88' 2.0 Headgasket? maybe...

[ADV RIDERAA]

Re-torqued head, adjusted MCA valves, and finished assembly. Truck's running good, and quiet. Drove about 10 miles, and changed the oil. Seems to be running really good. I am happy : ) . The idle seems a little low, idle seems a little rough at times- but resting my foot on accellerator brings up idle, and it smooths out . Also I haven't checked the timing- forgot my timing light at work. This coming week I will use the exhaust analyzer and adjust the carb, Also check the timing with a light.

Going riding in the morning, so another 100 miles tomorrow, definately keeping an eye on the temp light- paranoid!

UPDATE: 2/23 Truck is running good, put about 90 miles on today. Starts up great cold, no noise. The only slight issue is when restarting hot, I have to use the accell. pedal to get it to start. Hopefully I can adjust that issue away this week. Also I am up to 230+ miles on the tank of gas, a little less than a 1/4 left. So it seems I am at least getting about 23mpg.

[ADV RIDERAA]

Truck is running good. Have now put about 400 miles since head overhaul. Starting to feel more confident that it wont leave me stranded. Unfortunately I noticed several oil spots under truck tonight. Its dripping off the front under engine pan. Tomorrow I will know more. Hopefully I dont have to remove the timing belt again, to do engine seals. Although that would be easier than redoing the fuel pump gasket.

My question today is, what oil is being used in these manual transmissions for the best shifting performance? I plan to change it, so i might as well use whatever seems to work the best.

Thank you

[pennyman1]

Redline MT90 synthetic or royal purple 80-90. You will notice a real difference in shifting, but be careful on downshifts - the resistance to accidentally shifting into first instead of 3rd goes away, causing neck snapping rapid deceleration.

[ADV RIDERAA]

Redline MT90 synthetic or royal purple 80-90. You will notice a real difference in shifting, but be careful on downshifts - the resistance to accidentally shifting into first instead of 3rd goes away, causing neck snapping rapid deceleration.

Thanks for the oil info, I will get some Royal Purple. Checking for oil leak, front of engine looks dry. Looks like oil all around oil pan. I will degrease and use dye to find location. Oil all over crossmember, I might get to re-do fuel pump after all.

[ADV RIDERAA]

I will be doing front engine seals tomorrow. (crank,balance shaft, oil pump ) . Will i be able to just remove the balance shaft, and oil pump pulleys and remove seals without any other issues? The manual doesn't really say clearly. I figure-remove t-belt, loosen crank bolt, loosen bal. shaft, and oil pump pulley bolts. Remove bolts and pull off pulleys. Will it be that easy? I've done these about 20 yrs ago, and don't remember any major issues doing the frt seals, but I cant remember all the details.

Any good advice? I plan to be done by noon-I hope

EDIT: I will loosen crank bolt first using the starter, and a breaker bar. Then disassembly will begin.

[BradMph]

The engine has to be removed to remove balance shafts.

[ADV RIDERAA]

The engine has to be removed to remove balance shafts.

I guess I should have been clear, I am just removing the pulleys to replace the oil seals. Not planning on eliminating balance shafts. It
s raining hard, and since I have to work roadside... I got it apart, crank seal out, and balance shaft seal out. Hard as plastic-crumbled. So def. a problem. Also a groove worn in the balance shaft sleeve, so I plan on just flipping it. Only has a slight bevel that I will add to the opposite end.
My main issue is getting the oil pump pulley bolt loose. My cordless impact wouldn't do it. What has been used to hold this pulley? I was able to use a motorcycle clutch holding tool for the balance shaft, But can't for the oil pump, because of the flange on face of pulley. Any ideas?

[bigwavedave]

BUMPn this thread in hopes of firing her up again. I didnt want to start a new one in hopes of keeping all this info in the same place.

Anyway, the other day I drove my 89 mighty max with the G63B about 30 miles with plenty of hills. Kept my eye on the temp gauge and she got warm, but never over the line and I didnt worry about over heating. Well I got about a mile from my destination and realized the thing was smoking like cheech and chong. I immediately thought the head gasket had gone. Well fast forward to today, I got it back home and did a compression test:

#1: 115 psi
#2: 115 psi
#3: 45 psi
#4: 110 psi

All 4 plugs looked like they were soaked in oil. See attached pic.



Also, the engine oil does not look to be contaminated with oil, in fact it looks awesome since i just recently changed it, just looks super fresh. The radiator and reservoir are both full and looks like regular, uncontaminated coolant.

What do you guys think? thanks in advance for any help!

[bigwavedave]

Update: just did a leak down test and here are my findings:

Cylinder #1: inlet pressure 90 pst, leak gauge 86 psi. There is air coming out of the exhausr pipe and i can hear and feel air coming from the #3 intake valve/adjuster area, but cant pinpoint

Cylinder #2: inlet pressure 90 psi, leak gauge 76 psi. There is air coming out of the exhaust pipe and also from the #3 intake valve/ adjuster area.

Cylinder #3: inlet pressure 90 psi, leak gauge 12 psi. air bubbles coming from #3 lash adjuster and air coming out of the pcv valve. No air from exhaust.

Cylinder #4: inlet pressure 96 psi, leak gauge 86 psi. LOTS of air coming from exhaust.


On all 4 of the cylinder tests there was no bubbling in the radiator (which is full) and i could not detect air coming out of the dipstick area. Seems to me like my valves are toast, but is it common for exhaust and intake valves to go at the same time? Im a super rookie at internal engine work but am learning, so apologies if these are elementary questions. thanks again.

[geezer101]

If those are your plugs, they look way past their use by date but I think you have bigger issues. If it smokes continuously under load, I'm calling dead rings/worn cylinder bores. Make sure you do the test correctly or you'll get some misleading results. Main cause of oil burn is bad valve stem seals and the symptom is a cough of smoke on acceleration from a stationary start. If you are hearing air leak from the intake or exhaust it sounds like the valves and valve seats are worn. You may get away with a light deglaze of the cylinder bores and some new rings but you're not going to know until you crack it open. If the head isn't trash a decent old school machine shop can test it and do a valve seat cut and install new valves. Done right and you'll get 10 years out of it easy (if you don't experience any cooling system problems...)

[bigwavedave]

thanks for the reply geezer. I had a jet valve that failed, causing oil to flood cylinder #3. I am waiting on my jet valve eliminator kit from silver seal to show up. I ended up pulling the head and had it resurfaced at a machine shop. Turns out the head is fairly new and looked pretty mint.

[geezer101]

Yeah, dead jet valves will do it. I wasn't aware that G63B's had jet valves (seen them on G62B's but it may be a US market thing...) Good news the head is solid though