water in oil - Broke down on trip in Coffee Springs Alabama

[92deville-loveit]

Hi, I just discovered you guys this morning via a friend in Portland Oregon doing research for me.

My problem supossedly started 3 years ago when the car had 30k miles and the radiator was pressure flusshed at a quick lube type place. My Dad fought it for 6 months and gave the car to me. I droive it for 100K more miles and fought overheating regularly ... 4 NAPA water pumps in the last 2 years, new radiator, new radiator hoses but all was manageable. So 2 weeks ago I drove the car to Florida from Calif with a handful of tools (My wife objected to me bringing more and so I tried to make her happy.) We started teh trip together but she has flown back and gone back to work but we planned that as I was going to got to Connecticut from Florida with a bunch of inbetween stops.

100 miles from home .. serious overheating - smelled hot boiling oil and saw a bit of smoke. 14 hours to go 200 miles. A new thermostat 192 degrees and a New radiator cap installed in Blythe while eating at a fast food place seemed to fix the problem .. alas I messed up and needed to turn the cap another quarter inch to get it on and the coolant was lost. 14 miles in a onel lane freeway detour and it was pretty hot before I could pull over. After studing the engine for 30 minutes I noticed the radiator cap and corrected tehr problem after adding coolant. Next 3000 miles the engine overheated after starting and when refilled ran great the rest of the day. We made it to florida and I made it to ALabama and was ready for my next leg. Just for good measure and to show my uncle that the car had not used a droip of oil in 3000 miles I checked radiator - was low... very bad as I had filled it two days earleir and the car had not been driven since ... no puddle on the ground either ... I checked the oil - a bit dirty and an inch up on the stick!!! UGH!!! Several times on the trip I had tried to buy block checker chemicals for testing for a head gasket leak.

WIth lots of hard work (3 days) I got the heads off ... engine still in the car. Heads look good ... head gaskets looked tired but good. UGH, I wish they had been wasted bad. The engine inside looks almost steam cleaned - oly a bit of reside neat the center lifters. (I wish I had read the post atht the rockers could bve removed as an assemly but that was after the fact.) Then the first post I chose to read here suggests INTAKE MANIFOLD GASKETS. That was the only mention in the many posts I read today ... but I instantly got a sick feeling in my belly as I did not look at them as I was working in the dark and it never occurred to me that that might be the problem. Now I wonder how many folks pay for head jobs and have bad intake gaskets. Later I will make the trip across town (3 blocks) and check my gaskets and the bottom of the intake manifold.

I do have a number of questions ... 92 sedan de ville 4.9L someone with moderator privelges can redo my note as you please. I was very fortuante to have the tools I needed as I traveled very light. I have no diagnostic equipment except a compression guage and a tire air valve brazed to a sparkplug base that I found in my uncle's tool box. He retired 20 years ago from working on airplanes and had no metric tools. They looked unused for 10 years. Since I could not figure a way to access the rear plugs I did not use either. Only recently when I dropped the engine support frame at the rear did I change the rear plugs. It was the first time I could even see them. Even then it took me many hours to change all 8 plugs and I had to repair 2 plug wires before reinstalling them. Suggestions welcomed.

#1 How do you folks get any of the plug wires off and change the plugs in the rear head? My hands are not strong enough to pull them off. I found a 1/2 inch open wrench useful on the front plug wires.

2. Now that I have the heads off and the engine still in the car I am wondering about head bolts and cleaning up the threds that hold them in place .. any suggestions welcomed.

3. Are new head bolts required for reassembly?

4. What mistakes do other guys make/ made? I love to learn from the mistakes of others ... not mine. (-;

5. Engine removal ... reassembly and cleanliness concerns me as a tranny man ... I am still considering removing the engine ... can I just raise the body off the engine and put it together on the engine chasis and then lower the body again? I have done this to Aerostar engines. For them jacking the van body up 44 inches makes it easy to roll the engine and tranny out on the front wheels.

