Mark - use a putty knife to get the gasket material off. Take care not to scratch the block/head when doing this. Don't worry about the carbon, if it is loose -- you can use a vacuum to pick it up with. The dizzy is next to cyl #4. If the plug is cross-threaded, it's already buggered. You might as well go ahead and remove it. If you take the head to a machine shop, they can usually fix the threads for you. You shouldn't need to put anything on the head gasket - you are using a Honda head gasket, right? It is a lot better gasket than most generic auto parts ones. I believe that the head bolts are 49 ft-lb. I would tighten to 20, then 40, then finally 49. Make sure you use the criss-cross pattern shown in the book. Skip the honing, unless you are having the engine/head redone.
HTH David Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] '89 CRX DX, white, 196K miles '90 CRX Si, yellow, 47K miles '02 Civic EX, ruby, 10K miles '81 CM200T, blue, 6K miles -----Original Message----- From: Mark Humphreys [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, June 14, 2002 10:18 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: CRX: Head gasket replacement questions....I'm moving along. Okay, My hands are still stained from the grease from the Si replacement in my rex, but just as I was finishing working on my rex, another demon reared it's ugly head, and started trying to mix oil and coolant on my 90 civic hatch....yeah, you guessed it: the head gasket has allowed oil to meet coolant. I've been making some fantastic progress in the past few days, but I would like to make sure that I don't go wrong at this next step: I got the head off of my 90 Dx block (in the civic hatch), and I've started cleaning up everything to put it all back together, but I have a few questions: 1) How do I go about getting that sticky "fabric" part of the head gasket off the block/head? 2) Should I scrape all the thick carbon out of the pistons? Or is it fine? The motor has 187,ooo miles on it, a nd AFAIK, this is the first time that the heads been off. 3) On cylinder # 2 or #3 (not the one right next to the dizzy, one over) the spark plug was not in all the way...I only recently got the car, and i'm afraid that it might be cross-threaded, what can I do about it? I'm afraid to loosen the plug, in the event that I gall the threads, and have to scrap the head. What should I do? Anything while the head is off? 4) Where on the headgasket should I apply the hondabond? 5) What is the torque spec on the head studs? Does anyone have any advice to do it properly (better than the autozone book [chiltons] might explain)? 6) What else should I consider? My friend wants me to use a honing stone on the head/block to ensure it's flat, but I'm concerned about stray grit causing problems either in the oil passages or coolant... TIA!! -M _________________________________________________________________ Join the world's largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
