1990 Rt4wd Head Gasket, White Smoke, Miss Before Warmed Up
BOWZ
New Wagonist
oh yeah just bought it...well here goes my first thread. first off i have learned alot browsing here this week! thanks!!
car has 201K miles on it, on the way home from purchasing it the temp gauge was fluctuating alot more than i liked, pulled into napa and picked up some 50/50 to put in it when i got home. getting back onto the hwy, the temp gauge went up to 3/4's pulled over and shut it down. felt the radiator cap and it was cold, opened it up and dumped in about a 1/2 gallon, went to the reservoir and the examined the fluid in it, well when i checked it before i came home it was full, well what i thought was full, ended up being a grime line and the reservoir was pretty much empty. toped it off. started the car up, temp dropped and has been there since, 200+ miles.
once the car warms up and driven a while and then shut down, come back a few min later and start it up it spudders, acts like its going to die and white smoke out the exhaust, it clears up within 20-30 seconds. i have had to add coolant several times to keep the reservoir topped off. It runs like a champ once it is warmed up, no smoke, no air bubbles into the reservoir, no milky oil.
another problem is the car misses for the first 15min when it is started cold, and the tach jumps all over the place. i have code 4 on ecu. (crank angle) the distributor seems real noisy to. i personally think its at least a bad cap and rotor, if not the whole distributor causing this. ideas?
so right now my main concern is the hg, what do you guys think? just the head gasket or maybe a cracked head? i have read a thread on here that the initial smoke and clearing up on a already warmed up eng is a tall tale sign of a cracked head. it only did it 2 out of the 5 times i started the warm eng.
as for the missing, prev owner said it has done it since he had it. and will fix it after/during the hg repair. thanks in adv for the help guys!!!!
car has 201K miles on it, on the way home from purchasing it the temp gauge was fluctuating alot more than i liked, pulled into napa and picked up some 50/50 to put in it when i got home. getting back onto the hwy, the temp gauge went up to 3/4's pulled over and shut it down. felt the radiator cap and it was cold, opened it up and dumped in about a 1/2 gallon, went to the reservoir and the examined the fluid in it, well when i checked it before i came home it was full, well what i thought was full, ended up being a grime line and the reservoir was pretty much empty. toped it off. started the car up, temp dropped and has been there since, 200+ miles.
once the car warms up and driven a while and then shut down, come back a few min later and start it up it spudders, acts like its going to die and white smoke out the exhaust, it clears up within 20-30 seconds. i have had to add coolant several times to keep the reservoir topped off. It runs like a champ once it is warmed up, no smoke, no air bubbles into the reservoir, no milky oil.
another problem is the car misses for the first 15min when it is started cold, and the tach jumps all over the place. i have code 4 on ecu. (crank angle) the distributor seems real noisy to. i personally think its at least a bad cap and rotor, if not the whole distributor causing this. ideas?
so right now my main concern is the hg, what do you guys think? just the head gasket or maybe a cracked head? i have read a thread on here that the initial smoke and clearing up on a already warmed up eng is a tall tale sign of a cracked head. it only did it 2 out of the 5 times i started the warm eng.
as for the missing, prev owner said it has done it since he had it. and will fix it after/during the hg repair. thanks in adv for the help guys!!!!
Comments
It just means that instead of water going into your oil, it is going into a cylinder and causing the miss until it is warm and able to just steam through, I driven like that for months before.. Just keep adding water and bleeding the head when you do. It eventually will get worse, so get to it when you can.
Bing Bing!
Bowz
Nope, you can leave the valves and cams intact..
You can have the head checked and surfaced, but if you do that, you might as well have the valve guide seals replaced as well.
Glad I could help
How important do you think new seats and a lapping job would be? Thanks again
Bowz
Bowz
Yeah, you can do them yourself, grab a honda repair manual at your local parts store, it's pretty easy off the car, and the seals are cheap.. Also do a Distributor seal and valve cover gasket. Then, you should have No Worries in your top end.
The little puff you said, sounds more like piston rings, and I wouldn't mess with it.
And, way way way down the road, after a few years on them, you just do an engine swap and call it a day... Since it's a 2wd, you can just keep your eyes out for a b-series swap for a winter project
Bowz
Doubt you have a crack, but if you do that means new/used head anyway. The first $70 you spend at that shop (which costs $40-50 here) will tell you that right away.
