but they were only 12mm long, not 20mm. After thinking about it, I just installed two 10mm long inserts, one on top of the other. Worked perfectly.

By the way, thread-cutting obviously generates a bunch of nasty little sharp metal bits that would be really bad if they got onto the head gasket, or in the cylinders, or, well, pretty much anywhere. I used thread-cutting oil while tapping, and had a narrow hose with a plug that I could stick on the end of my shop-vac to suck the tap shavings out of the hole. The oil helped keep the shavings stuck on the tap when I removed it and I carefully wiped it down away from the engine, and the hose did a fantastic job of sucking the dust out of the hole itself.

So, finally got all the bolts tightened, put everything back together, crossed my fingers, and started it up. It ran! Mostly. The throttle had a weird tendency to redline the engine if I gave more than a tiny nudge on the acceleratorm, but nothing exploded or made horrible grinding noises. So I drove it to a trusted repair shop, and let them figure out what I'd done wrong. Turns out the timing belt was about one notch off. Not sure if that explained the symptoms I was seeing, but they went over everything, brought it into spec with tools I don't own (like, y'know, a timing gun, among other things), and now it's back home and running better than ever.

My biggest fear was that, given how many times I had to put on and take off the head while getting the holes straightened out, that I might have scratched the gasket or otherwise mucked it up. But the compression test showed all four cylinders within 1% of each other, so the early evidence is that I got that part right.

Lessons learned:
Yes, you can replace the head gasket without taking the camshaft or the manifolds off, but only if the head is flat enough that you don't need to resurface it, and that's unlikely.
Helicoils are a lot easier to install in an aluminum block than I'd feared, and they worked great. And you can stack them if you need more thread than they give you.
Overhead cams make gasket replacement a lot more complicated.
Alignment pins are easy to make from old head bolts, and helpful, but not required, especially if you are doing the work in a garage and/or have somebody to help.
If you have to replace the head gasket, you probably ought to get a full gasket kit. You'll probably need/want enough of them that it'll be cheaper than buying them a la carte.

And to anybody who finds this thread because you're about to do something similar: good luck, I'm sure you'll learn something too.