On 08:27 AM 01/15/03 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] said...
I have a 90 Si, that has been mysteriously loosing coolant without any leaks recently. I haven't had much of a chance to try and diagnose yet and was wondering if this was a common problem?I just went through a similar ordeal with mine back in December. I had a slow loss of coolant but never saw an overheating condition. I just dismissed it as air trapped in the cooling system from when I swapped out the radiator back in August/September so I just checked it and topped it off when needed.
The woman I bought the car from had to have the head gasket replaced at 60k miles, I believe. The car now has 114k with a similar problem?
Is the 1.6 prone to this problem? What are the chances the head is cracked?
It wasn't until I was trying to troubleshoot an idle problem that would creep up from time to time which I later found to be the EACV. But during the troubleshooting, I could smell coolant in the air but I had just topped off the coolant and was also messing around with the EACV which also uses the temp of the coolant to control it.
Then I noticed a pretty nice while cloud coming from the back of my car and it didn't smell like your typical exhaust but more like coolant.
Took it down to the shoppe where they did a pressure test of some sort and said that I had the beginnings of a head gasket leak.
The gasket itself is not that expensive. The expense is in the cost of getting the head machined so that when you go to mate them back up again, you have a nice flat (sealing) surface. I basically paid close to $900 (USD) to have mine done which included the shoppe to pull the head and put it back. I also had them replace the timing belt while they were at it ($35, cheap insurance). I thought about having them do the water pump too but then decided to apply the bucks towards a new EACV (which sunk me for about $160 from the dealer... I also didn't take the time to shoppe around, I just wanted it fix and running again...).
Had I not done the EACV and timing belt, it would have been in the $700 range.
The other possibility is that you have a crack in the cylinder head. If it's not bad, it can be repaired (welded). Unfortunately, I don't think there is anyway to check to see if it's either the head gasket, cracked head or both until you pull the cylinder head.
Last... if you're wondering if you really need to have the head machined, I say "Yes". That's because no other sealant is used and so to ensure leaks you need a good flat surface. If you have it in your budget, have the head rebuilt with new valves, springs, etc... Or inquire about having the head milled. The previous owner had the head milled on my CRX when he blew the gasket at 120K miles. So compression is slightly higher than stock which gives me some additional pep at the wheels and I still have reliability (and I pass smog). I believe it was milled 15 mm or somewhere close to that.
When it was confirmed that I had a head gasket leak and I learned the cost, I was at a precipice. Do I do the repair or do I invest more money and do a B18. The time would have been right. But I decided to do the repair for various personal reasons that I won't get into.. but if anyone is interested, let me know.
Robert K. Kuhn
CRX Owners Group President (http://www.crx.org/southcal)
1990 Honda CRXsi (http://www.hooligan.cc)
ICQ # 3714283 (nickname: godzilla)