If you actually intend to keep this car, you really should consider putting $150-200 into the head. That machine shop will do your guides/seals for next to nothing in labor if they are going to be checking, resurfacing and/or cleaning up the valve seats/valves. If you supply them with the parts and make it easy on them, the cost to get that head out of there, essentially rebuilt, shouldn't be much over $200 at all - if that.
I agree about the blue smoke puff - that typically starts off as the seals (which as others have said are cheap and much easier to replace with the head off and sitting in your garage). If you're sitting at a stop light, idling for any length of time and then you blip the throttle and see a lil' puff of smoke - same prognosis. Guides/seals + valve cover gasket, valve adjustment, spark tube gaskets, distributer seal + the head work from the machine shop and an OEM Honda head gasket and you are in the money for another 200k miles.
I am having a hard time justifying all this money for a car that i have had less than 2 weeks. and more money than i payed for it... what do you all think? head gasket for sure, the rest, i'm not sure.
bowz
It's crazy how cheep most of the things for this car are (EXCEPT DIZZY!!!) I have all these crazy ideas for this little car, this forum might be the end of me. My cummins is already my money pit, I don't need anoter. Haha
Bowz
was able to get the intake and exhaust manifolds off. the intake mani's bottom nut was a SOB, i'm not even sure how i'm going to get it back on, i left all the hoses attached and it in the car, maybe i'll throw it on before i drop the head back in... also, the sparkplugs were drenched in oil, and i mean drenched! guess its good that i got the replacement seals for the sparkplug seals
so my exhaust has a crack in it, a bad one! No exhaust is getting out, what do you guys think i should do? was thinking about taking it to the machine shop and have them reweld the crack and remachine the mating surface, might run more money than its worth. also called around trying to find a doner car at the junk yard, stupid AK only keeps there cars 10 years back!!!! WTF is that about, so yeah i realy need to find out where i can get a re-con head incase this one is cracked.
went to orileys and got a cap, rotor, wires, plugs, intake & exhaust mani gaskets, valve cover gskt with sparkplug tube gaskets, water pump. Plan on placing an order with local acura dealer for the multi layer gasket (one that superseads/replaces the orig) and studs to go with it, thermostat, and timing belt. it will take 4 days thow for shipping!!!!! uggg some times i hate ak.
included some pictures, hope to have it at the machine shop tomarrow before they close at 6. only
bowz
looks like the coolant just ate away at the felpro gasket.
can kinda see the fel-pro wording along with the deteriorating gasket...
the whole gasket
the head, pretty dirty, hope the next time i see it, it will be all shiny!
so on the number 2 cyl looks like there is indention, like 1/4 of a circle right at the edge of the cyl on the head, i can see where it was on the hg the machine shop seems to think thats where the coolent leaked in at. couldn't get a picture to show ya thow
bowz
all looking good
my tool box destroyed, need to clean things up for sure
figured i'd see what was under the grime
pretty happy
bowz
i think my dizzy is going to be need replacing. the eng stumbles for the first few minutes. then clears up, the tach jumps all over the place for for 20-30 min then clears up with a few hiccups all the time. I bought new wires, cap, and rotor from orielys to throw on but havn't yet. from what i am gathering on here i should only be using honda parts for that. its just 500 for a dizzy is quite a bit.
but as you can see here there is a big difference from the honda t-stat on the left and the generic on the right
my header is toast for sure, going to do some shopping around for a cheep one, nothing special, if anything to get more mpg's.
bowz
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/88-91-Civic-SOHC-D16A6-Stainless-Steel-Exhaust-Header-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem2310450fbeQQitemZ150596816830QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories
bowz
see you have a cummins... you on cumminsforum.com?
bowz
ended up having to replace the o2 sensor before i got the new exhaust mani, the check eng light came on and ended up being that. good to go now.
so more about that dizzy. what did i do to cause it to run perfect, i touched a few wires in there on the bottom, but nothing really, just turning the Allen screw i bumped into them. also grabbing the rotor shaft it moves up and down and right to left. that doesn't seem right, seems like the bearing is bad/gone. and looking in the cap that came with the car the pilot hole where the rotor fits in is oblong, like its worn.
can any one shed some light on this for me? thanks!!!
bowz
The reman distributors are hit and miss. Used to be able to get new ones from Distributor King but they have apparently gone out of buisness.
I've read about the problems with non-honda and reman dizzy's, the used auto part stores are 350-380 for a reman, so its no question i woud just get a new one for 100 bucks more and just be done with it.
idk whada you guys think?
bowz
you end up getting one?!?!?!
bowz