I finally finished the head gasket replacement on my car and it’s now running smooth as silk with the temperature and water level right where they’re suppose to be. I know it’s a routine job done by many Do IT Yourselfers but my wife now looks at me like I just invented the combustion engine
After a few cranks it sluggishly started and the entire car was enveloped in white smoke … wait, this can’t be right … then I remembered I had poured in about a pint of motor oil in each cylinder the day before just to make sure everything was really slippery. Let it idle for about 10 minutes and it smoothed right out but didn’t’ stop smoking until I drove it around for awhile. Now it starts right up at the first turn of the key and actually purrs.
The job itself isn’t that complicated but all the stripped bolts (3) and other frustrations took up a good bit of time. I also decided to overhaul the fuel injectors and replace their connectors with new ones that aren’t going to crumble when I look at them. That and a bit of general housekeeping; all news hoses, new starter, giving the engine a good clean, and some cosmetic painting on the inner fenders drug out the project a bit. But all’s well that … well you know.
A very sincere THANK YOU to all my friends on the forum who provided such great advice and held my hand !!
Like any project it always takes a lot longer the first time and when you’re working by yourself there’s no one to look over your shoulder and say “Are you sure you want to do that?” But if I did it so it couldn’t be that hard.
As clean as your engine bay, I take that as a compliment How about a couple of pictures.
I definitely understand about the time it takes doing it the first time. That’s what makes it a challenge, but in a good way.
I was looking through my pics and I don’t have any engine compartment pics of mine… mostly just shots from a distance with the hood up. This one is probably as close as I have to an engine pic.
Yeah, its a beast. In many ways, it felt much bigger than V8s I had built in the past. The best part about doing a full rebuild was I didn’t have to deal with some of the clearance issues you had to deal with on certain parts of the engine. On the flip side, availability of some parts is nonexistent and it took forever to track them all down.
How about a couple of pictures.