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UPDATE on blown head gasket or loose bolts scenario
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Posted by Bob (from Maine) [Email] (more from Bob (from Maine)) on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:17:15 Share Post by Email
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Well I dug in and changed all head bolts on my 99 2.3 this past weekend in my elcheapo attempt to try and cure coolant loss and excessive cooling system pressure from presumed blown head gasket.. started saturday, nice balmy zero degrees outside.. had to stop to go to family xmas party.. next day (Sunday)came the blizzard.. working under a tarp tent in minus zero temps blizzard snow and winds all day and got it done.. was dressed for weather and quite comfy actually under tarp.. had Patriots game on in garage and a few extremely cold beverages making the best of it... found the head bolts had been upgraded.. I started with the suspected front left bolt.. wow.. it was only a tad tigher than finger tight.. if I recall, loosened it up with only extension and no ratchet... next the back left... somewhat tighter needing slight force on small 8" ish ratchet to remove.. then on to the other 8.. small ratchet wouldn't budge them.. used leverage from torque wrench and over 75 ft lbs to remove the other 8.. the very loose frt lft bolt threads were nasty and full of crap residue blow by.. the other 9 were pristine clean but changed them all to the new bronze upgraded bolts and retorquing procedure.. did the 30 lb torque in sequence all around then the 44 lb then tried the plus 90.. wow couldn't get to plus 90 with torque wrench or 12" breaker bar.. went and bought 18" breaker bar and took extreme force to get to the plus 90 position, but did.. installed new Elring valve cover gasket from eeuroparts (came in a GM factory tagged bag)and put it all together.. the valve bolts were also initially half tight when removed and contributing to wet oily head.. also changed plugs that were extremely, severely worn out.. badly... (just bought it about 5K miles ago).. 3 of the 4 plugs were also just barely tighter than hand tight and evidence of blow by on the head where plugs thread in and all were very dry in head and hard to remove.. the #4 plug was a bit lighter brown in color than the other 3 but not bad and looking to be burning better than other 3 that were more black than brown, looked at piston head in #4 (and all others)and was sooty and not pressure washed clean lookingas I thought it may look.. loose bolt and nice color plug were seemingly promising signs at that point.. installed new plugs using hi temp antisieze torqued to a bit over 20 ft lbs.. the only casualty in all this cold weather repair work was the PCV valve cover nipple that snapped into 3 pieces in minus 0 temps trying to remove.. and a few cold knuckle smashers.. started her up and let warm up idling (without PCV hoses connected).. no visible coolant leak from head, but still slight bubbles in reservoir.. bummer.. poured in bottle of Barrs head gasket repair (yea I know, but worth the $25 for a try).. took it out and drove it hard for 15-20 minutes and shut it down to cool overnight in 0 temps and didn't look back..

Monday nervously drove my regular 50 mile round trip commute to work, OK so far, today same 50 mile commute and numerous small trip between, so far so good.. I hate to jinx myself and probably only bought myself some time, but something worked.. no more leaks or coolant cap blow offs yet, no apparent bubbles in coolant tank and not loosing coolant anymore.. and the car seems to have more pep now... new plugs?? no evidence of steam from tailpipe either... running without PCV hoses connected to head at the moment due to trashed nipple until get PVC 6 update kit in (hope this is ok?) but this combination of fixes definately improved the car and am now comfortable to drive it again while keeping an eye on coolant and temp quage constantly...

Just thought my experience was worthy of an update as I and others from my posted symptoms thought I was immediately doomed to a head gasket replacement which may be my who knows when end result, but till then I'm smiling amd driving!

posted by 64.222.222...
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