General Start of the headgasket today! :)

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General Start of the headgasket today! :)

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Oct 3, 2009
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Start of the headgasket for my 16v sporting!

Got the timing tools coming on thursday but starting to take everything off now!
Shall i still mark everything up? or is it safe to just pull everything off and time it up at the end of the headgasket?

Also, im lapping the valves when i get the head off, can i manually pull the valves out or do i HAVE to have the valve extractor? :)
 
Just an update :)
Cost me £170 so far to complete this headgasket! :( but its getting there :)

Melted the inlet manifold when it was overheating so i had to get a second hand one of them today! I took the head to a shop and they have said it needs to be skimmed, the limit marks were still there so its safe to :)

lapped the valves and polished everything up, polished the pistons, appantly unburnt fuel sticks to the deposits on the piston so buffing them up to all shiney cant hurt :)

Got the timing tools coming friday afternoon now :( but id rather do everything properly! Cant wait to start putting everything back together! my first ever headgasket ive done lol! :)
 
Just an update :)
Cost me £170 so far to complete this headgasket! :( but its getting there :)

Melted the inlet manifold when it was overheating so i had to get a second hand one of them today! I took the head to a shop and they have said it needs to be skimmed, the limit marks were still there so its safe to :)

lapped the valves and polished everything up, polished the pistons, appantly unburnt fuel sticks to the deposits on the piston so buffing them up to all shiney cant hurt :)

Got the timing tools coming friday afternoon now :( but id rather do everything properly! Cant wait to start putting everything back together! my first ever headgasket ive done lol! :)

ive seen 2 melted manifolds this last 12 months causing all sorts of problems this is why i keep telling people on here to invest in a vacuum gauge because the reading would show as nearly 0 if you had it running and connected
keep us posted and remember to take some photos
everyone like a photo:)
 
ive seen 2 melted manifolds this last 12 months causing all sorts of problems this is why i keep telling people on here to invest in a vacuum gauge because the reading would show as nearly 0 if you had it running and connected
keep us posted and remember to take some photos
everyone like a photo:)

Whats a vacuum gauge mate? Sorry not really technical when it comes to this sort of stuff lol.

Quick (and possibly silly) question...
As ive had my head skimmed twice, have i got to tighten the headbolts up even more than the:
30nm torque
Slacken 90 degrees
90 degrees
90 degrees

Or shall i just go this and it should all be ok? It seemed when i did my last headgasket the bolt were really hard to tighten up but getting them off was sooo easy!
Just curious! Thanks :)
 
Quick (and possibly silly) question...
As ive had my head skimmed twice, have i got to tighten the headbolts up even more than the:
30nm torque
Slacken 90 degrees
90 degrees
90 degrees

no and where did you get that instructions from?

use a dial gauge you will be surprised how much more than 90 degrees the drive has to go to turn the bolt end 90
 
no and where did you get that instructions from?

use a dial gauge you will be surprised how much more than 90 degrees the drive has to go to turn the bolt end 90

damm, i just bought a torque wrench which you set it to untill it clicks :(
ill move the bolts a little more than 90 degrees then shall i? really cant afford another tool... lol
 
damm, i just bought a torque wrench which you set it to untill it clicks :(
ill move the bolts a little more than 90 degrees then shall i? really cant afford another tool... lol

you need a torque wrench too, dial gauge is only a fiver. i'm more worried about the method you have posted, where did you get it from?, ive always done torque, then 90 then 90 again, never slackened, just the 3 stages
 
you need a torque wrench too, dial gauge is only a fiver. i'm more worried about the method you have posted, where did you get it from?, ive always done torque, then 90 then 90 again, never slackened, just the 3 stages

It says it on the instructions i got with the new headgasket :s
Ive always thought it was
30NM
Tighten 90 Degrees
Tighten 90 Degrees

But it says here to slacken before tightening :s weird lol.

might have to invest in one then! Last thing i want is this headgasket going a third time in 7 months lol
 
Just finished the headgasket, without too much cursing! haha

Timed it perfect! Done everything by the haynes manual, started it and it was ok but seems a bit hesitant... plugged in the diagnostics and its come up with 7 codes :(

P0202 injector circuit Cylinder 2
P0135 02 sensor
P0340 camshaft position sensor A
P1135 (undefined)
P0130 o2 sensor
U1702 (undefined)
P1314 (undefined)

.... help :(
 
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