Headgasket and compression overheating issues.

[thedsmguy]

Ok... So, I did a HG for a friend a couple months ago. Instead of having the head milled etc I put one on from a known running motor. I pulled it off in the right order, put it on in the right order with ARP's. Its a Felpro composite gasket.

The friend was in SUCH a hurry to get the car going. And not exactly the easiest on cars. I got it running, just so happens he was at the house, we let it get warm everything seemed normal. We did not do a compression test etc, he was just supposed to drive it home, put it thru a heat cycle and drive it back in the morning when we could go over everything. What does he do? A 7k launch in front of my house at 1am and banged gears all the way down the road. He blew off a i/c pipe and my other friend who was following him happened to be able to help him get it back on at the corner gas station. Then what does he do? Rips out of the gas station again, tried racing my friend all the way home etc.

So, he's very hard on cars even tho I told him to just limp it home basically.

Tonight he brought it over because it has been overheating etc. His fan does not turn on so I think that is another big problem .

I had him leave it at my house for the night. I did a compression test it went 110, 90, 45, 90 I tried putting some oil in the cylinders to see if the rings would seal up or what. After a little oil it went 120, 120, 110, 122. I'm now confused because when I run the car there is other conflicting things going on to me. Such as when its not heated up there are no bubbles in the coolant with the cap off. But once up to temp there are bubbles like a blown HG. Once its slightly over temp it literally blows the coolant out the cap hole.

I'm going to assume that the HG is blown at this time but.....

I'm trying to determine if I have any fault in this situation? The car seemed to run fine when I was done with the 1st HG job, we let it warm up for a very long time, had no issues with getting hot etc. I'm thinking the abuse the car took extremely shortly after the HG was done has contributed to the current failure, or the fact that the fan is not working. How do I move forward? He's not a close friend, but he is a close friend to another friend I have and he is local. I really dont want to build any ill will or bad name for myself as it only takes one loud mouth to ruin a reputation.

Also, he has said he had to drive it a little while when it was very hot. I'm thinking the rings might be washed out from the heat causing the low compression numbers. Also, if the HG is blown now, how can it still build 120psi compression? (I know that is below service limits).


Sorry for the stupid long post. Any help is appreciated.

 

[transparentdsm]

i will tell you right now it is 100% not your fault. here are 4 reasons:

1.
if it wasnt leaking when you let it warm up in the driveway you did nothing wrong. he launched the car and banged gear down the road. he is lucky he didnt blow the head gasket right there. when you do a head gasket that isnt MLS you have to warm the car up, drive it 200 miles under 4000 rpm's pull the valve cover back off re-torque the head bolts put valve cover back on drive another 300 miles under 6000 rpm's and then check the head studs for torque lbs. accuracy.

2.
if your fans dont work, put in a switch so you manually operate them or don't drive the f***ing car till its fixed.

3.
the car got hot because he doesnt have fans and decided that he wasn't going to pull over and let the car cool down before continuing his trip to where ever he was going.

4.
after you told him not to beat on the car, he decided that he knew better than the guy who fixed his car(because in his mind your a idiot that shouldn't tell him how to drive a car and if he had the time he woud have fixed it himself) and 7000 rpm shifts right off the bat are a brilliant way to set everything.


Now for possible fix:

open up the valve cover and check all the head studs and make sure that they to spec. it could be loose head studs. if not then he blew out a ring and has to start all over again. it must have really been important to launch the car, bang gears, drive it hard and let it overheat.


thats just my .02 and i hope that it was helpful to you. also everything i have said is from the 15 years of working on cars in general and 10 years that i have owned and worked on dsm's

 

[transparentdsm]

also, if he had launched it right in front of me like that, i wouldn't want him to bring the car back to me. thats like the biggest f*** YOU to give someone, fix my car tell me what not to do then right in your face do it. if i bring something somewhere to have it fixed i do what the repair person tells me to do, not the exact opposite.

i have one question for you though was he rude, mean or hostile toward you when this new problem occurred?

 

[jmorri15]

Well the first question is what is his reaction when it comes to you? Is he blaming you and expecting you to fix it? If he is unwilling to see the problems the car has developed as maybe caused by his own actions you are stuck making a tough choice. Now to that choice I would say if you told him to take it easy and he did not looks like he is sol. I would offer to tear it down and see what happened but it sounds like he cooked the rings at the very least.

