Honda Car Forum

Hello,

I am wondering what the symptoms of a failing head gasket are. I know
that if you have coolant in your oil, or oil in your coolant that is a
sign that it has already failed. Can a compression check tell you
anything, or are there too many causes of low compression in a cylinder
to nail it down to the head gasket?

I ask this out of curiosity because I have a '91 Civic Si with 136k
miles that I have owned for around 14 months. During the summer I did
all sorts of work on the car and cleaned up the area by the
transmission, where the head meets the block, by the D16A6 stamp. Now
that it has been cleaned I can tell there is some minor seepage from
where the head meets the block. It may also be important to note that
the timing belt that was on the car when I bought it was off by a tooth,
and after a while (10k miles) caused my engine to ping or knock ( I
can't separate the two in my head). Currently I think the engine is
running really well.

I love this car and plan on keeping the vehicle as long as I can until
its financial death. Changing the head gasket is something I would feel
comfortable doing mylsef (have a machine shop check/machine the head)
and was wondering if it could be good preventative maintenance with the
mileage I have.

Thanks for any input,

Mark

Chopface <thename_is_slick@yahoo.com> floridly penned in
news:cpa07c$7gu$1@news.doit.wisc.edu:

> Hello,
>
> I am wondering what the symptoms of a failing head gasket are. I know
> that if you have coolant in your oil, or oil in your coolant that is a
> sign that it has already failed. Can a compression check tell you
> anything, or are there too many causes of low compression in a cylinder
> to nail it down to the head gasket?


On your Honda, if the motor is blowing bubbles into the coolant, or causing
the reservoir level to rise significantly while simultaneously emptying the
rad, then your head gasket is gone.

A compression test will tell you nothing. A PRESSURE test will tell you a
lot.

These engines do not usually leak oil into the coolant.


>
> I ask this out of curiosity because I have a '91 Civic Si with 136k
> miles that I have owned for around 14 months. During the summer I did
> all sorts of work on the car and cleaned up the area by the
> transmission, where the head meets the block, by the D16A6 stamp. Now
> that it has been cleaned I can tell there is some minor seepage from
> where the head meets the block.


Oil seepage? Don't worry about it. Common.



> It may also be important to note that
> the timing belt that was on the car when I bought it was off by a tooth,
> and after a while (10k miles) caused my engine to ping or knock ( I
> can't separate the two in my head).



Pinging and knocking are the same thing: detonation or pre-ignition.

--
TeGGeR®

The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ
www.tegger.com/hondafaq/

Compression test is not a definitive answer to detecting bad head gasket.
Low compression could result from bad head gasket, cracked head, or bad
piston rings.

In one case where I got extremely low compression on 2 adjacent cylinders,
it turned out to be indeed a bad head gasket.

Chopface wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am wondering what the symptoms of a failing head gasket are. I know
> that if you have coolant in your oil, or oil in your coolant that is a
> sign that it has already failed. Can a compression check tell you
> anything, or are there too many causes of low compression in a cylinder
> to nail it down to the head gasket?
>
> I ask this out of curiosity because I have a '91 Civic Si with 136k
> miles that I have owned for around 14 months. During the summer I did
> all sorts of work on the car and cleaned up the area by the
> transmission, where the head meets the block, by the D16A6 stamp. Now
> that it has been cleaned I can tell there is some minor seepage from
> where the head meets the block. It may also be important to note that
> the timing belt that was on the car when I bought it was off by a tooth,
> and after a while (10k miles) caused my engine to ping or knock ( I
> can't separate the two in my head). Currently I think the engine is
> running really well.
>
> I love this car and plan on keeping the vehicle as long as I can until
> its financial death. Changing the head gasket is something I would feel
> comfortable doing mylsef (have a machine shop check/machine the head)
> and was wondering if it could be good preventative maintenance with the
> mileage I have.
>
> Thanks for any input,
>
> Mark

Sean Dinh wrote:

> Compression test is not a definitive answer to detecting bad head gasket.
> Low compression could result from bad head gasket, cracked head, or bad
> piston rings.
>
> In one case where I got extremely low compression on 2 adjacent cylinders,
> it turned out to be indeed a bad head gasket.

Valves can also cause low compression. As a way to issolate bad rings is to
use
a little motor oil squirted into a cylinder. If the compression rises
significantly on
that cylinder, it a ring problem..

chuck

Chopface wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am wondering what the symptoms of a failing head gasket are.

Typically the engine starts to overheat. You may have typical temp city
driving, but the guage starts to climb on the highway.

You also may or may not see oil "crud" in the coolant.

> During the summer I did
> all sorts of work on the car and cleaned up the area by the
> transmission, where the head meets the block, by the D16A6 stamp. Now
> that it has been cleaned I can tell there is some minor seepage from
> where the head meets the block.

Its typical for an older motor to seep there from either the head gasket
or the distributor.

-SP