I ran a compression test on the engine in the wagon and got mixed results. In the middle of the second test my gauge broke (Thanks Harbor Freight) I gave up and decided to give the car some new plugs and try my luck at a smog test. A few days later my girlfriend took the car in for a smog test. It failed. Not shocked. On the way home from the smog test the car over heated. I knew my gut was right and the head gasket had been blown. I searched the local dismantlers and found a m104 with 150k and good compression for $400. At a price like that it wasn't worth tearing into the engine in the car. The dismantler even offered delivery for $50. So the fallowing morning at 6:30am there was a truck in my driveway delivering an engine. The fallowing weekend was my birthday and I hadn't made any plans so I talked to my friends and we decided my birthday party should be installing the engine in the wagon.
A couple days before on a Wednesday evening Justin (iwrock) came over and helped me pull the engine out.


That weekend I replaced all the seals on the engine on Saturday. Sunday everyone came over and helped install the new engine.








After a long evening on Sunday we got the engine running.
The fallowing week I spent cleaning up from what a mess 4 people can make installing an engine in one day. I got the car all put back together and the house cleaned up. Today was the only day my girlfriend had off and DMV was open (I work the hours DMV is open) and we only were given 2 one-day moving passes to get the car smogged and this brake and light inspection done. We used up the first one when the car over heated so today we tried to get all the inspections done and get to DMV. She took the car in this morning and it passed all this tests! She picked me up from work and we went to DMV together. The most shocking part of the story might be that there were only 20 people in the DMV! we got to see a window person in 5 minuets!! They did the VIN verification and assigned the car plates! Its legal now!



Almost forgot the most important help I got with the engine swap.

__________________