6. when I replaced the corroded/eroded motor front plate (and timing gears w/ chain) with the last water pump change I got the crank pulley off but I had to drop the engine support chasis at the rear to get enough clearance to put it ack on again - (how I got that pulley off wiith the engine in the car is a mystery to me) . It seems that would be the easiest way to seervice this heaadless engine now ... any suggestions?

7. for 50,000 miles ... over a year this car has had no heat. A/c works fine on moderate days ... overheated on hot days and while I was on a previous trip a local shop converted the a/c frpom R-12 to R-134 UGH!!! now it never cools on our 100+ days in Sun City and my wife complains about that as it is her car when we are home. I myself never use the air ... I just open the windows of my Olds. Has anyone ever converted r-134 conversion back to R-12? How about propane? My Portland buddy swears buy propane conversions and a million+ NEW European cars use it in Europe. OF couse propaane is not approved as an automotive refrigerant in the USA as it is combustable. That has not been a problem in Europe ... and trust me after losing my hands and face in an automible engine explosion I an concerend about fire. I am the only person that I know that is wearing a mask in his driver's license picture. (An old Motor Home Dodge 440 motor filled its crankcase with gas from a bad fuel pump diaphragm and exploded when I started it knocking me out and the engine cowling pinned my feet against the driver's seat so It was very difficult for me to get out after I regained consciousness. That happened almost 4 years ago and it took me 3 years before I was really strong enough to work on cars again. I recommend an oil change with every mechanical feul pump change ... just a bad experience on my part. I have never heard anyone else suggest that.

I am broke down and I do hope to hear from anyone ... feel free to call collect (334) 684-9081 I would give you my cell phone (909) 764-1335 but there is no local service here in beautiful nowhere's ville Coffee Springs in Southern Alabama.

[BeelzeBob]

Probably was just the intake gaskets. That engine requires frequent coolant replacement to maintain adequate corrosion inhibitor protection in the coolant and it also requires the addition of the GM coolant supplement/BarsLeaks "golden seal" powder to the cooling system for internal leak protection.

You can clean up and reuse the original head bolts. Run the bolts into the block threads to clean the block threads out. Do NOT run a tap thru the block head bolt threads as it will ruin the threads (they are originally rolled threads from the factory and very tight fitting so a tap will cut part of them away) and you will likely strip a head bolt. I would recommend cleaning up the bolts and holes and installing them dry or with a very very light coat of plain engine oil. Do NOT use pipe dope, teflon, grease , anti-seize, etc.....on the head bolts either on the threads or under the heads of the bolts. Personally, if it was me, I do them dry. There is a coating that is still probably OK on the bolts that acts as an assembly lube to torque the bolts in place.

The cylinder liners are loose fitted into the block and sealed at the bottom with an 0-ring. Make sure the liners are not loosened in the process as debris in the old coolant can get between the bottom of the liner on the ledge where it seats and upset the seal. To make sure thoroughly flush the engine coolant jacket with fresh water/compressed air and clean around the base of each liner to make sure that nothing is trapped the interface.

Pay attention to properly tensioning the head bolts and the intake bolts. The intake bolts can be overtightened very easily causing other problems.

Hopefully you dissassembled the rocker arm/support bar assembly as one piece by taking the 5 large nuts off the stud headed head bolts in stages.... If not, the pivots may have been cracked. Check the pivots carefully and reassemble the rocker arms to the bar BEFORE assembling the bar to the engine. Just drop the rocker arm support bar with all the rocker arms onto the head bolt studs, alighn the pushrods, and tighten the 5 large nuts in stages. If you try to assemble the pivots to the bar after it is on the engine you will break the pivots and/or strip the bolt holes in the bar.

If the engine ran with coolant in the oil there is the possibility that the distributor gear is damaged. Inspect it carefully for anysigns of scoring. It should have a nice polished contact pattern with the cam gear.....anything looking at all like scoring is probably an incipient failure and replacing the distributor gear with a new on would be advisable so as to not wipe the cam gear out..... At the very least, reinstall the distributor gear into the engine with a thick coat of a very good moly-based assembly lube so as to help it break back in correctly.

