Honda 1.5 headgasket: any "gotchas"?

[notfarnow]

Thanks for the advice guys.

I took the head of with the intake manifold attached. In the end, it may have been easier to remove the manifold beforehand.

Funny coincidence, a coworker with the twin to this car... same year & color, blew his headgasket too. He has never done much car work before, but he bought a low-mile used engine for a swap. He came over last night, and as I plugged away on my friend's car, I put him to work on his... walking him through the steps and helping out when he had stubborn bolts. By 11 PM last night we had his old engine dangling from a chain.

Today I pulled the head on my friend's car, as my coworker got the new engine ready for his car. We had the new engine in and running by 6PM. He was elated; the biggest "car job" he had ever done was brakes.

I also managed to get new shocks in my Jetta, and 2 glow plugs in my Samurai. Not bad for a day's work

I like helping friends out, but I wish they'd buy Porsches so I could really enjoy it.

It was fun to have someone else in the garage... I'm used to working alone till the wee hours.

[notfarnow]

Closing shop for the night. I'll take the two heads to the machine shop on Monday


This is another "car weekend" I had a couple months ago. Much more fun! Troubleshooting the power top on dad's carrera cab. Narrowed it down to a locking motor.

[notfarnow]

Update, I just finished up this honda HG an hour ago... we've been waiting for the special multi steel gasket & stretch bolts.

Anyway, thought I'd update about the crank bolt issue: I never took it off.

I set the engine at TDC, then pulled the cam pulley. When I was putting the head back on, I made sure the front of the belt was tight and tapped the pulley back onto the cam. I checked all the timing marks, then double checked them after a couple rotations.

I still don't understand why the Honda manual says to remove the crank pulley for a HG.

Another odd one was when we pulled the engine in the other Honda last weekend. The book said the engine & tranny had to come out together because there is no clearance. I pulled the front & side tranny mounts and was able to pull the engine free just fine.