1988 Pontiac Sunbird

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Evilcowboy420

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Hi,

I am new here so hi.

I purchased a 88 pontiac sunbird. After purchase I ran it a month and some things started popping up that seemed to tell me it had some problems. I had expected in a 25 year old car it would need some stuff and was willing to do the work because the under carriage and body was pretty nice.

What it needs:
Head Gasket
Valve Seals
Alternator (don't wanna wait for it to die. Replacing because got a nice squeak from the bearings)
CV Shaft

What I've replaced:
Timing Belt
Drive Belt
EGR gasket(cleaned while removed)
Valve cover gasket (new plastic core one)
steering linkage
cleaned (IAC valve, Air housing, valve cover, and a few other things)
Rad caps
thermostat


Now my questions.
I've got the head off and am rebuilding it. There is a slight warp around cylinder 4 where the gasket blew. I can fit a .0015 feeler gauge under the area barely but cannot fit the .002 under it. Is this still in tolerance for this head? The car did not overheat at any point but it was pretty apparent where the gasket blew right in front of cylinder 4. As I have researched this was pretty common for this engine or is mine just special?

Do the valves on the head need to be lapped or should they seal fine as is?

When fitting the camshaft carrier back to the head should I use a high temp silicone or just use the same tacky brown stuff GM used originally?

I also found it odd that the rocker arms didn't bolt down but rather sat in there.


With the head removed I cleaned it up as oil and antifreeze was all over the head.

Here are a few pics of the head after it was pulled and the gasket failure. I will be posting more pics as I take them.


 
Have a machine shop do a small shave of the head, you dont want to do the job twice. It is normal procedure when doing a head to lap the valves, you are not using a machine shop? I would use high temp. silicone.
 
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No I wasn't going to use a machine shop. The main reason I know how to lap the valves but I have been told that the valves would seat on their own when the Engine starts. But it just didn't sound right to me not to do it.

As for the head flatness if it needed to be flattened I was going to lap the head on a very flat surface (granite). I have seen it done and I have see great results this way but didn't know if it was 100% necessary if it was still in the tolerance for it. But your probably right like you said I sure don't want to do the job twice. :p

Redoing a head is hard work but I feel it is work that will pay off in the end. I am being very patient when it comes to this because I want it to last. I plan to drive this car for a long time. The car only had 73,000 miles on it which I was thinking it definitely has a ton of life left in it.

Thanks for your help so far it is much appreciated. The more opinions I can get the better.:D
 
Update

Spent a lot of time cleaning out the head. I removed everything from it and here are some pics of the head as she sits with new plugs in. I am at a stand still until I get my valve seals that come in.

The second pic is everything in order for re-installation if your looking at the front of the head.



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Update

Here is the head reassembled. First picture is after valve seals and springs and valves have been put back. The second one is after the rocker arms were dipped in oil and re-seated back over the top.

I also wanted to note that the makers of the new head gasket omitted the hole in the block and head over to the far left. It is not pictured but is the hole right in the center of the far left looking at the engine. I suspect that this omission was done to ensure the gasket won't blow again.

This head was lapped to flat on granite so a .0015 feeler guage could not fit under it. It took off very minute amount of material. But if your head is badly warped they do make a shim in the event they must machine off a lot of material.



 
nice work, good luck with the project
 
Welcome to the Forum;) I'm sure you are having fun working on the Bird, I am on mine:( , seems evey bolt fights you on the way back on in my case.


Thanks on the tip on the head resurfacing , I dont use a tsat on mine so it never gets hot, so I wont blow a gasket and "Hope" I never have to pull the head ......:D

Keep up the good work..........:)

Doug in P.R.:cool:
 
Thanks to both of you guys for the positive feed back.

Just a small update. I finished putting it all back together and on the last bolt I heard a nice pop lol. Broken defective head bolt. So today I took it all down again. I replaced the head gasket with a new one again and replaced all the head bolts after pulling the piece stuck in the block. I was lucky it was above the block. Cleaned out the holes really well and started over and got her all the way back up to the power steering pulley and will finish her up tomorrow.

One good thing is that if you remove the big bracket holding the tensioner and mounted to the head you can shift the head and intake backwards towards the car and lift it quite high. I was able to inspect the head and the block doing this and clean it all up and put the gasket on and seat it down. This is actually easier because the removal of the intake manifold is not necessary. But the exhaust manifold is still a pain to put back on.

Now a few things to note if anyone ever has to do this.

If a bolt feels squishy and like its stretching while turning it do not continue just pull the bolt and get new ones cause that one will snap and is defective. If any head bolt ever feels strange torquing it just get a whole new set and pull em out.

I did the safest thing which was to not use the gasket again even though it looked pretty good. This is because the way I understand it the gasket is compressed to the head and block and is not preferable to reuse it even though it was merely hours old.

The torque on the head bolts are very strange but should end with the long being 72-83 ft lbs and the short 62 - 70ft lbs. But never go straight to the desired torque on the first pass. I actually did mine in 5 passes even though they only said 1 to 18 ft lbs and 3 additional 60 degree turns was required. I did a recheck with the wrench in the specified order again to ensure proper lbs were met.


Do not forget the washers.

And finally if you do a lot of work on your engine just remove and leave off the timing belt cover. It will require you to change it more frequently and if it snaps you will have to get a tow unless you have a spare like me. lol The timing cover is just in the way and takes up way too much space. I also prefer the way it looks.

