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Hi all,
1997 9000 aero 128K miles
I've just completed a headgasket job on my lovely silver Aero.
For anyone (like myself) who has been in denial that their headgasket needs replacing cause they are either worried about the cost of paying someone to do it, or scared of doing it themselves (both applied to me), hear this.
I'd been putting this off for about 4 months. First I had a leak in my heater core so I hoped by just bypassing the heater by putting a hose between the inlet and outlet pipes on the engine that would solve it. It didn't. I was losing coolant I could drive about 20 miles before "Check Radiator" light came on and my reservoir was soaking wet where the water boiled over through the cap due to being pressurised by the cylinder. I had no oil in coolant or coolant in oil, yet no extreme steam from exhaust either, it just vanished.
I took time off work, gathered info from this board, Townshend write up on 900 HG job, the bits I needed (headgasket, exhaust manifold bolts, turbo to exhaust manifold gasket. Also as I would have to take it off anyway, I ordered some Powerflex Poly top engine mounts which I'd also been putting off doing cause it looked complicated...yeah I know...
Anyway, I decided to avoid the problem of seized manifold bolts and removed the head with inlet and exhaust attached. This requires disconnecting the turbo (hence needing the gasket) and all the electrical and coolant plumbing to be disconnected. None of it hard, just a lot of it.
I've heard that leaving the exhaust manifold on makes it difficult to put back on (I assume because the head needs to be pulled in one direction, whereas the turbo to manifold studs are angled in a different direction, so I removed the turbo studs using the double nut method.
Even with the manifolds attached, the assembly is not that heavy but will require a helpful neighbour just due to it's awkward shape.
I did some more bullet biting in that as I could see no sign of overheating, I did not bother taking the head to a shop to have it skimmed slightly, I just hoped it was fine and cleaned both mating surfaces well.
I can now pass the following tips on:
1) You can do ALL of this by yourself. No special tools needed and the only time I needed an extra pair of hands was for one minute while we lifted the head off. No lifting crane needed, it is very light.
2) You will have to remove the cam gears to get the head off. Before you do, get the number 1 piston to Top dead centre and ensure the marks on the cam gears are perpendicular to the head AND that the mark on the crank pulley directly underneath the cam gears, is also on the corresponding vertical mark. Then using small zip ties, mark the link that goes into the most vertical tooth of the cam gear above the vertical mark. If not you will waste a couple of days trying to get the timing right (ask me how I know...)
3) Before actually removing the head, you must remove the timing belt tensioner which sits behind the bracket that hold your upper vertical engine mount. I nearly missed this and it was only when I could feel that the head was catching on something that I realised!.
TOnce I got the head off, the HG itself was not in fact perforated, but as I was surprised at how easy the head bolts came off, I can only assume that this caused my problem of coolant getting to the cylinders. I am not kicking myself as I understand that if the head bolts are that loose, the constant coolant flow will saturate the headgasket and it would need replacing anyway, although I could have got away with just tightening the head bolts.
My message is simple. I wish I had had the guts to try doing this job before as my last 2 cars died due to HG failure. It was not tricky and I had no major disasters. I am now confident that the head is in good shape, there is no sludge present, the pistons and bore look fine and I can look forward to another 130K miles on this fine car! Also I am so pleased with myself for successfully completing what I thought was major surgery!
I hope this gives someone the confidence to attempt it. It's maiden voyage after the repair was 165 mile trip and I can't tell you how great I felt when I popped the hood and found the coolant reservoir EXACTLY as full as when I left - brilliant!
It's also a nice chance to clean all those tricky to reach bits while you've got them apart.
Kind regards
Andy
posted by 87.194.12...
, Sun, 17 Aug 2008 19:33:07
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