87 SR5 4wd from Vancouver!

[Petros]

have fun with it. make sure you torque down the manifold gasket well, and when you retorque the head gasket after 300-500 miles of driving, also retorque the manifold gasket as well, they tend to work loose.

[entrax]

thanks! gashed my hand already on the timing belt when loosening the tensioner bolt. fun stuff. thanks for the tips.

quick question, i think i'm gonna take out the crank pulley as well as my front main seal seems to be leaking as well.
when I tried to do this to a 4a-ge, i couldn't find a way to do this so I just left it alone. does that front main seal separate from the oil pump housing or does it not?

[irowiki]

Yeah, that seal comes out. Sometimes you have to poke a hole in it then carefully pull or pry it out.

[dlb]

i think xirdneh has mentioned carefully installing a few small screws into seals he wants to replace, then using those screws to pull it out. carefully is a crucial word there, of course. you don't want to scar the seals housing or whatever is behind it.

[entrax]

thanks! good idea

[Petros]

you can make a simple tool from an old small screw driver: bend a little hook or "L" in the end. you get it under the lip of the seal and than lever or pry it out. you can buy fancy tools to do this, but I find a small slightly bent screw driver works good enough.

[entrax]

and now that i have my 4th 3/8' ratchet in 3 years, all is now removed.
the only thing that seized was one of the bolts keeping the intake/exhaust manifold together where the exhaust gasses heat up the intake air.



spare 4a-ge head lying around HAD to go on there. it does look pretty



the bhg:
-gasket near cylinder 3 to coolant jacket towards passenger side of the car was cracked
- missing chunk near cylinder 1 towards the front end portion of the gasket.
- cylinder 2 had some coolant, but i can't quite tell where the fault is on the bhg.

head and block don't look like they have cracks.
surfaces seem flat. once i clean them, time will tell.

[irowiki]

DId you notice any gray smoke, especially when cold?

[entrax]

in the cold, it would just be a massive cloud of white/gray smoke during start up. and i mean massive, it would cause zero visibility for half a block
when driving it cold, a bit of blue, maybe 25%, mixes with the white/gray smoke.

after 5 min of driving, there is no more smoke, absolutely none.
if i park the car, leave it off for 5min+, it will make that massive cloud again upon start up. if i start it within 30 seconds, it will not make a cloud of smoke.

it's more really white than gray, however it's hard to tell. why gray?

[irowiki]

Ah, I was having gray clouds of smoke last month or so on my 87:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10992

Now that I think about it, I think there was a thin stream of white exhaust when she warmed up, too.

So I think maybe the head gasket is going out.

[entrax]

could be...:s any other symptoms? for me, tell tale signs of coolant in combustion chamber was very evident.

all of this is assuming everything else is working right, rad works, coolant temp switch works, fan works, tstat works:
on highway, on throttle should raise coolant temps, off throttle cruising should lower coolant temps. this makes sense because on throttle, you're making 140+ psi of exploding hot air against 13psi of coolant. off throttle, there really isn't much exploding going on in there, coolant can circulate.
squeezing on the top rad hose is also a good way to read it:
- firm = coolant
- squeezable but resistant = pressurized air (exhaust gasses being shoved in the cooling system by combustion leaking through bhg)
- squeezable = low on coolant, no pressurized air

essentially, for me, that was the case. somewhere in between combustion and coolant there was a leak in the hg, combustion pressures are always higher, so it was exhaust gasses were squeezing coolant out of the cooling system into the combustion chamber, which turns into the nice smoke show.

[entrax]

update on head gasket issue:

i've done some cleaning on the block, and that it looks like it's about 0.003 to 0.004 inch of warp. head is at about 0.004 to 0.005 inch of warp.

now the surfaces aren't too clean yet as there are still leftover gasket material that i'm having problems taking off, so that might still change to be better, hopefully. but it looks like the petros method of making it flat are very likely and will not need professional machining.

cylinder 3 has some build up on the valves and combustion chamber, how do you tell if it's okay to reuse? just clean off/chip off build up and don't worry about it?

one thing i regret is not letting the engine cool down to allow the coolant to seep back into the combustion chamber. i drove the car for 30 mins coming home, parked in the garage, turned of the car, and my first step was a bottle under the radiator petcock and released the coolant. i should have left everything and let the coolant go into the cylinders so it would be more obvious...

[marlinh]

What did the spark plugs look like?

[entrax]

1/2/4 were clean, very clean. spark plug 3 had white build up, similar to the valves

[Petros]

just clean off the build up with a scraper or chisel, should not be an issue. You might consider replacing the exhaust valves and valve stem seals with the head off. sounds like the head and block surface will clean up fine by using a flat plate and 400 sandpaper to get the remaining gasket off too.