Now a list of the new stuff this ol girl got.
timing belt
water pump
alternator
head gasket and bolts
valve seals
water outlet seal
thermostat housing gasket
air intake gasket
intake manifold gasket (old one wasn't bad just did it to be doing it.)
exhaust manifold gasket
camshaft cover gasket
serpentine belt
plugs
steering linkage
cv axle (do not do the quick boot and try to save the shaft just buy a new one it is cheap and saves you on time. I learned the hard way)


and a little maintenance like
radiator flush (brown coolant now a nice green)
oil change (obviously because of head gasket failure with a STP filter no K&N at my parts store for this car :( )
head cleaning
camshaft carrier cleaning
camshaft cover cleaning (inside and out)
drums beat out and cleaned

And that is about all I did when it comes to stuff like this I would rather redo a job even if its a head gasket and do it right than to just say oh well and hope for the best lol. I am very meticulous about my cars.

After this I want to see if I can get my hands on a 1973 impala.

Again I appreciate everyone who has read through all this I know its quite a bit.

More pics to come as I take them.
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thanks for the detailed post
 
@Evilcowboy420

Go! Go! Go! You've got the right idea. I work on motorcycles and I have a piece of granite I use to check heads on one poppers. I wouldn't want to do the "Wax on Wax off" with a four popper but it is THE best way! Your little bird is in good hands!
 
TrojanMan said:
Go! Go! Go! You've got the right idea. I work on motorcycles and I have a piece of granite I use to check heads on one poppers. I wouldn't want to do the "Wax on Wax off" with a four popper but it is THE best way! Your little bird is in good hands!
Click to expand...

Thanks yeah I read all about it as soon as it stops raining I am gonna get some pics of the engine. It's all back together now and she starts well and goes like she was intended. No more bogging and white smoke lol.

With lapping it I had my wife get on one side and we just moved it back and forth, up and down and all sorts of directions trying to do the ol figure 8 to get it even. We got it within .0015 flatness and that is what I felt comfortable with.

a little bad news I noticed today a radiator leak at the bottom right looking at the engine and was bummed. I think I am gonna pull it and try to solder the hole since it don't seem too big. If that don't work I saw a new one on ebay for 78.27 from someone called radiator classics with a lifetime warranty.

My guess is when the head gasket got replaced and the system returned to normal pressure it pushed out a weak spot in the radiator and caused the leak. Oh well life happens but I am hoping that this is the last repair for a bit so I can get to work on the interior I am going to be making a custom console from PVC board and some type of vinyl. May take a minute but well worth it.

I still got the half shafts in my living room to install since it had a ripped boot but at least I got the part just procrastinating on putting it in. No clunking as of yet and I did replace the boot with a quick boot but that will only last so long so that why I just bought the whole shaft to replace.

This girl was just seriously neglected so a lot of what is being replaced is 25 years old that should have been replaced ages ago.

On a side note I saw a 73 VW super beetle for 900 bucks it ran but the interior was crap still kicking my own rear end for not jumping on it. lol.
 
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Small update.

I was going to order the radiator on ebay but I really wanted the rad as soon as possible so I ordered from the parts store for quite a bit more. That kind of sucks but shipping would have probably made it close to the price paid.

I will be doing the coolant temperature sensor as well so I don't have to go back into the coolant system for a while. Also I have yet to see the fan come on it don't overheat but I would like to verify that it worked or something. So since I've never seen it come on this usually points to a bad CTS.

I will remember to finally get the pic of the engine bay and how it looks with all the parts on and so forth.
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Everything engine wise done

Below are the pictures of the engine all put back together and with the new radiator installed. The radiator is brand spanking new as with many of the other parts so yay for me lol :P

As you can see the timing belt cover has been removed as I explained I did earlier since it really didn't seem to do much other than keeping fingers out of there. The way this was designed the harmonic balancer acts as a front cover for the lower portion of the belt and there is no other cover other than that. So I just removed the top portion of it because it just looks better to me.

Also don't flame me too bad on the battery brand the person before me put it in. The air intake cover will be painted one day when I get the time to do it. Now I think I can move on to much more smaller things on this to make it cosmetically better.

And thanks to everyone who read through all this and followed it. Anything new I do to the engine bay I will post in here as to not take up another thread. Mostly just making everything shine is my last thing to do.


Oh they duct tape on the wires were just for labeling the wires they aren't taped to hold anything together although I will be making new ones for this car. And the words Engine Coolant on the top of the cap was done by me. lol I just poured paint out on a paper and pressed the words into the paint and then just put some wipeon poly over it. such a minute detail but makes a world of difference when viewing the engine imo. :p








 
Thanks man I didn't realize the battery wasn't all that bad. Thats a load off my back lol

I will get some outside pics up tomorrow since its night as I am writing this. I'll try to get her from her good side lol.



92 Sunbird LE said:
:) Nice, dont sweat the battery, its rated a 4.5/ out of 5. by customers :) http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/we...585-cca-autocraft-silver_2040166-p#fragment-3

Made by Johnson Controls who make the longest lasting batteries for many companies , ( Sams Club, Autozone, etc ).

How about a couple of outside car shots to show us what yours look like..;) or start an album..............

Doug in P.R.:cool:
Click to expand...
 
Outside pics

Well here is one outside pic of the car I was able to get today. Like the mess I left on the ground after doing all the work. No matter how slow you take out the rad drain plug it sprays everywhere. I need a giant catch pan lol. But most of that is rain water.

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