first of all i want to thank everyone who posted their 2 cents. all of it is appreciated.

second, i wish to God the bars leak suggestion arrived BEFORE i started dismantling everything to get at the head. i know the orthodoxy about such products. i have lived long enough to be able to weigh good short cuts from bad ones.

anyway to the update:

heads off every thing came apart without incident even the unhappy 8th exhaust nut. all my heater hoses are spiffy and in good shape. flame trap was near spotless so a bit of wasted time there.
the leak was from the outer cooling journal maybe less than an inch from outside of the head. truly a pin prick of slit in the head gasket. otherwise the head gasket looked in pretty good shape for 200,000 miles. no troubles getting it off and cleaning both the block and head surface, finishing with lacquer thinner. i see no pitting or scratches on either surface and i used large magnifying lens to double check. based on the size of the slit i think bars leaks would have done the job just fine. oh well, maybe in another 200,000 miles i will have another chance.

a machinist friend loaned me his straight edge to check for warp on both block and head. i can find virtually none. his feeler guages are .001 - .021. i was unable to get anything thicker than .001 anywhere under the straight edge and even that guage would only fit in 1 or 2 small areas. according to my specs check this is well within acceptable tolerances so i am going to simply replace the gasket with a new one and bolt it back up. all the head bolts loosen with a crack which scared me at first, but none broke and all seem to be the same length. again my friend used a c shaped tool with an adjustable handle to measure them and all came out fine. good threads and no nicks. i was surprised how actually how clean the cooling journals were. no crud to speak of.

anyway thats it for now. i expect to have it all together by end of today if the timing belt and timing marks and the water pump and its seals don't me to much trouble.

ps; the metal heater hose that snakes around back is sound and rust free. the crank sensor insulation is sound but will be replaced anyway.

my back hurts. the head is not that light and is awkward to remove, at least for me.

head is back together, bolts tightened to specs. the last 90 degree turn is MUCH easier using a copper pipe on the breaker bar.

the water pump o ring on top was difficult for me anyway.

the whiteout on the timing marks helped my old eyes and the belt and tensioner and stuff returned to normal without incident. i suppose because the cam which i whiteout marked for location/direction was left intact made all this easier.

the intake manifold gasket was for very hard to install without screwing up the firewall side.all the stuff in that area has me crossing my fingers no vaccum leaks have been introduced. the exhaust side of reinstall was the easiest and most trouble free.

new cranks sensor

new H2O pump

new timing belt and tensioner (for better or worse the 3 seals in front look and felt in perfect condition so i left them) i did not feel confident tempting fate and gods to remove them especially the bottom crank one......ok u can roll your eyes at me now)i figure if i am wrong it won't be that hard to go back in an do them.........on these matters i prefer the devil i know from the devil i don't.

new gaskets where appropriate

the car restarted and ran without hiccup or incident. timing seems as before, no leaks anywhere near the water pump, no exhaust leaks and no intake leaks that i can hear. idling is as before.

to be really honest with you all, if i had known about the bars leak i think i would have tried it first........having done all the work i feel i have made my bones to speak. mechanic in a can it is not to be sure. but this car is around town and going to the grocery store and that is pretty much it. a BIG day for this car is a 1 hour drive to springfield, ma at 55mph from the hinterlands of franklin county.

anyway i digress,

the job is done..... to the best of MY ability which appears to have been adequate in this case.

I was just rambling about all the other stuff, though I do use antiseize on the head bolts. This is not only from several quailfied mechanics but from many years of working on aluminum heads. Using anti will give you an accurate reading on the torque. It does not effect the abliity of the bolts to reamin at that torqque. Many people think antiseize will allow the bolts to "back off" but that is not the case. It just makes the torquing more percise. Radng your post it seems that you have done an outstanding job. Even if you did not open up the intake, polish the throttle vales, remove excess material around the runners and so on,,just kidding.. Great Job..and no worry about when the Bars Leak will fail..And besides, the Bars Leak will eventually wear out the waterpump seal.Max:>)
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Max..1989 244 DL 5 Spd., V15 Phase II Cam Bilstein HD, Turbo Swaybars, Poly Bushings all round, Turbo Wheels, Black leather interior, Electric mirrors, LED dash and gauge lights and now NEW ECODES with the turn signals, 1992 black 244 next project

