Opinion please; Blown Head Gasket?

Car info:
92 Honda Civic DX
340k(engine rebuilt at 300k)

About a week ago my engine troubles started.
Was driving home when the engine temperature shot up, checked the
coolant and there was none there.
Refilled it, took it to a mechanic friend, he said the Thermostat
wasn't working, which was resulting in the coolant being boiled off.
Seemed reasonable, changed that, coolant hasn't been dissappearing much
or at all since then. (timing belt is going, can't drive it around much
to check)
WAS going to get the belt changed, but the mechanic at the place I took
it to was pretty convinced I had a blown head gasket or cracked head.
All he did was take off the valve cover, didn't do any compression
tests etc.

There seems to be no coolant in the oil pan, and no oil in the coolant.
But the inside of the valve cover is covered in this brown sludge.

I'm not sure what to do.
Is it definitally a blown head gasket/cracked head?
Could that brown sludge have formed inside the valve cover any other
way?

Not really willing to dish out the 1500 to repair the head gasket right
now, or the 3000 to repair the head. Want to be sure of where I go from
here and would appreciate any opinons. The car is a really nice ride
and I'll be sorry to see it go.

Here are a couple pictures of the valve cover and lifters etc
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e15/Greyjaei/2.jpg
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e15/Greyjaei/1.jpg

 

See my response to Hendersauce's post, "Need some DIY input to replace a
headgasket on my 93' Civic DX" earlier today.

The sludge is mostly the result of too much time between oil changes - see
http://tegger.com/hondafaq/sludge/index.html

I'm not sure I understand why the mechanic removed the valve cover if he
suspected a head gasket or head problem.

Mike

 

Sorry, the Mechanic was removing the valve cover while going to change
the timing belt, but he stopped because of the sludge, he was pretty
sure it was coolant mixed with oil.
Is there anyway for coolant to get into the valves without it being a
blown head gasket or cracked head?

 

I had the privilege of recently seeing the old oil from a
car with a blown head gasket. It looked exactly like what
filled up the valve cover in photo 1 that you linked. It's
the consistency/thickness of a milk shake, and
brownish-green, as described at many web sites.

Sludge that forms due to a lack of regular oil changes seems
to me to be more black in color; more tar-like. (OTOH, I
recognize Michael as an expert here... )

From reading here, and working with a friend's car this past
summer, the oil-in-the-coolant and coolant-in-the-oil
indications do not seem to always appear. My friend's Civic
was experiencing regular overheaing. Ultimately she had to
have the coolant tested for exhaust products at the local
dealer. That nailed it. Her 99 Civic, about 115k miles,
needed a new head gasket. Years before she had had one
overheat episode. But it might have just been the very hot
summer this year that put too much strain on the gasket.

If the car is not overheating, then from what you say, I
guess I'd change the oil and monitor for a few weeks. Or
consider having the coolant chemistry tested for something
like $50.

With the recent overheat episode, I would not be optimistic.

 

Thanks, I like that idea, Coolant testing, I live in kind of a
back-water place though, wonder if we'll have it

 

I can't really think of how it would get in there if it WAS a blown head gasket,
unless it was just leaking from the water jacket into the crankcase or an oil
feed, in which case you'd should signs of it on the dipstick as well.

 

That's! what I'm trying to get to the bottom of

 

More often coolant in the oil makes it milky looking, because the leak is
not often small. Sludge normally comes from condensation of the water vapor
from combustion blow-by; every gallon of gasoline produces approximately a
gallon of water in the form of vapor when it burns. A little of it always
mixes with the oil, and if the car isn't driven long enough at a time the
"oil" can actually become up to a third water. Sludge time!

If there is coolant in the oil you will probably also see oil in the coolant
(oil is forced into the coolant when the engine is running, and coolant is
forced into the oil when the engine is cooling off). That is easy enough to
see, even in tiny quantities - it floats on the top of the coolant in the
radiator and the reservoir.

Mike

 

Definitely - failure from the combustion chamber to the coolant passages is
pretty common. I imagine it has something to do with extremely hot gasses
under high pressure hammering on it ;-)

That's the part that worries me, too. Even a single serious overheat can
warp the head (and it's not just a Honda thing), causing the middle to lift
up from the gasket. The repair is the same as head gasket replacement with
the addition of having the head planed at a cylinder head shop or machine
shop. In any event, the head will have to be checked for flatness and should
be looked over by an expert before reinstalling, if you (the OP) do have to
remove the head.

