[logbas34]

ok so I have a 2000 celica GT with 125,000 miles on it. recently I have been having some issues....
low horsepower,
oil consumption,
vacuum leaks from air intake,
and a few other minor things..

so my fiances sisters boyfriend works on cars and he offered to help me replace all the gaskets.
here's what happened.

car ran fine for 1 day and then check engine light came on i checked the oil and it was MOCHA colored!!! obviously the had gasket went bad... this happened because thinking back he did a number of things wrong that I didn't realize.

1st he put the head gasket on with a ton of gasket sealer and used his finger to smooth it out which wasn't very smooth. then he let it sit on there to dry and then he put gasket sealer on the head and waited for that to dry and then put the camshaft head on top of the lower engine block.

2nd he ripped it back off bc he forgot something and he didn't fully clean off the gasket sealer that was on the blocks or the gasket. ( he did most of it but he used a flathead so now there's little tiny scratches on the blocks) they aren't gouges there just little streaks but still, am i going to have to get those scratches polished out?

3rd when he took the 2 blocks apart the gasket split from its 2 pieces and the 1 end about an inch. i was told it wouldn't matter if it split yah stupid!!!!

4th he used 3 tubes of gasket sealer for the whole gasket repair from the head gasket up.. head gasket, timing case, water pump. valve cover gaskets, intake gasket. that seems like that's way way way too much for a 4 cyl.

5th the headbolts he didn't use a torque wrench to tighten them to spec. he just "feeled" for it yah i know. On the Manual it says to tighten them down to 33 Ft Lbs, that doesnt seem like alot however the book should be right? right?

i'm starting to sound like such an idiot for listening to him but i dont know too much about cars im in the medical profession so i just took his word, well obviously that didnt work. sooo question is

do I NOT put gasket sealer on head gasket? Do I have to polish the heads where they meet? DO I follow the celica Manual from the site absolutely to a T especially when it comes to torque. (can the book be wrong)

i just need as much help as i can get this is my only car now I'm bumming rides.

 

[GSBoek]

He did everything wrong that could have been done. Get a new head gasket, new head bolts and check the bolck and heads for straightness. Resurfacing the head might be a good idea.

 

[AZgts]

Don't know if a 1ZZ is different but when I replaced my gasket in the valve cover I never used gasket sealer....

 

[GSBoek]

If the valve cover gasket is not brittle then only a dab of sealant is needed at the joining point of the head, timing cover and gasket.

 

[logbas34]

Oh I know now!!! It's beyond crazy I didn't see this stuff but like I said I don't know much about cars.... He's the kind of person who would throw out the manual and say screw it well regardless we r getting new gaskets and what not and ive been reading the manual all day today and were gonna do it exactly how it says to in the book no if ands or butts!

What do u think it would cost to get the head resurfaced if it had to be done and if it's bent at all does that mean I gotta get a new head?

 

[logbas34]

btw here's some of the before and after images. I know the pistons got some crud on them but omg i wish i took some pictures before to show you the before and after images.
I was one of the unlucky ones who got one of those 00 1/2quart a week leaking engine, so we had to replace the valve seals. I had 3/4 of an inch of pure black burnt oil on the pistons, to the point where the whole piston was completely flat and black.

if you can see on the 1st picture you can see in between the cylinder that the head gasket was split from top to bottom. Please dont beat me up you guys I swear i really had no idea until other people explained this to me. not to mention look how much gasket stuff is on there )= wish i would have known, i could be driving right now )=

 

[bman365]

Depends on how warped the head is whether a resurface can fix it or not.

 

[bionictony]

sounds like your friend made your car a lot worse! you may not be able to rebuild your engine. did he even do timing right? you did not even fix the oil consumption problem. to fix that, you need to replace the pistons and piston rings. so your friend used gasket maker to substitute for a head gasket? search ebay for a 1zzfe engine rebuild kit and that's all the gaskets you need. i doubt that kit will fix your engine now. just search dismantlers in your area for a replacement used engine.

 

[7th Degenerate]

Sounds like it's time to do a complete tear down and rebuild to me. And don't ever, ever, ever, never, never, ever let your sisters boyfriends cousin's fiances touch your car again!

 

[logbas34]

well he did use a head gasket. he didn't just put sealer on it but he put sealer on the head gasket.... i got a new set of gaskets and i got someone else who's going to do it, he seems to think that the engine is fine its just basically a blown head gasket like what normally would happen. what he told me was that the gasket sealer won't handle the compression and will cause pockets which will get in-between the actual head gasket and split it. so we are going to reattempt this without the gasket sealer obviously... as far as what this other guy said who is a certified mechanic with a whole lot of cars done in my family, he said the engine should be fine and you won't need to rebuild anything as long as the blocks aren't warped. so we are gonna check this and if everything is good we are going to start working on it again tomorrow after work..

just wish me luck lol cause this is my only car! you can imagine how stressed i am!

 

[Smaay]

you do not use gasket sealer. everything was done wrong. never let that person touch your engine again, unfortunately you didnt look here first. you have an early GT, oil consumption is very very common. there was nothing wrong with your head gasket to begin with.

 

[logbas34]

well ill say this the compression check was fine on the car. the reason for all this oil consumption was this.

I had a bad valve cover gasket, which was leaking oil... but i also had a bad intake gasket, (we could hear a vacuum leak), soo the oil that was leaking from the valve cover was pooling in between the intakes and it was sucking the oil into the intake. this was evident because we sucked all the oil and cleaned the outside of the intake and we proceeded to take the intake out, when we made our way to the actual intake on the block it was black, crusted, with fresh oil inside of there. soo that in conjunction with the bad valve seals was causing an "oil,air,fuel ratio" instead of just air coming through the intake, and getting into the cylinders and caking up on the pistons.

its a possibility that my piston rings could be bad but wouldn't a normal compression test mean they're at least not bad?

what really sucks about this whole situation is that the head gasket was getting ready to go soon (evident when we took it off) but it wasnt bad yet, so we figured well we gotta rip the engine half apart we might as well just get a new head gaset too.. ugh!!! what a nightmare, and yah after this! this guy won't even get close to my car with any tool. and i still got more to do, new injectors, fuel pump and filter. and of course body work cause it is an 11 year old car, lots of scratches )=

 

[Smaay]

you have no idea what you are talking about or you are getting bad information from someone else. ill say it again, these headgaskets do NOT go bad. unless you grossly overheat the engine. they are a MLS headgasket and do NOT fail!

the early GTs have an oil consumption problem. its in the design of the rings. the valve cover gasket was not leaking enough nor the intake manifold gasket causing your problems. yeah it might have been a small vacuum leak but that wouldnt cause the oil consumption.