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Trade it in on a new Insight or Fit.

Here's the plan:

I'm pulling the head and taking it to Vila Machine in Bryan for them to look it over. John at Vila sez that Honda bottom ends are pretty stout and that at worst, it may have a cracked head but probably only needs to be resurfaced and new gaskets.

We'll see.

had a mechanic do exactly the same thing to my 300D. Fortunately, the lower radiator hose had not come off and wasn't leaking! (miracle!) Another of many reasons I DIY as many things as I can do myself.

Sounds like a good plan.

Quote:

Originally Posted by R Leo (Post 3065391)

The whole point of buying this car was to extract myself from 'car projects.' Well, that and the little thing gets something like 24mpg on regular which, around here, is >.60/gallon cheaper than diesel.

sounds like you are talkin about my longbed 2000 silverado wit a 4.3
-but i do have to drop the tranz and fix the seal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by R Leo (Post 3065376)

When I replaced the radiator, I forgot to put the clamp on the bottom radiator hose, it blew the hose off the nipple, drained the cooling system, overheated and, at the least, (I'm guessing) warped the head. Random miss now, throwing "intermittent miss all cylinders" DTC code and has what looks like combustion pressure in the radiator(bubbles).

I have killed a perfectly good engine.

GAWD, I think I'm losing my groove on this stuff.

I feel a little less stupid now. About a month ago, I put my fourth timing belt and water pump in my 325i. The gasket on the water pump is difficult to get in place and when it started leaking coolant I assumed I had folded the gasket under.

I had some serious appointments, the leak was slow, so I went off, with much water/coolant mix on board to keep me going. I later took everything back off, got a new gasket, which I put in after I discovered the first one was OK. Still leaked. Took it all apart again only to discover that I had left one hose not tightly clamped. No damage fortunately though I did breathe a lot of coolant stink. Hours of work owing to a small oversight.

Quote:

Originally Posted by R Leo (Post 3066019)

Good luck.

I hate to say this but it is common knowledge amongst the Honda crowd that once you overheat a Honda motor it will need rings, or will smoke a lot....really a lot. The fragile oil control rings collapse and become useless.

My daughter was driving our first Miata on the interstate until it started making funny pinging noise; she looked at the temp gauge and she has no idea how long it was pegged in the red.....fast forward.... Badly warped head. The cylinder walls looked great and the piston tops looked fine. I surfaced the head & with a new head gasket' it started and ran great; but now it was a mosquito fogging machine. The fragile oil control rings had collapsed, but the compression rings were fine.
It was a gross polluter; I should have just changed out with a used engine.
Also; Note to Self: ......Thermostats are periodic maintenance replacement items; the originals don't last forever.

I'm not big on the 'idiot light' thing but I'm wondering if a reliable audible alarm which indicates temp rising to approx. 3/4ths of the scale might be a good idea. Or even a bright flashing light perhaps. My bimmer gas gauge has a light which catches my attention. I glance at the temp often but it's way easy for it to shoot up before you notice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by R Leo (Post 3066019)

This is how I would handle it. It's an I4, so everything should be relatively easy.

If you get it all back together and it smokes like crazy you can always try to engine restore in a can(assuming the engine would be toasted regardless)

OR

A 616 and lots of hammering.

Quote:

Originally Posted by R Leo (Post 3065376)

OK, I decided to do some preventative maintenance on my (new to me) CR-V. The timing belt and accessory drive belts and radiator hoses were of unknown provenance and the radiator had an occasional weeping leak at the top tank; ordered the parts a while back (from Phil), got ahead on some other stuff and decided to dig in and "git 'er done." Everything went pretty well; it's not a really easy car to work on but everything fit and after I was done it started and didn't make clanking noises...drove into Cameron and back yesterday and all was OK.

Hit the highway headed for Austin today, got 10mi from home, my feet were cold so I turn on the heater and realize there wasn't any hot air coming out...I check the temp gauge and it is PEGGED!

When I replaced the radiator, I forgot to put the clamp on the bottom radiator hose, it blew the hose off the nipple, drained the cooling system, overheated and, at the least, (I'm guessing) warped the head. Random miss now, throwing "intermittent miss all cylinders" DTC code and has what looks like combustion pressure in the radiator(bubbles).

I have killed a perfectly good engine.

GAWD, I think I'm losing my groove on this stuff.

Somehow I've missed this thread until now. I'm sorry to hear this. If you do enough work things like this are almost inevitable. It's not the end of the world.

I worked in a truck shop for a short while after getting out of the Army waiting for the next semester to start. The most well thought of mechanic in the shop, got interrupted at the very end of a big truck rear differential rebuild and didn't get the filler plug tightened. It came out and threw all the lube out of the axle and locked it up somewhere on the road.

I've had my episode when losing my daughters 300D engine after I had overhauled it by not getting the IP shut off properly in place and watching it run away. It had me down for sure, but it wasn't the end of the world.

Hang tough and everything will be fine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Kenny (Post 3068618)

done 3 head gasket jobs with severely warped heads in the last few years. these were all late 90s hondas, but not one of them had a smoke issue after.

I have everything off or loose except the cam bearing caps and head bolts...I'll pull all that tomorrow morning and take the head to Vila for them to either do their magic or give it the last rites.

Crossing my fingers...

It'll work out fine and after you're done, you will have some satisfaction in knowing that you got it all straightened out by yourself.

Have a nice Christmas