New car. New Issues.

[zoom zoom]

B6 it!

Are those plugs you stuck in there still good or did they turn black? At that many miles and the miss at idle you describe getting better with more rpms might want to look at the cat too?!

B6+straight pipe= WIN!

[1chrisapple]

use some Irwin bolt removers like a socket but the grip the bolt pretty good that may be what your calling a turbo socket idk

iuse somelike these work good to

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Irwin-Industrial-Tools-394001-Bolt-Grip-Bolt-Extractor-Base-Set-5-Piece-/181191128881?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a2fd53731

[Pu241]

I'm in the process of pulling the head but have gotten snagged on an exhaust heat shield bolt that won't come off. I can't get a grip on it with any sockets, even turbo sockets, or with vise grips.

Grind it off or use a hammer and chisel and shear it off and drill it out later.
Don't let a small thing like that keep you from the job at hand.
Still not making it to madness?
Be a great thing if you changed your mind and made the drive in this one!

[Zanzer]

Grind it off or use a hammer and chisel and shear it off and drill it out later.

X2 That's how I treat the stubborn ones

You can drill it with a left hand drill bit later and it'll usually back right out while you're drilling it.

[burnt_toast]

Yeah for something like a heat shield I'd be going for the grinder too.

Before pulling the head though, did you run oil into the cylinders to seal the rings? It would be great to know if the leakage was in the rings or the head. This sounds like the guy could have really driven the car to death. I'd be concerned for warped heads and blocks and cracks in either. If pouring enough oil in the cylinder to seal the rings raises your compression, you will know right away that you need new rings. with a spread of compression that bad, I'd want to rebuild the whole thing personally. Or, like others were saying, do a motor swap and then rebuild the current engine at your leisure.

I do that with motorcycles sometimes, since the engines are so easy to move around the garage. It's great to drop a valve and think, "meh, I've got a spare."
-toast

[Oren09]

My plan is to sell this car. I'd much rather make a decent chunk of change on it and build my savings back up. My new (in June) motorcycle has been stealing from my savings account while I sleep.

I tried grinding the bolt off but broke the grinding disc because of the angle. There is no clearance at all to get anything in there to it. I've also tried a hammer and chisel. It will not come off. The Irwin sockets someone linked to are similar to what I have. The problem is my set has 10mm and 8mm. 10 is too big and 8 is too small. A 9mm regular socket (12pt and 6pt) just turns on the bolt head.

[Oren09]

I finally got the head off. The head and block appear fine and I saw no obvious issues with the gasket.
The only problem is some rust in the number four cylinder.

[crazyrog17]

The rust in #4 was caused by the coolant. Hopefully you can rotate the crank til #4 sits at the bottom of it's stroke and steel wool/blow it out. The rust could eat the rings in short order once you put it back together.

Good luck with the job, hope it sells for good $$ too!

[Oren09]

4 is already at the bottom. I'm busy this weekend but hopefully I can get it cleaned up soon. I've still got to thoroughly clean the block and head surfaces as well.

[Oren09]

Work has been paused since Friday.
I was in a motorcycle accident and haven't felt like moving a cylinder head. I should be back at it in a few days, though.

[htchbck]

Bike wreck? You ok? Thats the most important thing. At this point from all you've described about the festy I'd be pulling the oil pan and rod bearing caps and yanking the pistons out of the block for at least a nice honing and new rings if the pistions/cylinder walls are in ok shape. Especially from your description of #4. I used RockAuto rings on the Aspire motor that I rebuilt in Green Car right after I got it. I think I got an HG and a set of rings along with a few other seals and gaskets for <$100. That was about 13k ago and its still running great, still getting ~34mpg on average, and thats on an auto up here in the mountains. A B3 is easy enough to clean up, hone and re-ring in the the car, even easier with it out if you have a cherry picker and an engine stand. Then when you sell it you can assure the new buyer that the engine should last for many more thousands of miles on its fresh rebuild

[Oren09]

I'm ok.

It's something to think about. I'll have a friend of mine with much more car knowledge take a look at it and get his opinion.
The car has 267K miles so I could probably use new rings anyway.