I would recommend hitting a GM dealer and getting a quart of GM EOS (engine oil suppliment). That is a highly fortified antiwear breakin/assembly lube. Best stuff available anywhere for assembly of the engine. Add the remainder of the quart to the oil at the oil fill for startup. The high levels of ZDP will help the engine recover from any incipient wear or scoring that may have occurred when it ran with the coolant in the oil.

Loose the NAPA water pumps and go with the expensive OEM pump. It IS better as can be attested to by several people on the forum....unless you like changing water pumps, of course.

There is a plastic tee in the cooling system on the rear/right valve cover area. One leg comes from the thermostat area. One leg (the T of the tee) goes to the heater core. The third leg goes forward to the front of the engine and should have a 5/16 or so restrictor in it. If the tee was ever replaced with a generic tee with no restrictor the heat will not work.

R134a should cool just as well as the R12. Loss of cooling performance is a bit of a myth that is usually detectable only with instrumentation. My dad's 90 DeVille has had R134a in it for two years now and in steamy South Carolina and Florida it is fine in the summer. If your system is not performing then it is likely due to a poor conversion. Purge the system, put the correct PAG oil in the system, replace the accumulator (only way to get a fresh dessicate charge in the system), evacuate the system thoroughly and, most importantly, charge the system to the SAME charge level as was specified for R12. This is the most common perforance problem...undercharging with R134a. Shops think that there is a "conversion" factor....BS.....charge to the same exact level as was spec'd for R12. Everyone screws up the conversion and then conveniently blames the R134a. Not the case.....

Good luck with it.

[92deville-loveit]

Hi guy,

THanks for the lengthy first reply. It is very much appreciated. I partialy replied in the next thread I started (92 4.9L Engine Reassembly ..) as I didn't really know how this worked and I thought I could only do one note a day. But after I posted it said I had 2 notes so I now realize it was just a counter. Things besides me are a bit slow here ... the modem says it is 56k but I have never gotten it faster than 26k and it is a pulse dial setup ... I switched it to tone dial and the modem failed to connect. It is a dial phone where I am working too. This poor 32 megabytes of ram computer is only 200mhz and an old early AMD processor too ... but running Win 95 it comes alive in a third of the time as my home hot dog 3 gig machine running Win XP and 512 MB of DDR. If my aunt saw how slow my machine came up she would look elsewhere for computer help. This old turkey machine starts in 15 seconds and quits just as fast. I had forgotten that was possible.

I was just about to go run a tap in my head bolt holes when I read your note. Many thanks for that tip. Now I am glad I hadn't done it. What especially do I need to look for in the rockers? Will I need a magnifying glass? After I had it all apart I wondered if it could have been removed as an assembly but I figured that it would be too much stress on the bolts working all those rockers at once so I figured I had done it right ... )-; Wrong again.

MY sleeves are still in place but they really concern me ... I wonder what I should do since I have it apart and it is a pain to get it this far apart. I don't know how long it should have taken me but it was 3 long days and I had expected only one for dissassembly, one day for parts ordering and one day for reassembly and who knows how long for head work. Now I don't think I need anything except a head gasket set???? Who should I buy from?