 

[DynastyLCD]

Paul, i had this happen to myself with an old friend (no longer a friend and with good reason)

this kid popped his HG. i took a look at it, saw the bubbles, it was overheating even with the fans going, the whole 9 yards. i knew the composite head gasket wasn't going to hold real boost. i took his MBC (some cheap ebay one) ripped it out of his car, and threw it away. took the car for a test drive after putting the new HG on, and ARP's. everything was fine for a few days.

the night i replaced the HG, he dug through the trash when i was test driving and he found his cheap-o ebay MBC. i tell him to leave it at stock boost. i explain that a composite wont hold real boost. whats the kid do? few nights later, he cranks it up and pops the HG again... and he blames me. what he didn't know is how all his friends had explained to me "XYZ turned up the boost til he hit fuel cut and raced all night last night like that" so when he came to my house, started a screaming match, and now everyone is a liar (he was a pathological liar himself) and he never did anything wrong.

short end of the story: you are a very nice guy, Paul. you part cars out so guys like me can find small things that normally people would send to the crusher, or simply scrap because they don't want to deal with the hassle of shipping things. you need to know when to draw the line, when youve gone from being a nice guy, to way too nice of a guy. this would be the point where i would simply say F you, or if hes actually a real friend, sit him down and very sternly explain to him whats going on, and why. sometimes you just gotta let em have it.

im sorry brother, i know your pain.

 

[transparentdsm]

^ i went through the same thing too thats why i added what i added... Paul you are a good guy from what i see on here and dont let this guy walk all over you.

 

[SouthCaliVR4]

I'm with every one else, his problem/fault not yours however, If you are doing work for someone else NEVER do anything but by the book proper. In other words. have the head pressure tested & milled if needed. this alone can bite you on the ass so hard you'll wish you never got involved in the first place. If he decided to take you to small claims, you'll loose. you have no documentation that things are as they should be.

If he brought you the part & paid you to cook his eggs, different story but it sounds like you provided the head. If he pushes it, doubtful, it'll be on you.

My 2psi, find a compromise that he'll accept & doesn't leave you feeling like he broke it off in your....

In the future, make them pay to do it right or pass on the job. in court the judge is going to consider you the professional & "I took it off another motor & thought it would be fine" won't cut it.

Saving some douche money at the potential risk to your professional reputation is never worth it.


Edit: Any time I crack a cooling system, the car is never released till I see the fans cycle period, end of story. If I have an issue with the fans & the customer refuses to let me fix it, they must sign a waiver that states the car will likely overheat & that they have been made aware of this. further any potential damage caused by said overheating is going to be on them.
People will pull some crazy sh*t, cover your ass as best you can /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[transparentdsm]

your 2psi is way better than my .02, i may have to use that one. ^ are you an actual mechanic at a shop? you are more than 100% right, but i think this is like hey i know a guy who will do it for you for cheap and they dropped in off at his house and he did it. as in no paper work, no receipts, no checks. just cash in hand and verbal agreement's. i think his question was more of "should i tell him to piss off or did i make a boo-boo and have to fix it" because Paul is a nice guy and doesn't want people to think that he is a bad person trying to scam people and take there money. i wouldn't sweat it to much, he may bad mouth you, but im sure there are 25 people if not more that would say nothing but good things about you.

 

[chach161]

Knowing you and the fact I know you would have done everything to best of your ability, it wasn't your fault. Just my opinion but back yard mechanic type work have no warranties for the car working typically just that you did what you said you did. If parts are missing or if a part was claimed to be new and it was a used-part then that is a valid claim.

Hearing the story I have a friend that it makes me think of right off. He bought a 1g with a blown motor and built a motor at my friends garage under his direction. Spent about 3 weeks and lots of $$ for building the motor from the ground up. No muffler on the car. Get the motor back in it late one night probably around 12pm and he was wanting to drive the car home and we were telling him to just leave it or take it really easy. But "NO" a 4 wheel burnout/launch at 12pm in a residential area and a floated valve on the way to his house. He was pissed but it was no fault of anyone but his own.

 

[chach161]

Another story that I also thought of was that I just replaced someones engine and they told me it was running all the way over towards the H. I was very concerned and told that person that they should have probably pulled over. So I had them show me how close to the H it got. Once they showed me how close to the H it got on the oil pressure gauge I had a good laugh. It does say Temp right below the gauge but that is for the gauge below it.

 

Douche bags are douche bags. I had a ex-friend ask me to drive his car and tell him what I thought. So I did. Said it seems fine to me. 4 days later he blows the bottom out of the tranny, and comes at me in the middle of the night saying I owe him a tranny. EFF OFF buddy.

 

[4thStroke]

Paul, I don't think Troy is seriously bugged at you unless something else has came up since I've talked to either of you. He's just a little bewildered about the situation as a whole, but you need to remind him that he beat on the car first thing as he took off. I don't care who you are, you never warranty service if the owner behaves like that!

This is the same guy who convinced me to let him drive my car for some gas. I told him several times to not bang the gears, its a stock 90 tranny, it wont shift like he will want it to. First thing he does is blows past a pedestrian at 100mph on a rural back road, pedestrian was ticked and leaned out towards us, we ended up in the other lane with a blind crest just ahead of us. We fuel up, he was talking trash to some Honda kid who said he didn't want to race because he didn't want to hurt our feelings... ok. Troy had a point to prove. As soon as we pulled out of the gas station with the Honda behind us, Troy slams 2nd. 2nd has never been the same since.