First Time Head Gasket Replacement 1988 1.3l

[FB71]

Haynes manuals stink. Find a factory manual on Fleabay.

You have an OHC (Over Head Camshaft) engine, not OHV or CVH.

Nerd has a great suggestion. But if you absolutely don't want to unbolt the intake and exhaust manifolds, its still not a bad job.

Leave the carb on, leave as many vacuum lines as possible connected. Just locate the few that traverse between the firewall and the manifold. Mark them with tape and disconnect. Unbolt the headpipe from the manifold, remove timing belt, unbolt coolant pipe from exhaust manifold (it will stay on the block), remove upper rad hose and heater hose from intake, diconnect various wires, and unbolt the head.

[FB71]

but do not use the aluminum head gasket its garbage

what the hell are you talking about? First, please use some punctuation, its so much easier to read. Second, what makes you think you had an aluminum head gasket? It was most likely graphite, and they are very good gaskets.

[Nerd Racing]

I did one back in 2002 on the 88lx I owned and I just unbolted the manifolds and pushed them away enough to get the head off. I didn't remove the carb from the intake at all.

[1988redfordfestiva]

Take it apart and buy the kit i did mine but do not use the aluminum head gasket its garbage buy a felpro head gasket and you'll be good make sure u also change the valve seals on the valves this will help it out also it should come in the kit the head bolts are reusable torque to factor specs

[yogaslackers]

Hey everyone,

I have been using this Forum to keep my car running for the last 6 years the car has 316,000 mile on it now . Zeke from this forum helped me do a bunch of work including dropping in a 88' 1.3 with 6,700 original miles. I did this at 278,000 miles. So this engine needs a head gasket i hope. there is 44,700 miles on the engine now.

Symptoms:

over the course of 2 months I watched the normal operating temp climb from just past the C to 2/3 toward the H. It was winter to summer so I did not think anything of it...weird logic i know. then in a 2 week period of about 2000 miles of driving It went from overheating in 200 miles to over heating in 10 miles. The antifreeze when from mysteriously diapering to exploding out the overflow tank.

Attempts to trouble shoot:

I refiled the radiator with the car parked on a hill

watched the antifreeze flow with the cap off

When I stepped on the gas antifreeze would shoot out the radiator when the cap was off.

There is tremendous pressure in the system, enough to blow all the coolant out of the overflow

I put a new t-stat in (then tried to run with out t-stat, made it worse)

new Rad cap

Tried to buy new sensors no car parts store had the right ones all wrong sizes with wrong wire harness?

Conclusion I need a new head Gasket.

I am currently in the process of taking the parts off the car... but the haynes manual I have does
not seem to have the right instructions my engine has parts that make since from both the OHV and CVH engines which one do I have how do I tell. I thought it was an OHV but I have a different throttle cable connection and no Heat box over the exhaust?

I dont have time to wait so I am going to take things off in a logical enough I hope sequence.

CAN I LEAVE THE CARB ON? do i need to remove all the vacuum lines?

What about the Little pipe on that passes under the exhaust header on the front of the car there is a bracket connecting it to the engine on the drivers side.

I want to leave the exhaust and intake connected to the Head. will this work?

Any tips greatly appreciated.

sam