Now that my injectors or out how can I best service them? I did spray them with carb cleaner ... Cheap $1.50 dollar store variety that I found in the shed. I coated my cylinders with STP spray lube that I found after I vaccuumed the coolant and debris out. Engines are not my specialty. I used to do trannys and I am now finally strong enough to get started on them again. One goal this trip is to pick up some diagnostic tools in Palmyra, New York that I bought on E-bay. (I am still trying to get there.) The seller promised to let me work with him a day to learn how to use them. ($1300 I paid for a Snap-on Mt2500 and an OTC palm scanner and scope). My last two trannys were computer controlled and I was at a loss to check them out properly. I was lucky they have worked perfect so far. I spent 4 months trying to get my daughter's 91 OLds Cutlass Supreme to quit dying randomly after she bottomed it out on a drainage dip in Hemet California and the engine instanly died ... then and a thousand more times in the next 4 months. My last day before leaving on this trip I did everything I hadn't already done and she was thrilled - it finally worked propely for her. I was amazed at the performacne increase that an new O2 sensor made ... It didn't fix the problem butr when it was running it ran better. Diagnostic tools would have maybe made that job easier. The serial data link was losing data when it hit a bump or shifted or stopped. With careful driving I could sometimes (very rarely) make a round trip without it dying. Anyway that car was an education for me as I spent many hours studying the 2 GM factory service manuals. I bought an OTC 4000E scanner and that was useful in letting me discover an overheating problem that car had that I didn't know it had ... after much careful wire harness tracing I found 2 broken ground wires - one for each fan and both touching the other broken half when I found them. So they worked most of the time. I love my digital camera - I was able to show my daughter what happens to a wiring harness when a car bottoms out at "only 10mph". That camera is recording my progress and mistakes on this Caddy engine. Maybe my pix can help someone else with their Caddy.

I eagerly desire help from anyone. Thanks!!!

[BeelzeBob]

Just inspect the rocker arm pivots for cracks/damage from loosening the bolts. You can apply a little bending load to them to see if the little bridge between the paired pivots is cracked. If it is you can put the assembly back together and have the cracked bridge heli-arc welded as it is aluminum. It really doesn't carry much load but the pivot will try to twist if it isn't there and loosen the bolt and pull it out of the support bar.


Good thing you didn't clean out the head bolt holes with a tap!!! Quick way to wreck them.

You'll need head gaskets and intake gaskets. I recommend the OEM parts if there is a Cadillac or GM dealer around.

The liners will wiggle around as they are loose in the bottom of the block. They just slide into the pilot bore at the bottom of the block. I would clean out the coolant jacket carefully and blow out and/or vacuum the coolant jacket carefully until it is clean around the bottom of the liners. Then wiggle each liner up just a fraction, blow around the base of it to make sure that nothing is trapped between the flange at the base of the liner and the block itself. Then reseat it. You can feel it reseat and it should have a nice solid metal-to-metal feel. That is all. Just a caution to not dislodge the liner while it is sitting in a puddle of sediment and crud that will get trapped under the seating flange. Really just a common sense item once you understand the possible pit fall. No need at all to pull them out or take the pistons out or anything. That part of the engine is likely perfect still. I would expect that the liners still look perfect with no ridge at all and the factory hone pattern still visible in the bores.

Don't touch the heads. There is likely no reason at all to do anything to the valves or seats or anything. With the induction hardened seats and the chrome plated valve stems in that engine they last a long long time. Same fo the valve stem seals. They are a very HD viton lip seal....last forever.

How does the distributor gear look??

I would not do anything to the injectors if the car was running OK then they are fine. Besides, they are very easy to remove even with the engine assembled.

While it is apart, clean the throttle body bores beneath the throttle blades and the bottom of the blades. All the crud that builds up under the blades can cause idle speed control problems. When you look down the throttle bores into the intake, those two tubes sticking up at you are the EGR tubes...they are not supposed to be full of carbon. Rod them out with a piece of stiff wire or a drill but if the throttle body is off until they are clean all the way thru to the passage in the intake below them.

[BeelzeBob]

Per your other posts....


Get the GM coolant supplement (sealer) pellets from a GM dealer. Assemble the engine with 6 of the pellets in the cooling system when you fill it. Or, you can substitute the BarsLeaks "golden seal" stop leak product. It comes in a clear tube on a blister pack card at WalMart....use two or three tubes when you reassemble the system to seal it up for no internal leaks.

[BeelzeBob]

Don't put any thing on the head gaskets or intake gaskets. Assemble the engine with the gaskets dry as supplied. You will need to use a dab of silicon or RTV at the corners of the intake gaskets where they mate to the end seals.


You are wise in not using any scotchbrite. Don't even consider it anywhere for gasket cleanup.

