Well, wow, I think it speaks for itself... I've never seen such a bad headgasket.....

 

BTW the leftmost cylinder ring of the gasket is BARELY hanging on

 

Wow, that's ugly. Did the engine still run before you took it appart?

 

it was running but was overheating badly.

and man i always love comparing cylinder pics to honda cylinders. ours are soooo much bigger stock. lol.

 

What are your plans? A full rebuild? Keep us posted with pics, I'm surprised that it was still running.

 

Jake.. did I say you could answer for me?

It was running, it was my only car and i was going an hour back and forth to school each weekend for the past few months. I think the headgasket was weak when i got it, after a night of sitting it would run on 2-3 cylinders for the first 30 seconds which is typical headgasket, but it was running fine. Then it would lose coolant after a while , but I thought my lower radiator hose was just leaking..

Then I started to KNOW it was headgasket, and like i said it was my only car. I never hit the red on the temp gauge, although i'm not srue i had enough coolant to do so. The last ride home was in an ice storm, and it used a gallon of coolant in 20min so I knew it was my last ride, i made it home, ice storm and everything, just about at the red line on the heat gauge when i was nearing my house, and i parked it then (october) until 3 weeks ago, i finally got to work on it.

I have no idea how it ran, but it did. I didn't get milkshake until the last week.


Plans are underway now, but basically it consists of...

new clutch
all the engine seals/gaskets including front and rear main seals, headgasket, oil pan, oil cooler, etc...
Piston rings
vacuum lines
converting the early engine to all late components so theres no questioning anymore, and no need to tell a story if I ever sell it..
timing belt water pump and rollers
rod bearings

Basically everything except mains, i'm not pulling the crank i'm pretty sure, i plain just don't have the money. I'm dumping everything I have into this project.... and I am getting everything machined and such, but I think the mains are ok.

More pics/threads to come...

 

Whoa!

But whats up with the C-Clamp in the first pic?

 

Bah... I found #4 filled with a quite noticable amount of coolant...


The result of...

 

dayum!

 

Ummmmm ignore the C clamp, you weren't supposed to see that...

i forgot to put the plate for teh stand on before I hoisted it so i was kind of in a hurry to put it on because I don't trust hanging it, so it's only on 3 of the 4 arms for the engine stand. It's plenty sturdy i could just barely reach the last bolt hole, but it wouldve been a little bit of a stretch to get the bolt it in it just barely reached so I didnt' want to take the chance of stripping the threads. So i got the last arm on the face of the block there and clamped it so it would keep the rigidity of the plate on the engine. If it falls off, well i'll worry about that then.. but its been fine thorugh all this so i assume itll be fine. The engine's not so heavy anyhow.

 

Also note the two middle cylinders you can tell were burning coolant. There's noticeable sludge all over from where there was oil and coolant mixing. I'm not sure that any of the rings themselves were compromised, I think that most of teh coolant was getting in before the engine heated up, when the gasket rings are not expanded and sealed, hence the 30 seconds of rough running in the morning.

BTW, i may have had a pool of coolant like that in my cylinder, had i had any coolant left... I think on that last ride, at least towards the end, I didn't have much in teh way of coolant anymore, I got less than a gallon out of it when I drained it the other day.


Upon further diagnosis, it appears the left most edge of the gasket (near my finger in one of the pics with it on the block still) had a leak between oil and coolant passages, and it appears theres a trail of water seepage all teh way around that cylinder, to the middle cylinders where it looks like most of teh coolant was being burnt. The leftmost cylinder looks oily on the valves and buildup.

 

these pictures creep the hell out of me...

 

Replace them. I think they cost around $100 and the rest is labor. It's worth it for the peace of mind.

 

The '85 I just took apart was as bad, and blowing coolant into the #2 and #3 cylinders. Found out the head was cracked after cleaning the surfaces for the new gaskets...good luck.

 

Looks like you might have some bent valves in there too by the shiny edges and the polished recesses on the pistons. Try to make sure that they are fitting snug or were you going to have the head re-built?

944 Online has got a GREAT deal on rebuilts!

Michael