larson.joshua@gmail.com wrote:
> first i'd like to say thanks to the great people on this forum for all
> the help they provide.
>
> i've done a search for my problem and i've found some things but
> nothing exactly fits.
>
> i recently performed a head gasket job on my civic. i began this job
> because i had bubbling in my coolant resevoir after driving for a
> while. i also had some electrical issues, but i don't see those as
> related to the bubbles. the bubbling was not boiling. some kind of
> gas was pushing through to the resevoir, and i assumed it was
> compressed gases of some kind coming from the cyclinders through the
> head gasket.
>
> after removing the head, i took it to the shop. they told me the head
> had to be machined by 6 thousands to remove the warp, which seems like
> quite a bit. he also pointed out where the likely breaches of the old
> gasket were.
>
> i cleaned and lapped the surface of the block.

how exactly did you do this?

> there was no apparent
> cracking or warping (i checked for warp with a quality straight edge in
> multiple directions).
>
> put everything back together to spec.
>
> i filled up the cooling system, on an incline with the radiator high.
> bled the system according to haynes.
>
> i've been test driving it for several days, and what happens is a
> little weird. after a light drive, i get a few minutes of bubbles
> (again, not boiling - bubbles) and i can hear coolant sucking past the
> rad cap in pulses. after a heavy drive i get the coolant pulsing, but
> much more bubbling - like the bubbling i used to get.
>
> the only thing i have found that i didn't do was crank on the heater
> when i was filling the cooling system. is it possible that since i did
> not do this, there was a chunk of air in the heater core that is now
> escaping when the car heats up? i ran the car tonight at idle with the
> heater on full blast after discovering this possibility, but the rad
> stayed full (again on an incline) even with the bleeder open.
>
> it seems there are three or four possibilities:
> 1 - block is cracked
> 2 - head is cracked and crack missed by shop
> 3 - heater core had air bubble and now air is working out
> 4 - head gasket was installed improperly
>
> any thoughts? thanks.
>
the head could be cracked, but honda aren't renowned for this kind of
problem. much more likely imo, is that the cleaning/machining/lapping
process has left marks in the head surface that make it impossible for a
gas seal to be made.

either way, i think chasing down the problem is a bit academic at this
point. the cost of diagnostics on the head to see if it really is
cracked, labor, etc. just doesn't compare favorably with getting a "new"
jdm engine from japan for $290 plus shipping. if the motor was rare and
much more expensive, sure, chase the problem down, but it's not, so at
this point, i'd just swap it out and be done with it. [replacement also
eliminates the longevity issues associated with all the crud that
inevitably gets into the engine when the head comes off.]