Use a razor blade scraper to clean the gasket surfaces....best thing that I have found...and some of the spray "gasket remover" if you can find it seems to help also.


You do not need the cylinder hold down strap unless you are going to put the engine on an engine stand and turn it upside downwards. The strap or brace is just a service aid to hold the liners into place when stuffing pistons and turning the engine upside downwards during assembly.... not needed to work on the engine in the car.

The OEM water pumps are more expensive because they have a much better (more expensive) bearing in them and the impeller is welded to the shaft so it cannot fall off and cause the pump to stop pumping.... The aftermarket pumps are much "cheaper" in price and in construction and materials. They just do NOT work as well. The OEM pumps often go 100K or more....then someone puts a cheapie aftermarket pump on and they start failing every 5K....duh..... Put the OEM pump on unless you like changing water pumps.

The best oil you can use in your engine is the Delvac/Delo/Rotella type of heavy duty oils for commercial diesels. Forget the additives and other crap. Use the Delvac/Delo/Rotella oil available in gallon jugs at WalMart. It is SL rated for performance and has all the commercial diesel ratings so it is pretty good stuff. The 15W40 will be fine for your area that is a little hotter. 10W30 is actually fine for the hotter areas. Those engines were tested in Death Valley towing trailers up the grades at 124 degrees with 10W30 oil so I suspect it will work fine for you. I WOULD strongly recommend adding the quart of GM EOS (engine oil supplement) to the oil fill when you reassemble. The EOS is heavily fortified with ZDP for antiwear protection (that is why it costs so much....ZDP is expensive...and that is why the aftermarket snake oil additves do not have the ZDP...it is expensive) and will help the engine recover from any incipient scuffing or wear until the surfaces can burnish over.

[green Deville]

92 deville I wish the best for you out there in Alabama. As for you Mr. bbonynski, you're the bomb and I will definetly send you a question or two. I have a 95 deville that I was driving home from work on a day of about 75 degrees and in light traffic for about 15 min. before my car suddenly stopped, quit, gave out you know. So I pulled over and did what most of us would do which was attempt to start it. I would get the sound/feel as if it were out of gas. On one attempt it stumbled on for about 3-4 seconds then died. Then I had it towed to the house and tried to start it again, no life at all just spinning.

At that point I hung my hat up for the night and decided to use my back up vehicle until I can look at it on the weekend. The next morning I went to get something out of my caddy b-4 work and I decided to try to start it just for the heck of it. The car fired up immediately and ran for about five minutes until I cut off.(Had to go to work.)

So I am asking for the top areas to put my attention to first. Actually any help would be wonderful.

I figure I'll just let it run in my driveway for however long it takes until it dies again. I know as soon as I get that car out on the road it will quit on me and I dont feel like towing my caddy no more. I figure that it would be hard to diagnose a problem when it isn't doing anything wrong. I just hope with years of experience that maybe you got a few ideas on what you would suspect. Thanks for any help

[BeelzeBob]

Originally Posted by green Deville

92 deville I wish the best for you out there in Alabama. As for you Mr. bbonynski, you're the bomb and I will definetly send you a question or two. I have a 95 deville that I was driving home from work on a day of about 75 degrees and in light traffic for about 15 min. before my car suddenly stopped, quit, gave out you know. So I pulled over and did what most of us would do which was attempt to start it. I would get the sound/feel as if it were out of gas. On one attempt it stumbled on for about 3-4 seconds then died. Then I had it towed to the house and tried to start it again, no life at all just spinning.

At that point I hung my hat up for the night and decided to use my back up vehicle until I can look at it on the weekend. The next morning I went to get something out of my caddy b-4 work and I decided to try to start it just for the heck of it. The car fired up immediately and ran for about five minutes until I cut off.(Had to go to work.)

So I am asking for the top areas to put my attention to first. Actually any help would be wonderful.

