Man against machine

Roadrunner

Roadrunner

Joined
Jun 9, 1999
Messages
4,729
Here's the first day's update on the car. I didn't kill myself or break any engine parts (I think). But the cylinder head remains firmly attached to the block. Turns out just about everything in the engine bay needs to be removed, unhooked, or adjusted before the head can come out. But it's a start. Maybe it'll be out by this weekend.
 
The Snake River in Idaho is filled with vehicles whose engine heads could not be turned out.




munk
 
Get 'er done Kurt...You have to drive to Ohio in a month!

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Day two. I'm exhausted, filthy, my lower back is a mass of pain... and the Honda's cylinder head is sitting in my other car's trunk, ready to go to the machine shop for resurfacing. :D Keep up whatever you all are doing, because I never thought I would make it this far after the way the first day went. Now that I've taken it apart, putting it back together should be easy; well at least possible. Will update again tomorrow.
 
Great work, RR. Make sure you get all the old gunk & head gasket off the manifold now, without dropping any chunks of it into the engine. Once they mill & test the head, you're home free except for getting the head gasket on right (and putting it all back together again). Rest up and prepare your patience for the job... and best of luck.
 
Agree 110% with Mr.BadExample. Reassembly requires much less cussing. Just don't drop crap into the cylinders.
 
see, you just wouldn't have believed me if I'd warned you. Hope the labeling went well. You having the valves checked at the same time?

A rite of passage.
 
And make sure nothing has fallen into the threaded holes in the block that the head bolts go in, including oil or coolant. I know :footinmou
 
Day three update. The head was in fact warped. The machine shop had to remove about 1/4 of a mm. The good thing is that clears up the mystery of why the gasket failed, and now I know for sure that the deck is absolutely flat. So if all goes well tomorrow, I should drive it home. :cool:
 
And on day four... he walked. :( The $140 set of racing head studs that I bought is missing a washer, and the torque wrenches at the Auto Shop don't measure up to 60 ft lbs in a 3/8" drive. :grumpy: Both of these setbacks conspired to push the rest of my repairs back until Wednesday. The good thing is that I had time to change the fuel filter and get the block deck really really really clean. Thanks again for all of the well wishes and advice, it's been helpful. Will update again on Wednesday.
 
Wednesday update (just a little late):

Setbacks continue to abound. On Tuesday, I hadn't yet recieved the washer I need to put the engine back together. I called the company I ordered it from and they told me that they had ordered it from the manufacturer, ARP, and didn't plan to ship it to me until Wednesday at the earliest. :mad: So, I called ARP directly and explained the situation. The very nice lady in the RMA department arranged to have a distributor in Atlanta send the part to me overnight via UPS (ugh). So Wednesday, I spent the morning replacing the water pump and preparing to bolt down the cylinder head. At noon I went home to pick up the part and get a bolt I needed to install the water pump. I got home to discover that the washer still hadn't been delivered. At this point I was livid. I ended up spending the rest of the day finishing up the water pump installation and adjusting the brakes just for something to do. When the package had yet to arrive by Thursday afternoon I called ARP back and talked to the same nice lady. She gave me the tracking number which I used to discover that UPS had delivered my package to the wrong freaking address!! I had a few stiff drinks to help calm down and called UPS again to find out what could be done. I was fortunate enough to locate the address and go pick up my $2.00 washer from them about three hours ago. So now I have every part and tool I need as well as an assistant for tomorrow morning. Barring anymore setbacks (not that I can imagine that happening again :rolleyes: ) I should drive out of there tomorrow afternoon. If things continue the way they have been, I'll probably drop a ratchet on my foot and die of gangrene or something equally silly. ;) So keep the smoke coming and thanks again for all of your support. Your posts made me smile when I wanted to scream, which means a lot. You guys can be counted on when times are tough; that's more than I can say about the people I deal with face-to-face most of the time. :)
 
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