Mike

 

The head gasket is most likely torn or burned and also there may be a tiny
crack in the engine block or warping due to heat. The Civic's have been
having a lot of these types problems and I personally know someone who had
to replace the engine in his 98 because of a crack. Because of other
problems he had to sell the car and lost a whole bunch of money in the
long run by doing the repairs. The Hondas are not the only make cars
suffering these type problems and it seems the auto companies have
cheapened engineering and quality of parts to save a few cents here or
there.
I would recommend you ditch the car as is by selling, maybe give to
donation to Red Cross or something like that and get a tax deduction. Use
the money you would have spent on the repair and then buy or lease a new
car. Try to buy an inexpensive car and run it into the ground.
It's sad but cars with these types of problems usually become deep money
pits. Other's may disagree but that has been my experience with both
foreign and american branded cars.
Good Luck to You,
Rick

 

mayonnaise is definitely head gasket or worse - unless there's some
really basic error like someone "filling" the radiator using the wrong hole.

since this motor has already been rebuilt, and since mayonnaise is a
comparatively rare symptom of gasket failure in open deck honda motors,
i would be worried about cracked block or head and therefore /not/
repair it. instead, buy a jdm replacement motor for ~$300. it's quick,
cheap, and a lot better than stripping, testing, replacing & rebuilding
what may be a piece of junk.

are you in northern california and is the transmission automatic? if
so, and if you don't want to deal with a repair like this, let me know -
i may be interested in buying it...

 

not only that, it's about the /only/ way an open deck honda motor can leak!

head skimming is /not/ always essential, and i recommend against it
where possible. for a diy repair where cleanup can be done at home and
deck flatness can be easily tested, there's no reason to skim. it makes
sense to shops because they don't want to spend too much time and they
want to cover their asses in the event of return, but imo, it's shoddy
practice based on habit, not reality of the repair.

 

While that's my (admittedly amateur) bet, I wouldn't put all
my money on it, because I am baffled as to why the oil
around the rocker arm assembly is not all green-brown milk
shake looking. (Well nor does it look sludged from not
having the oil changed regularly, but maybe the camera is
not capturing all.)

Like you and others seem to suggest, if the valve cover top
has all this coolant-in-the-oil look to it, one would surely
see the same around the rocker arms, etc. wouldn't they?

Like I mentioned, I saw a guy dumping a pan full of
coolant-contaminated engine oil (from a definite blown head
gasket), and its contents looked like what the OP's valve
cover photo showed, but I did not walk over to the car and
look at the rest of the engine. (This was an aside to an
automotive course I took recently.)

 

Thanks everyone, this is all great advice and I appreciate it!
I'm leaning towards selling the car, it still looks nice and for the
moment it runs great. But I'm betting on a cracked head. I have a
feeling other things are going to start going, they may be minor but
they'll start adding up. Boy I'll miss this car if it goes though, good
car.
I'll look into the engine replacement, not sure that's an option. I
live up North near Alaska, things like that may be hard to come by.
Thanks again.

 

google for jdm import engines. they're cheap and they ship to your
door. even alaska.

 

Did a compression test today, here are the results from left to right
as you look at the motor from the front of the car.

190 240 185 175

May have been coolant spraying out of the second. There was also a
puddle of oil forming under where the timing belt should be.

any more thoughts on this?

 

Ouch! There isn't much point in putting labor into that engine. Those
numbers tell a grim story and in combination with the other indications a
replacement engine from Japan is going to be your best bet if you want to
keep the car. The others here can give you pointers with that. (That 240 is
actually from the second cylinder?)

Mike

 

The 240 is the one that is the second closest to the distributer cap.
Not too sure on the ordering, so bear with me

 

Yeah... my concern is that typical (not necessarily all) head gasket
failures are in the center of the head, and especially those resulting from
overheating. If you had 185-160-150-175 I'd think a head gasket would get
you looking decent again. With the possibility of coolant in the oil but not
oil in the coolant and the atypical compression numbers, plus the other
observations you have, I'm concerned you will find a crack in the head or
block. That would allow coolant into the crankcase without letting oil into
the coolant. It also is not what you want to deal with. A replacement engine
is the clearest path to daylight again.

Mike

 

That slow creeping dreadfull feeling inside of me was right

Thanks again!