Taoqi

ok, here is the problem. I just rebuilt my b18a1. finally got it in the car, started to fill her up with fluids. got the oil in, the atf in. started putting coolant in and found out my oil pan gasket was leaking....the hard way. there was coolant spilling out of it. so I freak out for a sec. I've done some searching and found out I most likely put the head gasket on upside down. is there anything else it could be? maybe is there a hose I could have mixed up when dropping the engine back in? I know the cylinder walls are fine, I know the head isn't cracked... what else could it be?

myhdnromance

fluid in oil iis bad... thats ur headgasket... might wanna get a jackson racing high temp one.. i have one.. they work wonders compared to others..

Spec R

check under your timing belt cover, the water pump area might be oozing coolant.

just a suggestion outside the obvious

vshavoc

Hey don't feel bad. I ruined a cometic head gasket by putting it on backwards. There is an up side and a downside. Most gaskets say it on them. The holes for the water passages and oil passages probably aren't lined up right and it's making the fluids leak into each other. Are you sure that its coming out of the oil pan gasket though? You could have a leak from a hose or something and it's just pouring down there making it look like it's coming out of there. It should be leaking oil too though if it was the oil pan gasket. I think it may be as simple as a hose or like spec r said the gasket for the water pump itself. Pull the dipstick out and if there is water in the oil then it's the head gasket. If not your leak is coming from somewhere else and draining onto the oil pan.

Taoqi

ok, so the head gasket was on upside down.... that's not the problem though. as I found out today. today, I put a new head gasket gasket on there, filled it up with coolant, guess what happened.... that's right. poured right out the oil drain plug hole( i left it out just to make sure). I'm about to give up. I know the sleeves are good(there was still coolant in the passages when I took the head off.) i'm 99.9% sure the head isn't cracked( it was fine before I rebuilt the engine) so the only thing I can think of would be I mixed up a hose some where. could it have been one of the lines going to the breather box on the back of the engine? that's all I can think of. any ideas guys?

Spec R

damn i really dont know

vshavoc

Did you make sure your dowel pins were all there when you put the head back on? Check and make sure all your coolant hoses going to the iacv and the throttle body aren't mixed up with vacuum hoses. Thats the only thing I can say. Don't give up though! Its a great learning experience. When I built my first honda motor I screwed so much shit up it wasn't even funny. Theres a big difference between building a small block v8 and a modern 4 cylinder.

Taoqi

Yeah , all the dowel pins were there as long as there are only 2(i think the haynes manual said there were only 2). the more I think about it the more sure I am I just mixed up one of the coolant hoses. I'm going to go check it out as soon as this rain ends.

Taoqi

SHE RUNS!!!!!

well I got out to my parents today after work. checked all the hoses and lo and behold I had the damn breather box connected up to the throttle body coolant line. I can't figure out where the breather box line goes too though. the engine runs great. it's kinda loud though, I didn't know it had an exhaust leak till I started her up. my ABS light is on though. so I still have a few minor issues to work out but the important thing is the car is running now.... time to get to work on the fd...