Replacing head gasket D16Y7

D15, D16, D17 and Mini-Me swaps
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Replacing head gasket D16Y7

By schuylkill
- Wed Jun 09, 2010 10:07 pm #199560 The sticky on replacing the D series head gasket is awesome. I assume I shouldn't post there with a question and didn't want to jump in on another member so here is my first post. I'm replacing my head gasket because my expansion tank is overfilling on my 80 mile commute when the temperature gets up over 80 and it's been very humid too. I've replaced the radiator cap, thermostat and fan swithch. I drove for awhile with my timing advanced and think that caused my problem, I pulled a flashing check engine light, fixed the timing and the car's been running fine but now this coolant issue so I want to replace the head gasket so I can relax again while I'm driving. Per the shop manual I downloaded at icelord I was going to remove my timing belt but after stumbling across your sticky I see I can save quite abit of work by just removing the top TB cover and loosening the adjusting bolt thru the access hole provided. Why wouldn't the manual give this advice? I have a 1998 CX, that shouldn't make a difference, correct?
I replaced my TB about 20,000 miles ago so I'm good with that.
How did you clean off the old head gasket, Teal? And did you have help in lifting off the head without hanging up on the TB? Hopefully my head is
ok and all goes well. I have my original engine in the basement so I guess I can swap out that head if I need it. I have 566000 plus miles now on the cx and I mostly enjoy working on it. Thanks.
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By teal_dx
- Thu Jun 10, 2010 2:34 am #199599 I've done it both ways...
Replacing the head gasket along with the timing belt (and water pump) when removing the upper and lower timing belt covers is required, along with the driver side motor mount.

Replacing just the head gasket and only moving the upper timing belt cover and loosening the belt and slipping it off the cam gear.
Just be sure that you don't move the belt so that the bottom end of the motor stays at Top Dead Center or you'll have problems timing the engine if it is off by a tooth when you get it all back together.

I never had a problem doing it this way :thumb:

I cleaned off the old head gasket carefully with a razor blade. Just be sure you don't put any nicks in the surface.

By schuylkill
- Thu Jun 10, 2010 9:14 am #199642 In regard to the timing issue I see a post in your DIY about zip tieing the belt to the pulley or cam sprocket and then tieing all to the hood hinge????
What am I missing here, how do you get the belt off if its zip tied to the sprocket? I am interested but don't understand. It's also important not
to damage the belt in any way.

By schuylkill
- Thu Jun 10, 2010 2:15 pm #199683 http://www.civic-eg.com/viewtopic.php?t=2865 path to DIY

I zip tied the Timing belt to the pulley through the holes every time I did mine then pulled the belt light and tied it to the hood hinge. The timing was never off when I put it back on either

This is posted while Brian was on warmup break by D15kid and is what I'm wondering about
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By teal_dx
- Thu Jun 10, 2010 3:28 pm #199692
schuylkill wrote:http://www.civic-eg.com/viewtopic.php?t=2865 path to DIY

I zip tied the Timing belt to the pulley through the holes every time I did mine then pulled the belt light and tied it to the hood hinge. The timing was never off when I put it back on either

This is posted while Brian was on warmup break by D15kid and is what I'm wondering about


That's the DIY I wrote, but I never tried zip tying the TB to the pulley.


Also I have no idea what you're talking about :headscratch:
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By forcefedEG
- Thu Jun 10, 2010 4:07 pm #199702
teal_dx wrote:Also I have no idea what you're talking about :headscratch:


x2 i read that post and never found where you said that anywhere :?

By schuylkill
- Thu Jun 10, 2010 9:38 pm #199759 Brian's DIY is broken into two sections. The first ends where he says that's enough for now it's 15 degrees. He starts it up again the next day or something. In between those sections is the reply by d15kid who was quoted.

I'm thinking that maybe the timing sprocket was zipped to the belt after it was loosened and then the sprocket removed from the head?

Just wondering, no bigee.

I love this site.

By schuylkill
- Sun Jun 13, 2010 2:08 am #200129 Did my head gasket today, took me nine hours of work and that was just loosening the timing belt, not removing the crank pulley. THANK YOU Brian.
I'm really getting tired of draining and refilling my coolant system. The car fired up and ran rough for awhile but seems ok now. The expansion tank actually was at a lower level after I drove around about 10 miles, my problem having been the tank overfilling. I probably didn't get all of the air out of the system. I usually have the car on ramps so the radiator is up higher but I was out of energy and just wanted to get finished. I used copper spray-a-gasket with the Nippon leakless from Mystic and I noticed some gold flecks in the radiator as I was waiting for the fan to kick on. I'm hoping that is maybe excess which was in the the water port holes on the gasket. I didn't notice any in the expansion tank when I checked it. Any thoughts on this? Do you think I should flush the system again? That is getting old. And is it ok to just cruise with the car? I have an 80 mile one way commute on Monday to work. Should I drive around locally some tomorrow (Sunday) before hitting the highway? Should I keep the cruising speed down on Monday? :thumb:
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By teal_dx
- Sun Jun 13, 2010 3:31 am #200130 I'd do some test driving tomorrow before you drive 80 miles monday. If something is going to break, closer to home is best :thumb:

It sounds like you cured the problem to me. I'm not sure about the gold flakes, i never had that happen, but I suppose a little bit of copper spray sould dome off of the edges of the gasket where the water holes are.

By schuylkill
- Sat Jun 19, 2010 1:47 pm #201116 Well the problem is fixed. It's good to know that all of the work required was towards fixing the problem. I'm not familiar with head gasket failures in general but Chebby and Ford people I work with doubted that I had a head gasket problem. I guess it's usually a major blowout with some cars.
So heads up on expansion tank overfilling as a sign of a head gasket leak on D series engines. Honda power!
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