I figure I'll just let it run in my driveway for however long it takes until it dies again. I know as soon as I get that car out on the road it will quit on me and I dont feel like towing my caddy no more. I figure that it would be hard to diagnose a problem when it isn't doing anything wrong. I just hope with years of experience that maybe you got a few ideas on what you would suspect. Thanks for any help

Usually best to start a new thread with a separate vehicle and problem like this....check the diagnostic codes by simultaneously pressing and holding the OFF and WARMER buttons on the climate control panel (key on) until the onboard diagnostics activates. Read off the codes displayed.

Need to catch it when it is not running, really...to see if it is fuel or spark related. I would start by getting a fuel pressure gauge on it to see if it is loosing fuel pressure when it dies.

[SoundAdvantage]

Originally Posted by bbob

Per your other posts....


Get the GM coolant supplement (sealer) pellets from a GM dealer. Assemble the engine with 6 of the pellets in the cooling system when you fill it. Or, you can substitute the BarsLeaks "golden seal" stop leak product. It comes in a clear tube on a blister pack card at WalMart....use two or three tubes when you reassemble the system to seal it up for no internal leaks.

92deville-loveit > I would Definately take what bbob has to say about Cadillac engines to the Bank, He is 100% Correct on his information he is giving you so you need Not look any further for the answeres to your questions. He is also 100% Correct in telling you to use Only OEM Parts for your engine and NOT Rebuilds sold at discount auto parts stores. Trust me on this one, the money you save on the cheap rebuilt parts will NOT Save you any $$$ on the same problems in the near future. If you have any more questions about your Cadillac engine > you have found an Expert in the field > bbob

Keep us updated on your engine and let us know how the fish are biting too!

Did you say your name was Jobe?

[92deville-loveit]

Stripped head bolts ... HELP!!!I finally rounded all all the parts ... new head bolts 10 innermost ones and 6 outermost ones. I desided to use 4 old head bolts - 1 at each corner as new ones were not avaialable fron the Jacksonville depot.

I new they had a special coating but finally I decided that the caoting that I saw needed to be washed off the head bolts.

I also discovered anotehr problem by accident ... the spaces around the cylinders was full on the outside to 1.5 inches with dried up GM Coolant Tabs. Packed rock hard and. I broke a filet knife digging it out and also a hacksaw blade. I got the front head cleared out but I finally gave up on the back head as I was exhausted after a whole day of chipping away. I bet this same garbage has stopped up my heater core and that is why my wife drives cold to work and has foggy windows. I beet the reduced coolant flow was a primary cause of the overheating problem. My Dad loved GM tabs and put them in and insisted that I do the same. How do you flush them out?

Back head installed okay. Front head 1st torque ok. 2nd torque ok but third torque to 90 foot pounds failed at 60 .... Bad news 1st and 2nd bolt of the 3 bolts stripped out. center bolt turns at 20 pounds and 2nd bolt turns at 40 pounds.

I think I should helicoil all three of the high torgue stud type head bolts and howwmany more???

Can I reuse the front head gasket?

I had a terrible time aligning the rear head on the dowels while holding the corner head bolt in place it was the dowel on that end that I had trole finding. What is the chance that I damaged taht head gasket sliding hte head around on it?

Whaat is the proper prepaaration for hte new head bolts out of hte packaage before using them? That black garbage did nmostly wash off with carb cleaner and a paaper towel. Was it a temporary preserative as I finally decided?

Some of the new bolts came with damaged threads ... Did I damage them by running a die over them to take of the flatted spots???

I did a bit of "customization - grinding and filing - I beveled some of the edges" on the rear exhaust manifold and was able to install the rear head with the exhaust attached. It was obvious that the engineer that designed that exhaust manifold did not do the front one too. Thaaat one I felt it unsaafe to remove enough material from the center bolt hole to allow using a socket on the bolt. Of course I had the heaad in place but not torqued when I disccovered the lack of room to use a socket.

What and where do I get what I need to fix my damaged engine block to make new threads??? My welcome is wearing out with my many troubles.


