***UPDATE***

Well, I finally got to see the car today (whole story below), and my first impression is that things are very bad. Looks like a bad headgasket for sure, there is signs of oil seeping from the block, in large amounts. There is also signs of oil leaking from the valve cover gasket. When I started the car up (it was already hot at this point), the needle shot right into "hot" and the idle fluctuates rapidly from 1k to 2k. Does not look good, I may pull the plugs tonight and post some pics, they should be interesting. I will try to do a compression test tomorrow also, and post those results. I am wondering if it is worth fixing at this point.


I am trying to help out a friend, so if some of the info I give is a bit incomplete, I apologize ahead of time.

The car is an 86 Acura Integra which is stock, basically never modified or anything. The car had started to run hot regularly, and was taken in to be serviced. The water pump was replaced, and it seemed to ease the overheating, but only shortly, a day or two later it was running hot again. Another trip to the shop, and this time the thermostat and "fan sensor"? was replaced. Again, it seemed to fix it, but right away the overheating persisted. During one service visit, there appeared to be oil in the coolant, so I am thinking headgasket, but presently there does not seem to be oil in the coolant.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, I know it is very difficult to diagnose a problem via internet, but if you could point me towards things to look for, it would help.


Modified by piscorpio at 7:41 PM 4/22/2003

 

Sounds like a blown head gasket. It could still be the thermostat, replace it your self way easy to do, get an OEM one from Honda. Anything else is just crap. Check the oil. my sisters civic was down 1 1/2 qrt and it was overheating all the time. Filled it up and fixed the prob. temprarily. >>>> cause its still leaking

Blaze




Modified by Blaze45 at 4:40 AM 4/14/2003

 

Thanks Blaze, head gasket was my first guess. I will check the thermostat too, I have a good feeling where ever she is getting the car serviced is not using Honda parts. Any other things I should look for?

 

Just check the oil even if its down 1 1/2 qrts. the engine will still run but really really hot. Good Luck

Blaze

 

will do

 

With it being an 86 you should look into replacing/flushing the radiator, could be a blockage.

 

cool, thanks blah13. Any other ideas?

 

Another question, I think I will do a compression test on this thing, anyone know what kind of numbers I should be seeing (whats normal)? Thanks guys.

 

I don't know if this will help you, but you should check the timing belt and the timing of the engine...a friend of mine belt was in very bad condition, and it affected its timing, and the engine began overheating.

good luck finding a solution to it! when a car overheats no matter what you do to it, its very frustating

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Starscream &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> good luck finding a solution to it! when a car overheats no matter what you do to it, its very frustating </TD></TR></TABLE>

Yep, my friend is pretty frustrated alright, especially since she has been paying to get it "fixed" and still has problems. She is ready to ditch the thing, so I offered to give fixing it a shot (assuming I could not possible make it worse )

 

It's a two way scenario:

Or it fixes misteriously or it don't fixes at all...

It happened to some friends cars...some had serious overheating problems, then suddendly one day, they didn't overheat anymore...and nobody never knew why.

To the others, it became worse and they sold.

as i said before, good luck!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Starscream &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">.

To the others, it became worse and they sold.

as i said before, good luck!</TD></TR></TABLE>

I have a feeling this may be the scenario here, she's been running it hot for some time, so no telling how much other damage may have been done. Im just hoping to scavenge some internals if it comes to that.

 

Any other ideas, I am getting a look at it today.

 

Saw the car today, see above for new details. Thanks.

 

bump for the night, tomorrow morning I'll take another look at this heap, maybe even start taking stuff apart.