Yep, so i'm pretty sure I bought my car with a blown head gasket and I finally demolished it. The car was running hot around town, so I decided to run it for a little bit w/out the t-stat. It ran super cool for a little while, until I parked it and realized it drank about a gallon of water in no time. And plus it was making it sound like a subaru at low rpm's, making me think its fouling one or two plugs out from all of the coolant leaking into the cylinder. So I start breaking it down, remove VC, exhaust mani, turbo and down pipe. And find oil on top of plugs 1 and 2.

Anyways i'm 100 percent sure bad headgasket, could this lead to my low compression results?

I feel pretty confident I can do this replace, just going to take my time and save myself about 800 bucks. However, my crankshaft pulley is not original and does not have the timing mark for TDC. Is there another way maybe by marking the camshafts to find TDC?

Told you that you bought a grenade.....sorry, just saying..

"Anyways i'm 100 percent sure bad headgasket, could this lead to my low compression results?"And yes, as we have said before..

"However, my crankshaft pulley is not original and does not have the timing mark for TDC. Is there another way maybe by marking the camshafts to find TDC? "you dont know what your talking about.. that "pully" has to come off to reveal the crank shaft sprocket.. they DONT make aftermarket ones of those, so the timing mark is there. Do you have stock cams and or stock cam gears?

IMO, do some searching, it sounds like your confused on how to even time the motor..

Heres things id recomend...

1. ARP head studs, you say you have them already, but you have yet to actually do anything we tell you , so we have no idea if this is true or not.
2Get the head checked - this means pressure check etc
Replace valve seals. and get the head decked/checked for flatness
3.Use Mopar MLS HG and some copper gasket spray
4. mechanical Timing tensioner.. IMO better then the Hrydro one. (get the kit comes with a new idler and Belt as well)


Unfortunatly for you, you still may have crap rings, you didnt prove they were good befroe you tore things apart, so all this may be in Vein if you get done and find you still have low compression, as you will have to tear it all apart again... thats why we suggested you do the tests....GL..

Is there oil in your coolant? or coolant in your oil? makes a differnce.. if theres coolant in your oil.. you may want to check your rod bearings.. Also see if the oil smells like fuel.. not typical in a failed HG, but it may help ID if the rings are toast. Bad luck, and a perfect example of doing research befroe you buy. sory for your luck, but your situation is pretty typical for people who buy modded cars. .just how it is..

The TDC mark isn't on the pulley itself, it's on the gear behind it.

Retrun that coolant temp sensor, and buy the chiltons book.. Then get back to us with questions...

Ok, yea I bought more of a C4 ready to be detonated. Ha ha, It's not that big of a deal, I'm just going to take my time and build up everything as I go. I have a nice set of crower cam's i'm going to drop in before I reinstall. I'm going to get new rings for my pistons as well while i'm down there just so I have peace of mind. Might do water pump too.

I have the haynes manual... is it not any good?

That works.

Honestly if your goint to re-ring.. I would make sure this doesnt happen again, and yank the motor, and get it checked out. Ie bearings, have them replaced, and have the machine shop tell you what oil u need based on the tolerances they set in your bearings. Why risk any more right?

Water pump is a good idea.

Just my .02.

Yea your right. The more i researched and drove, the more I knew this was going to happen. I just didn't want to admit it to myself. I'm honestly nervous to see what this thing is going to look like when I get into it.

oh and gapless rings?

All you can do to make sure it seals is.Check the head/block for straightness on at least 6 different directions like parallel, corner to corner etc. Make sure the surface is VERY CLEAN and smooth. once its smooth and clean enough you should be able to drag your fingernails over it (surface of head and block) slightly and feel smooth to your nails and not catch at all. the cleaner and smoother the better for any mls gasket. Then all you can really do is make sure you have a good torque wrench and make sure you follow the instructions from arp At least three steps till 90ftlbs is what mine said. use their lube and don't be surprised when there is a glob of it stuck to your dip stick after a little running. But i would only use razor blades to clean the surface so you dont wave the metal. just a little gas, a scotch brite pad a razor blade and elbow grease and it should seal. also check to be sure the manufacturer recommends Copper spray. Many companies don't recommend it with an mls. they are make to crush and will seal if the surfaces are clean and smooth. any one who says mls's are hard to get to seal isint doing it right. Good luck! all this is assuming that the head and block them self's are issue free.

Hesh724 said:

All you can do to make sure it seals is.Check the head/block for straightness on at least 6 different directions like parallel, corner to corner etc. Make sure the surface is VERY CLEAN and smooth. once its smooth and clean enough you should be able to drag your fingernails over it (surface of head and block) slightly and feel smooth to your nails and not catch at all. the cleaner and smoother the better for any mls gasket. Then all you can really do is make sure you have a good torque wrench and make sure you follow the instructions from arp At least three steps till 90ftlbs is what mine said. use their lube and don't be surprised when there is a glob of it stuck to your dip stick after a little running. But i would only use razor blades to clean the surface so you dont wave the metal. just a little gas, a scotch brite pad a razor blade and elbow grease and it should seal. also check to be sure the manufacturer recommends Copper spray. Many companies don't recommend it with an mls. they are make to crush and will seal if the surfaces are clean and smooth. any one who says mls's are hard to get to seal isint doing it right. Good luck! all this is assuming that the head and block them self's are issue free.

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ok cool man, that's what I was thinking. Plus I have heard from a couple of people that copper spray is the way to go.

It is. Use it. Your better off letting a shop check your head. If your re using your arp, follow the mfg tq specs. Steps of 3the to 85 ft lbs then 3the more rounds of 85ft lbs

I don't see how it could hurt anything. But im glad Glowryder added that about the Triple torque, the max torque three whole seprate times in the order in the book, I forgot to mention that. But ya I just did my 2nd MLS head gasket in two weeks.... Thanks to some gas pedal happy friends of mine and never had one leak on me. you know after all the prep was done of course. But ya good luck and when you go to time it i would recommend you get the special Timing Tool kit off somewhere (dsmgraveyard) etc.... its got the tension er pulley tool and the long bolt to hold the autotensioner down.

Hesh724 said:

i would recommend you get the special Timing Tool kit off somewhere (dsmgraveyard) etc.... its got the tension er pulley tool and the long bolt to hold the autotensioner down.

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Don't buy from dsmgraveyard you should read their feedback is horrible.
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