Bean Posted October 17, 2005 Report Share Posted October 17, 2005 Not sure if you guys recall John Ewasyn's messages a few weeks ago about driving 3500 KM from Toronto ON to Dalmeny SK, only to arrive to find he'd blown a head gasket... Car had recently had the head rebuilt, so this was not a good sign... John had called me before his trip out just as a resource in case anything bad happened - and it turned out pretty much to be worst case scenario. John is a novice - but he decided to take a crack at taking it all apart and seeing if he could fix it. I took him the FSM, and a spare head in case he needed parts. Turns out the previous mechanic was a tool - he found tons of loose bolts (including the head bolts!), and generally a crappy job had been done. With the help of the list for parts, and some calls and e-mails to myself John was able to get the car back on the road. He stopped her yesterday on his way back to TO and I got to check out his work. He did an AWESOME job and the car runs great. I just got an e-mail from him from Winnipeg MB and the car is running flawless. His car is VERY minty - so it was nice that he put in the time and effort to get it back on the road... Later... Rabin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trevor Posted October 17, 2005 Report Share Posted October 17, 2005 Man excellent news. I'm glad there's another one fixed. It's hard to believe that there are mechanics out there who can do such a poor job and get paid for it :-/. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
august Posted October 17, 2005 Report Share Posted October 17, 2005 aaaah excellent to hear! remind him to do the 1k mile retorque! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bean Posted October 17, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2005 So there's a 1K mile retorque? His trip is a fair bit farther than that - but it's all in one go so he should be fine - I'll definitely pass on the message though... It reminded me of something though - I went and checked out his progress before he reassembled and checked out all the freshly machined stuff - one thing that struck me was his head gasket (Curtis I think...) didn't have perfectly round cylinder holes. They were close - but you could easily see with the naked eye that they weren't perfect. I'm thinking with the right template the copper head gasket idea would likely be much more accurate than even the factory stuff. Any ideas on if we should look at doing a multi layer steel gasket instead? I was checking out pictures for a BMW gasket in the same European Car mag and it probably wouldn't be any harder to do - it would just be a matter of getting the right gauge and combination of steel.... Rabin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
august Posted October 18, 2005 Report Share Posted October 18, 2005 yup: 1. torque 2. re-torque 3. Warm the car up and let the fan cycle 3 times 4. stone cold re-torque 5. 1000k miles, then last re-torque hahaha i'll let trevor rant about the non perfect cylinder holes on the gaskets (i think it bugs him a lot more then it does me).. They all seem to be like that, i'd love to know *why*! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trevor Posted October 18, 2005 Report Share Posted October 18, 2005 It'd be even cooler if the pistons were shaped like the head gasket holes wouldnt it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
august Posted October 18, 2005 Report Share Posted October 18, 2005 aaaaaaahahahh, it'd be random that's for sure.. i remember honda used to have a sportbike years ago, which was a prototype when i saw it (not sure if it ever made it to production), but it had oval pistons.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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