Hi, I am new here so excuse my newbie questions. I am looking at buy a 1990 civic with about 61K on it. The owner was telling me the only thing that i have to worry about is that there was a recall on the head gasket. As of right now the head gasket shows no signs of leaking but the car does only have 61k on it. I was hoping that someone could shead some light on this for me. How severe is this leak, what are the chances that this could develope down the road and what kind of money am i talking to replace if something were to come of it? Thanks for any help.

 

Good job in finding a 90 with that low in miles; anyways, the recall was in the material the head gasket was made out of. The 4th gen were the last to have the crush paper type of head gasket, the rest had the handy dandy metal ones. The leak isn't a leak unless your head gasket goes, so nothing to worry about. My D15B2 had a paper one for 155,000 miles no problem, and if you HAVE to have it replaced expact it to cost in the neigborhood of $500-$700 if you don't do it yourself. If you do it yourself, $40 for a new metal gasket, and three to four hours of your time.

 

thanks alot man, so i dont really have anything to worry about. Thats good to hear.

 

if there is a recall and its never been done Honda still should do it for free.

 

It was a TSB not a full blow recall.

 

The only thing that has a lifetime warranty on your car is your front seat belts...just had mine done for not retracting....FREE OF CHARGE

 

No, I'm pretty sure if there is a recall from Honda about their products, the dealership should take care of this for free.

 

What exactly was wrong? I know my door mounted passenger side doesn't move at all know so no locking under braking

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by CRX Toad &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The only thing that has a lifetime warranty on your car is your front seat belts...just had mine done for not retracting....FREE OF CHARGE </TD></TR></TABLE>

what do you mean not retracting??

mine are kind of limp... takes a minute to roll up, and sometimes they don't want to at all. at over 40 with the windows down the air catches them and they don't roll up.

i'd like to get mine fresh and new if possible.


ON TOPIC: the paper gaskets were used on 5thgens as well, but usually won't go bad till ~150000 miles. like dr_latino said. if you notice it drinking excess coolant, like having to top the radiator off every couple of days, thats when it's starting to go

 

if your doing a head gasket use a z6s thin metal one still can drink lowest octance gas and upps comp ratio by .2 we did this on a buddies A6 works like a charm

 

My passenger side seatbelt wouldn't retract (roll up) at all and my drivers side I would feed into the door in order for it to retract. And personally I have never have either of my belt lock under hard braking and I track my car on road course with heavy braking.


Modified by CRX Toad at 10:53 PM 9/17/2004

 

Some things I posted before

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=902524