andrsn Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 (edited) I guess I'll just start from the beginning... really starting to hate this car -Bought an 83' brat w/224k miles last summer. Seemed to run decent enough and I put a bunch of work into the front brakes, cv's, wheel bearings, and rebuilt the hitachi carb. to fix its plethora of issues. Engine still leaked some oil out of either the head gasket, oil pan or oil pump and would not pass DEQ for unburnt hydrocarbons. -Parts car down the street from me came up for sale with a clean looking ea81 engine and a weber. Couldn't give a thorough test drive because of a twisted control arm, but I got it home and the engine started up quicker and seemed to run stronger than mine (maybe just because of the weber carb). I really just bought it for the carb and intake manifold (mine is trashed) but since it seemed to run so well and mine was leaking oil and dirty as hell I decided to swap them. -Pulled both engines out on a Saturday afternoon. Cleaned up the engine from the parts car, put a new oil pan gasket on it (tilted engine onto clutch side of engine to do so), new oil filter, cleaned it up, added oil and put a new clutch on. Oil that I took out of it had 0 water in it that I could see, antifreeze was also clean. -Put the parts car engine in my brat a week later, got it all hooked up. Filled the radiator up with coolant. Fired up 1st try! Gave it a ride around the neighborhood, seemed to go fine. -Gave it a ride on the freeway on my way to DEQ, idle seemed high after warm up. Stopped the car once to trouble shoot the high idle and it had a lot of trouble getting started again. Would only start with gas pedal fully pressed down. Realized DEQ was closed on Monday and just drove home. -Following weekend, fire it up no problem. After it warmed up it started blasting white smoke and would only return to idle if I was really careful letting off the gas pedal. Failed DEQ for CO (carbon emissions). -Now the car just blasts white smoke and there is oil/water dripping out the tail pipe like crazy! Definitely looks to have water in the oil when I take the dipstick out. This all seems like blown head gasket territory, but is there anything else it could be? It starts up just fine every time and seems to rev. fine (I have since stopped starting it due to fear of damage). From tilting the engine on its clutch to do the oil pan gasket? Some hose somewhere that I just missed? I've still got my old engine sitting in my garage and doing a head gasket doesn't seem too bad but I don't wanna do it if I don't have to... I wanna love this car but its really making my life hard. Edited February 22, 2016 by andrsn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveT Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Don't know of any reason tilting the engine in any direction would cause permanent problems. Intake manifold gaskets at the heads, and the carb are possible places coolant can get into the intake and burned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zmarrott Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 (edited) if your seeing water on the dipstick, i would suspect head gasket is your only bet. anything on the intake doesnt have the ability to get into the oil i dont think. head gaskets on the ea81 are very easy to do, at least compared to current engine head gaskets. i was lucky and had experience with a head gasket on my dohc saturn, so push rod was a piece of cake. though if you do end up pulling the heads, dont be a dumbass like i was. drain the fluids, so you dont flood your lifters with coolant, and make extra sure the pushrods are seated properly on the lifters and rocker arms. if theyre not youll bend them, then have to make one motor just a parts motor. if your doing it with the engine out of the vehicle, it should be very simple and straight forward. less than a days work and youll have the engine running again. give 'er love and she'll love ya back and run forever Edited February 23, 2016 by zmarrott Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrsn Posted February 23, 2016 Author Share Posted February 23, 2016 Is there any chance a broken or popped out 'freeze plug' could cause the issue? Are all of those accessible/visible once the valve covers are removed? I'll check that first but unless anyone else chimes in, I guess its time to slap some head gaskets on my old engine! Any recommendations on gaskets? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zmarrott Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 i got a engine gasket kit from oreilys when i did it but you can find them on ebay too. mine was about $60 i think and had everything you need to do the heads plus a few more. head, valve cover, intake, carb, egr, exhaust, oil filler, and a bunch of other stuff i dont remember. and id have to dig my extra engine head out from the depths under my bed, but if i remember right, theres no freeze plug or any under the valve covers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ferox Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Fel-pro Perma Torques are popular and can be had at Rockauto. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turbosubarubrat Posted February 24, 2016 Share Posted February 24, 2016 There should be 3 press fit freeze plugs per head. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrsn Posted February 24, 2016 Author Share Posted February 24, 2016 There should be 3 press fit freeze plugs per head. I popped the covers off the heads tonight, just a slight amount of oil in there. I only saw 1 freeze plug per side but I could barely see in there because of the angle. I'm guessing that if the freeze plugs had popped out, there would have been a large amount of liquid in there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Downwash77 Posted February 24, 2016 Share Posted February 24, 2016 The engine being tipped up could cause oil to leak through rings and cause a hydraulic pressure head gasket failure Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrsn Posted March 2, 2016 Author Share Posted March 2, 2016 I've started freshening up my old engine. Took all weekend but its starting to finally look clean. I've come up with my first 2 questions. 1. I replaced the rear main seal but what is the smaller diameter seal inside the main seal called? Should I replace that? the cover of mine fell off when I pushed on it. Its the reddish seal in this photo: 2. I bought Fel-Pro head gaskets, should I use any sealant on them? I've read not to but the cardboard packaging they came in says to use it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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