T1 problems..

[turbo11]

Is this a good turbo upgrade or go a different way.

[HB]

Hi, coolnant leaking has been fixed with help of radiator sealer. All my friends are saying i have blown head gasket.

How do i replace it? can someone help me in dunedin? i have lots of beers in my fridge lol

where do i get the head gaskets from anyway??

thanks

[Hyperblade]

You can buy a turbo head gasket, from most places, or you can just get a normal n/a city head gasket which works just as well, and is only like $20.

Replacing it means taking off the head, which is a mission the first time, but can be done in place, although its good to check if the head is straight and if it needs machining.

allocate a fair bit of time to do it, as it can be a slow process with some nuts being a pig to get off.

What you can do is get a civic manual from the library, and use that as your guide, for the whole process, and just subsitutue the city torque values etc where needed.

[HB]

civic manual hmm, i hope they got a copy at local libary.

does repco stock city turbo head gasket?

how many hours will i need to replace it myself or with few mates that hasnt got much knowledge of head gasket?

thanks for the help

[James]

I don't think repco stocks the turbo one, but they will stock the non-turbo which is fine for factoryish boost.

I would bank on most of a day, a couple hours to get the head off, a couple hours for beer and lunch and scraping the old gasket off the head, then a couple hours to get it all back together. If you wree experienced it would prolly take about 2-3 hours but your not so it will take longer :p

[HB]

so its just a matter of taking the head off and scraping gasket and putting new one on? how do i get the head off??

[James]

Woah, you werent kidding when you said you didn't know what you were doing, might be best to find someone who knows a wee bit more than you, no offense but you will have less trouble.

To get the head off you have to unbolt everything from the turbo, its oil feed and intake and dump pipe, slide off the cam belt (make sure you dont move the camshaft after you do this this will save you having to re-do the cam timing) and take off the rocker covevr and loosen all the head bolts and studs. Then undo the injector harness and stuff and make sure nothing is connecting the head from the line just above the sparkplugs to anything else on the car, hence you sohuld be able to lift it free. Get a mate to help because it is quite heavy with the manifolds and turbo still attached and you have to lift it up very straight or else it binds up again. Then scrape all the gasket off the head taking care not to get any in the oil galleries, I find sticking little bits of rag in them and pulling them out later with tweezers works well. You also have to do the same with the engine side, dont worry about the water galleries too much but take care not to get shit in the oil ones (you can tell whicih is which by the oily and watery ones ). Then you have to put the gasket on the block, it will line up with two dowel pins which may have come off in the head, take them out and put them in the block, replace the head and tighten in the proper sequence, then re-assemble your engine.

As someone said, find an old civic manual its pretty much the same as the city just with more wiring, if you get deperate I could photocopy the head gasket bit of mine and send it down or somehting if you would like.