ae92:head gasket problems

[halforc]

i made a thread about this before but pretty much the 4th cyclinder was not turning over. after about a week of that i found water in my oil and my car started using lots of water. so i did pretty much the only thing you can do, take it apart. i didnt really see any define evidence taht it was the head gasket. anyone got any suggestions on what to look for?

[bluedemon]

looks like to me your head bolts was'nt torque down tight or it might have got loosen little ,try pushing the piston back and forth to check if they wiggle if they dont its cool...i have had this same problem before and i was going threw hell trying to find why was'nt i getting good compression reading on the 4th cylinder check everything from sparks/wire ect. everything was a O.K then finding out my dumb butthead buddy didnt torque down my heads bolts cause he was in a rush.so remember to take your time or youll end up spending way to much money,adding up to where you could of just swap in a way better engine(4age) but yeah check those and how much miles do you have on it anyways?

[halforc]

240k miles, they were pretty well tight.

[bluedemon]

have you taken the engine apart before?
if you have did you torque it back to spec. in order?

[halforc]

Originally posted by bluedemon
have you taken the engine apart before?
if you have did you torque it back to spec. in order?

i havent taken it apart before.

[Midnight GSI]

Take a straight edge and check your head and block to make sure they are within spec.
My 2 cents.
C-YA!!

[Flashmn]

if you have a blown gasket, have the head machined... otherwise the seal is gonna be crappy. I've dealt with too people with engines that just had the head gasket replaced. its shitty.

[halforc]

on the valve seals, is the only way you can change them out is by taking the head off the block? and does anyone have a site that shows how to do that or maybe you could tell? is it hard?

[toyotaspeed90]

picture 4 and the last picture on the right hand side it looks like a deteriorated gasket and maybe causing blow-by in that area..... hard to say though

[automatic]

That thing has likely been worked on/apart before; that intake gasket is a felpro anyways.
I always re-torque the headgaskets, after a couple of heat cycles(without any driving), even on the ones that say you don't have to re-torque. The only ones that you really don't have to are on cars that use special stretch bolts that must be replaced every time.

I'd use dealer gaskets, and like midnight mentioned check the head for flatness, or put some fine grit sandpaper on a glass table and see if you get any wierd patterns.

You can replace the stem seals in the car by using compressed air to keep the valves in place, or, like I've done, a length of rope fed through the spark plug hole.

I almost wish my headgasket would blow so I'd have an excuse to do a better port job, undercut the valve stems, remove the guides in the port area...