Did you put any antiseize on the head bolts to get the torque correct. And congrats on the exhaust. I drilled 3 of mine. Not fun. If you have not put it back together yet, then check the carbon that is usually on the top of the pistons. I use a brass wheel on an air die grinder. I use the shop vac to keep everything clean. All holes are pluged, I take an old gasket and cut out a plate to cover the holes except the head bolt holes. Just an extra to keep me from spending time cleaning the mess I made cleaning.. Did you clean the carbon out of the intake? I have a small beaded hone that does wonders. Throttle valve? Sorry, I get carried away when I start thinking about the upper end of the block. Knife edge the throttle butterfly plate? Grind and smooth the throttle plate brass bolts. Match cut the intake manifold to the intake valve runner? Open the exhaust ports? STOP! Jeeegeezzee STOP/////
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Max..1989 244 DL 5 Spd., V15 Phase II Cam Bilstein HD, Turbo Swaybars, Poly Bushings all round, Turbo Wheels, Black leather interior, Electric mirrors, LED dash and gauge lights and now NEW ECODES with the turn signals, 1992 black 244 next project

maxpeed, whoa............ hold it.......

only anti sieze is used was on the exhaust bolts. for the head bolts i only used small drops of oil on the threads.

it is all back together now and no i did not check the stuff on the intake apart from just having a looking to see if it was nasty or nice.

as to the pistons they did not look bad but then i have not doen this job since i was in my early 20's near 40 years ago and then the car was my then girl friends 1966 TR4, a hell of a difference from this one, so even if i wanted to i know not what to look for and frankly i did not feel safe scraping stuff on the pistons and risk getting crap in the cylinders which might ruin things. so i left it as i found it.

the cooling ports were surprisingly clean, as was the block and head surface. i had had a valve cover gasdket leak so i had all kind of thick crud down the back side of the block where the crank sensor lives. i did degunk and clean that area back to paint.

all in all i am rather proud of myself. for even tackling this job with so little real experience doing compex engine work. as everyone said it isn't that difficult IF you are meticulous about removal, marking and storage, and reinstallation.

i used a lot of typing whiteout to mark everything even stuff i probably did not have to mark. when it came to put things together the marks really made me feel confident all would be well. like putting a puzzle back together.

Good work Ted! It's nice to actually find verification of the problem you were after. The head gasket damage sounds very consistent with the leak you described to me.

And man, those head bolts do make a snap when they come free- was I right about using a 1/2inch drive and a breaker bar? Sometimes they screech too as they come out.

Good news that all the other parts checked out. Now's obviously the time to get at all those pain-in-the-you-know-what items.

When I lift these, I usually try to do something with the original lifting eyes, put 'em back onto the studs or whatever. So you decided to take off the 8 exhaust studs instead of the flange? The access is better, but with these you just never know if the stud will come out, or the nut come off, or possibly the stud will break. You do NOT want to deal with a broken stud on these.

And with that all apart like that- isn't it a nice, simple engine?

Hope the reassembly goes just as well-

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::: Rob Bareiss, New London CT ::: 92 244 ::: 90 745GL ::: 90 745T ::: 84 242DL ::: 90 745T Parts ::: Used to have : 86 244DL, 87 244DL, 91 244, 88 244GL, 88 744GLE, 82 245T, 86 244DL, 87 244DL, 88 245DL, 89 244DL!

hi rob

yea, i needed a 1/2 inch breaker bar which i had and 2 foot length of 2 inch Dia copper plumbing pipe for extra leverage. i think i will leave the coper pipe in back under the storage lid. it made all the difference between grunting and turning.

yes, i really did not want the extra weight when it came time to lift off the head and because the nuts broke free easily i figured with care they would come off which they did. just lucky i guess.

Excellent news! Good job, glad to hear that you checked the head surface as I've seen too many people ignore it and cause themselves twice the work as a result.

Nice detailed update by the way!

jorrell
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92 245 245K miles, IPD'd to the hilt, 06 XC70, 00 Eclipse custom Turbo setup...currently in pieces

Here is a tip for that awkward head, snake a flat belt of whatever kind you have available to you underneathe the cam shaft at the rear of the head and then loop it up so you have a good hand hold on the back end. We have always simply use a serpentine belt cut in half because we have an abundance of old ones lying around the shop. You will find that this makes lifting and placing of the head much, much easier. Bar's leak is what you use when you have a leak in the middle of nowhere and you need to limp back home, it is not a permanent repair. Bar's Leak and Solder Seal are both pretty impressive products but they are not "Mechanic in a Can". By doing this right you are picking the place and time to do it, when that Bar's Leak fix decides to give way you can rest assured that it will not be at a time and place of your choosing.

Mark