1990 civic ex with 209k
bought from old lady, car was very well taken care of.

lady said that it needed a head gasket, i could drive it home but it overheated and used oil. i had it towed to my house the other day and this is what i found when i looked at it today finally.

i pulled the plugs and the two center plugs were really dark(black-charcoal almost). i looked into the center holes and the piston tops were the same-dark black and kinda sludge looking. the two outer plugs were worn but not as bad, the piston tops in the outer plug holes(cylinders 1 and 4, were not black and shitty looking like the others.

i put the plugs back in and started the car up and let it run for a while(like 20 mins), and it did not over heat, but there was an antifreeze smell and very slight smoke(barely noticeable) coming from the head/block area, but nothing out the exhaust and no weird noises.

Is this my headgasket? i am going to do a compression test tomorrow and a leakdown if i can borrow one. there was also oil sludge buildup on the block where the engine code is stamped, pretty thick. not too sure what to think, so once again i am turning to honda tech for some direction.

 

Bad head gasket.

Easy fix, I timed myself last time, it only took 19 minutes to pull the head off using air tools, 1 day in the machine shop, and 45 minutes to re-install.

 

thanks

 

UPDATE: fans work, does not overheat sitting at idle, let it run today for almost an hour.

i do notice a very light ticking noise coming from the distributor area-it is not my valves-it is coming from or around the area near the distributor-right by it or in it. any ideas to this? just curious, doesn't seem to be a prob but concerned nonetheless-head is coming off tomorrow!

 

Just a little suggestion... Have the head checked before you re-install it. Guides, springs, the works. While you have it off and in the machine shop, might as well do it right; right?

Are you sure the ticking is not the injectors?

 

the sound is coming from the dizzy area. injectrors making noise? can you ellaborate? and yes my head will be in the shop getting checked and resurfaced

 

the injectors normally make a clicking noise when they are firing

 

damn, i never noticed this on my 4 other ef's - including my b16 hb.. that's weird.

 

UPDATE AGAIN:
did compression check and these were the results (191, 184, 179, 185) respectively. should they be within 5 or 10% of each other i forget. should i still do the headgasket?

 

the numbers sound decent. the best way to test your head gasket tho is to check the coolant with the hydrocarbons tester

 

hydrocarbons tester, did search, but not too helpful. i might just pull the motor and drop in my z6. i dont understand why the lady i bought it from said it was overjeating, plus it has lots of oil in it, i might drain some later to see what's up.
thanks