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Part Number: EJ22E GD

Alright guys. I actually got this vehicle fixed on the early hours of Sunday morning but haven't had time to write about it. The repair was a success and the engine is purring like a kitten after a couple hundred miles of mixed driving. Best of all, I DID NOT need to disconnect the motor and transmission mounts so that I could move it out of the way with a jack. You can replace EJ25 head gaskets with the block still bolted into the engine bay. The angle is awkward, frustrating, requires physical strength, and might give you a stiff back, but it is doable - and a good bit easier than unmounting the powertrain or even removing the engine. If you don't have the ability to remove the engine, or have to do this job in your driveway or on the side of the street, then this is a viable option. If you are the kind of mechanic that excels at removing parts from tight angles and awkward places, then this will be a breeze. In-Car Head Gasket Replacement Tips Be prepared to hold the weight of the cylinder head for a while to maneuver it out of the engine bay. Once you have fully unscrewed all 6 head bolts, the cylinder heads are best removed after taking out the top 3 bolts. This is because you are going to want clearance to raise and tilt the head forward towards the centerline of the engine to get the bottom bolts clear of their holes bottom holes. If you don't remove the top bolts, they will bang into the top of the engine when you tilt the head towards it. As the head face approaches a 45 degree angle, the bottom bolts clear their holes and you can slide it forward a bit before being clear to pull it out of the engine bay. The back bottom bolt on each head is the one that has the least clearance due to interference with the frame, so this is why you bring the head forward before lifting it out of the bay along with the bottom 3 bolts. Reinstalling the heads: I recommend you put the gasket on right before mating the head to the block. You first need to maneuver the block back into place with the bottom 3 bolts inside, then add the top 3 bolts once you have gotten the cylinder head close enough to the block. Do NOT put the head gasket on the block dowels beforehand. You are guaranteed to contact and mar it with the tips of the bolts, as well as knock it off the dowels and onto the ground. Instead, have it ready on the top of the block. Once you have all 6 bolts in and right before closing the gap between the bolt tips and the block, put the new head gasket in between the gap and slide it onto the cylinder head bolts. This is the only way to avoid marring the surface of the new gasket while installing the head. The gasket did not catch on the block dowels as the head was mated to the block, and tightening the bolts went smoothly thereafter. Review Very glad I replaced both gaskets; the other one was of course rusting and wearing down like the one that failed. With picking up parts, this job took me 3 days. That is 1 day longer than I expected because I didn't account for all the cleaning that needs to be done prior to reinstallation. The cylinder heads, block face, and piston heads all need to be cleaned. I very carefully scraped as much gasket material off with a high quality, sharpened and honed metal gasket scraper as I could, then used green scrub pads in combination with acetone and brake cleaner. Inside the heads on and around the valve faces, I used the same thing, along with a stiff plastic bristle brush and some Brasso, to remove carbon deposits. Around the perimeter of the valve seats, and on the piston heads, I also employed a pick to remove large flakes of carbon. A pick will definitely be needed to remove the carbon that builds up in the piston head depressions for the valves. I opted to spray clean the cylinder heads in a bath tub after cleaning the face and combustion chamber areas, to get rid of the Brasso paste and cleaning debris. I also replaced a lot of other parts; the timing belt, drive belts, spark plugs, and 5 cooling system hoses I could identify (2 radiator, 2 heater core, 1 bypass elbow). Timing belt was at 40k after 5 years. If it had been a bit less, I might have reused it. Fresh oil and coolant, of course. Coolant color is staying clean now. and best of all not "evaporating". I suspect my head gasket has been leaking for a while, but only got bad enough to cause engine failure recently, as I have been periodically having to refill it along with the oil that the engine eats. Replaced the intake gaskets but not the valve cover gaskets; just cleaned them and rubbed them down with AT-205 before reinstalling; no oil leaks from them. Turns out all that rust was from the head gaskets themselves, rusting away on the coated outer layer as seen in the pictures. The first head on the driver side with the misfiring cylinder was very clean on the piston head and cylinder head valve areas. This is because coolant was leaking into the cylinder, and it got a steam cleaning. You can see the cleanliness in a picture I posted above using an endoscope through the spark plug seat prior to disassembling the engine. If I had bothered to look inside a different cylinder, I would've seen how dirty the other piston heads were looking and known right away what was going on. The water pump was in good condition, so I reused it. However, one bolt hole at the top had been previously stripped5 years ago, to which I had added a bunch of silicone sealant as some insurance. When reinstalling the water pump bolts at the specified 108 inch-pounds, a second adjacent bolt began stripping. So now I have two partially stripped bolts on the top of the water pump. I slathered the affected area with Ultra Grey as insurance against a leak. Next time I take this engine apart, I will have to drill out, tap, and install repair inserts into those bolt holes. The engine seems to have more power and acceleration now. Glad I cleaned the combustion chamber areas prior to reassembly. The top reason I think this head gasket failed is because I didn't change my coolant, it became acidic, and ate away at the head gaskets. I also added water to the coolant reservoir rather than coolant, which diluted the coolant and facilitated rusting. It probably didn't help that I was trying to get away with 10k oil changes by using a top quality filter and full synthetic oil. It also probably didn't help that I was using platinum plugs rather than the OEM NGK plugs. I'm going to check my coolant more often and change it regularly now, perhaps even annually, and make more frequent oil changes and spark plug inspections/changes. I only took a couple pictures of the job because this is my only vehicle and I needed to fix it ASAP. I'll attach what I have, a couple before and after cleaning pictures of the heads, below. Thank you for all the responses and help guys.

So it was a distributor that died. And with a bunch of hunting, I found a unicorn. Rebuilt with almost no miles and no shaft play sitting in the junkyard. The old exhaust has been unbolted and and the new disty is getting timed in soon. New exhaust and hangers are getting dropped in when I swap the tranny mounts, finally, and we'll see if the old beast will wake the dead once again. Twitch

The Weber doesn't require a return. GD

i guess my question is why are your revving it that high with the clutch in anyway?

sounds like misfire/afterfire. it's okay if it only does this unloaded and clutch in. when you press the accelerator past a certain point, the ecu goes into open loop mode. it fires whatever rich amount of fuel and doesn't rely on any sensor feedback. the overrich mix doesn't completely burn in the cylinder and could ignite after exhaust port. this doesn't happen if the engine is loaded down and in gear as it can't freewheel and spit the excess fuel out the exhaust port. don't worry about it unless it's actually misfiring when the engine is loaded, you'd see the check engine light blinking.