I bought this 86 wagon with the engine seized at the crank bearings do to lack of oil.(thats the bad) The good part is it has a great body and the engine was just resealed, Including new Micky mouse gasket,valve seals,cam tower o rings and new Felpro permatorque Head gaskets. This was all done about 1000 miles before it seized.

My question is would the head gaskets be reusable? They are in great shape I can even read the Felpro logo on them.

are you opening up the bottom end, or just trying to free the cylinder with a hammer and block of wood?

 

I would say give it a shot. But the gaskets may already be squished down and wont torque u the same.

 

But if you are willing, you can be the one to prove wether this works or not!

I bought another parts wagon that has a running engine except for when I opened the passenger side valve cover the cam followers on the intake valves fell out because the HLAs are froze. Since the engine I got from the donor car has 200k on it I figured why I have it out I would change the heads form the one that was just redone with the ones that had froze HLAs.

I ask the guy that did the head gaskets on the seized engine what torque specs he used. He said he used these steps, step one to 22ft-lbs

step two to 43ft-lbs,

step three to 47ft-lbs

I read this from Gloyale, Most board members here I believe run a higher final torque. Like 55 to 60 at least. Carefully though, don't want to strip threads.

So my thinking is if the guy that resealed the engine only went to 47ft-lbs and I go to 55 or 60 They should seal.

I guess the only way to find out is to do it.

I would not go beyond 50 or 55 lbs, for the sake of the aluminum thread. Make sure to chase the holes out with an oiled bolt before installing the head, so you get even and proper torque readings.

reusing headgaskets is probably a low percentage option or not likely to make high mileages....but how many EA82's are really going to see high mileage beyond today anyway?

 

i could envision a time in my life when i would have tried it. you gotta do what you gotta do some times.

 

for how cheap they are and how large of a job it is, i wouldn't do it. i can buy a car with blown headgaskest, flip it and make a ton of money....so trying to save $50 or the possibility of doing two headgasket jobs on one car doesn't make any sense to me.

Thanks Gary. I will just get new HGs,Cam tower O rings because they are not OEM with the metal ring and intake gaskets then. The rest of the gaskets are good to go IMO. Any good source for the Cam tower Orings?

you mean those little tiny metal reinforced doo-dads right (and not the cam cap orings)? subaru usually has them in stock usually, order them online, or thepartsbin.com is one aftermarket source of them. subaru intake gaskets are better than most aftermarkets i've seen, i'd go subaru on those since they are known to leak from the water jacket into the intake runners.

 

that's definitely a good idea to replace them i they're generic orings, regular orings will not hold - i've seen it tried before.

 

i'm out of town for a week and a half at the moment but if you haven't ordered by then i can check what i have, i have some spare EA82 fel pro headgaskets i'd part with for a bit less than the stores.

 

i was hoping you'd try it - i have a set of headgaskets that were installed, never run, and then disassembled... actually i think some headgasket styles would hold up better than others - an EA82 would certainly fair better than turbo or the newer EJ motors with the multi layered metal stuff. those old school gaskets are fairly archaic technologically speaking, so maybe they stand a much better chance.

 

i asked this question 10 years ago for an ER engine (XT6 - same pistons, valves, HLA's, and more as an EA82) and everyone told me not to do it.

The correct o- rings are supplied with the felpro ea82 head gasket set. This includes intake, exhaust, cam seals, and valve cover gaskets. The valve cover and grommets are of oem manufacture. There will be o-rings for the cam tower, and for the distributor, and also for the cam retainers

 

The bottom end conversion set will have front and rear crank, oil pan, oil pump and water pump gaskets.