headgasket

[Corlebra]

hey guys! i'm a newb and could use some help right about now.

I've got a '91 ECOdiesel Jetta i bought rougly 3 months ago. on the way back home from purchasing it, the motor overheated and destroyed the rings. Upon opening it up i discovered the block was in need of a bore job and everthing went downhill from there.

so, i had a 81 Rabbit 1.6NA that i took the motor out of since the shell was completely rotten and swapped it into the ECO.

immediately the headgasket blew with the introduction of boost. I replaced it with what i was told to be a Felpro HG, when i recieved the part it was a 'Geotz" brand or something to that nature double wrapped and sealed in a felpro bag, makes me think Felpro possibly bought that company and had to get rid of the rest of the stock.. idk.

anyways, i've finally got the car running again. I keep pushing it a little harder each time i drive it, but now everytime i boost it "hard", over 8psi the coolant system builds insanely high pressure and makes the temp gauge shoot up aobut 3/4th to hot and the coolant res boils over.


Point being, i'm quite sure the cheap off brand gasket (which i'm pretty sure being it an N/A engine to begine with) isn't designed to withstand boost.

So, i need a gasket, and a good one at that. Who makes a 1.6L mech. head gasket that'll take some boost?

[82vdub]

Welcome to the forum and please put your location in your profile.

When you had the head off, did you check the block deck for flatness, and check the head for flatness? What about any service work to the head. Was it just pulled and replaced?

The presence of combustion gasses in the coolant means that the head gasket is bad, the block is cracked, or the head is cracked. Since this is head gasket #2, my default opinion is that it's not a bad head gasket, something else is to blame. Can you post more details on what you did and if you checked the block/head etc? Just a curious question, did you do any sort of retorque after the head gasket replacement and did you replace the head bolts with new? FWIW, there is no real substitute for a set of head studs instead of head bolts on these engines.

[steevz]

I think he means that he's blown the head gasket on two different engines now.

Does your NA rabbit block have 11mm bolts for the head? I hear those are prone to cracking.

[Corlebra]

sorry about being unclear.

The first motor, the original is toast. the piston rings crumbled when i pulled them out and it looked as though a turbo may have been sucked into the motor at one point. Piston #3 has weird gouges all over it with mirrored gouges in the head.

The rabbit motor has 206k, it's a 12mm non hydraulic head. I was sure it was a good head since i drove and beat the hell out of that car and had no worries, trusted it to go anywhere.

But, my boss convinced me to send it out regardless to get it tested. Machinist said there was no warpage and no cracks (even between the valves, i was shocked myself!).

I cleaned the snot out of the block before seating the head/gasket back on and the machinist cleaned the head for me. The HG only cost $25. and after pulling the head off i discovered an aftermarket 3notch gasket on it. I replaced it with another 3 notch.


I just took it out for a drive, if it stay away from boost it's fine. But once i start beating on it the whole thing goes haywire.

[texcl]

I beleive that's a good quality german gasket, if your head and block are ok maybe you should try head studs instead of bolts. Did you re-use your bolts?

[Corlebra]

hmmm... Maybe i ought to upgrade to studs?

I bought new headbolts from Felpro, I'd never reuse the bolts.

[CarlosA]

I`d absolutely upgrade to studs if you think the turbo is causing extra stress on the NA engine. I don`t know much about this & what blocks were used, etc.

I have used the same head gasket, it looks to be perfectly good quality to me but that will really come down to proper torque. Studs are the way to go with that just take care to clean out the holes & all that.

[Corlebra]

ok, well it seems to overheat from just idling, but if i remove the coolant res cap the temp remains stable in the proper range..

I did some looking around online and i think i may have torqued the bolts wrong. I used an old Bently Manual for 78-84 Rabbit and something else... I figured it would be the same since the motor came out of a 81 and the engine has remained, for the most part, unchanged for 15 years.

I used the 3 stage torque technique as described in the book, bolts 1 and 2 being in the center and sort of zig-zagging back and forth;

Stage 1:
22ft lbs

Stage 2:
43ft lbs

Stage 3:
61ft lbs

And since then i've drove the car maybe 65 miles now. The gasket said there was no need to retorque the bolts, but as far as i knew you'd do that 1,000 miles after.

I read a couple procedures today saying its a 4, 5, or 6 step process, allowing it to warm up, cool down, turn 90*, losen 30* and another 90*.... so now i'm worried i may have screw it up.

Anybody know the torque specs of the turbo equipted version? Am I ok to reuse the bolts to retorque everything from stage one so long as i don't remove anything?

[texcl]

I'd re-torque, I used arp studs which are re-usable and re-torqued after 1000 miles and was surprised at how much some moved, but no gasket problems.

[Corlebra]

SUCCESS!

WOW! that was nerve wracking to say the least.

The sequencing i found online stated the following:
stg1: 30ft lbs
stg2: 50ft lbs
stg 3: 180* turn
stg 4: allow engine to warm up to 190*F
stg 5: 90* turn
stg 6: drive 600miles
stg 7: warm up to 190*F, one last 90* turn.

I'm up to stage 5 so far, drove the car around a bit tonight, a full 120 miles actually. I can't believe that worked. No more overheating. Heater somewhat works now (stilll need to replace the heater core). and when i boost past 10psi (MBC is set to 15psi) there is no more chirping sound which i thought was the turbo shredding itself, must have been air escaping

I can't believe it even held together at only 60ft lbs, drove nearly 60 miles like that over the course of 2 days.


I'm a very happy camper now. Thanks for all your input guys hopefully somebody else can learn from my mistake.

[Fatmobile]

Yeah, the early bolts had finer threads so the torque was lower.

[Smutts]

Those angle turns......Scary isn't it.
A syringe to suck the oil out of the head bolts allows the triple square tool to get a better fit too. Or roll the car onto the roof.

[Corlebra]

Very scary!

I've surpassed the 600 miles to retorque.

but I'm still not sure if I should since the gasket said "no need to retorque"... that, and the whole fear factor thing coming in to play

It's running good though. Slow, but i'm totally content

[Kevin]

Just did a gasket on my 93 cherokee country i just purchased for 300$!! your instructions are very good and the exact same process and order I did the job.. Its really not that hard and if u remove the whole air box u can get to most of the bottom bolts on the manifold. I just finished the jeep last night, hooked up a battery to it and it started no belt or alternator. It didn’t idle and when i let my foot of the gas it died, only had it running for about 3-4 seconds.I am pleased with getting this done and would use your instructions for sure if the job was new to me!!!