By the way I did clean out the bolt holes and did a dry run with an old head bolt to check out the holes before I installed the head so I know theat the holes were clear and clean to a point even beyond whaat the new head bolts would be using.

I do wish I had dropped the engine out the bottom. What is involved in disconnecting the steering ram ... for next time? Whaaaat is the easies way to do that taks in the field - unbolt the tops of the struts? and take the whole suspension system? My ignorance and very limited selection of tools made me reluctant to tackle that task. But being almost 60 aand missing 25% of my lungs, I got very tired working balanced on my knees on the front bumper. This thing has exhausted me.

As always any help is apreciated. BY the way - 2 caddy dealers here in Southern "wiregrass" Alabama - one quoted a new engine and 2 weeks to fix my stripped head bolts for just $6-8000 and the other said maybe 2 weeks to fix my car as they had lots of warranty work and only 3 mechanics. Cost was an unknown factor but when I mentioned that I was a former GM shop foreman and also the night time service manager the service guy warmed up to me a bit and might loan me some taps and drills ... with sufficient collateral. But he does not know where the tools are but he is sure that they have some. Only once before did a dealer loan me a tool and that was in Mexico to replace a strut on a Dodge Caravan. Alas the tool was stripped and therefore useless. Great Southern hospitality here in the Wiregrass!!


How many inserts should I buy and install to repair the threads? 12mx1.75

[92deville-loveit]

I helicoiled the 3 center head bolts seats of the front head upper row. I was already committed when I got the note about timeserts and it was not possible to get them in a reasonable time frame. The local GM dealer could not even get the service helicoils and our one local part's house could get me one 30 mm long. 18mm - yes but not 30mm. Of course no one stocked the items when I called and I don't think anyone had heard of timeserts. Only in this web page had I heard of them.


I ordered new head bolts and I believe that one of them was surely defective as I can not thread a 12mm x 1.75 die on it with out the die binding. On other head bolts the die moved freely. I have saved that bolt for an engineer to check out. That bolt cost me $100+ and a very stressful day of my life plus the $10 I paid for the bolt. I know someone will say ... How can a bolt be made bad? I don't know.

That new bolt almost destroyed my engine repair job. After getting the email about the problems of a helicoiled block I was disstresssed to find out that at least 2 of my block cylinder face holes were already bored to 37/64. I immediately assumed a torn-up repair job. I was wrong. The center hole of the upper row was not 37/64 to allow passage of the tap and insert so instead of using the dealer loaned 37/64 drill we used a reamer as I was concerned about losing control of the drill bit. We hand drilled with a tap handle all the holes. If the bad seats had been in the back head- it would not have been fixed. I don't think it can possibly be done in the car.

If all goes well final assembly and road testing will be done tomorrow. Then I get to see my pretty wife at journey's end ... if the car can finish the rest of the 6000 more miles originally planned for this trip. Fortunately it got her as far as was planned when we started this trip. (Here from Sun City, CA and then to Fort Lauderdale for a week. She flew to Sacramento from Florida.) It even got me back to here in Coffee Springs. That isn't too bad for a car that took 14 hours to go the first 200 miles due to many overheating problems.

[SoundAdvantage]

Originally Posted by 92deville-loveit

[size=3]I helicoiled the 3 center head bolts seats of the front head upper row.

After getting the email about the problems of a helicoiled block I was disstresssed to find out that at least 2 of my block cylinder face holes were already bored to 37/64.

If all goes well final assembly and road testing will be done tomorrow. Then I get to see my pretty wife at journey's end ... if the car can finish the rest of the 6000 more miles originally planned for this trip. Fortunately it got her as far as was planned when we started this trip. (Here from Sun City, CA and then to Fort Lauderdale for a week. She flew to Sacramento from Florida.) It even got me back to here in Coffee Springs. That isn't too bad for a car that took 14 hours to go the first 200 miles due to many overheating problems.

Please let us know how things went on your reassembly. Did you have any leaks in your head gaskets? Is your engine back together and running? Let us know if you have any questions so we can help. Thank You.