Engine up in smoke after headgasket replacement, what went wrong?

"Behind the engine" like out the exhaust, or "behind the engine" in the engine bay?

A friend of mine once drove a Civic with a bad head gasket for a while before fixing it. Just called the car "Puff" for the white steam out the exhaust.

After the repair, it took a decent amount of driving for the exhaust to stop making steam, just from the coolant already in the pipe and muffler.

 

Replace the engine based on the pictures of the head gasket and engine block that you posted in this thread, https://priuschat.com/index.php?threads/238985/

When you have a head gasket that fails between two adjacent cylinders like you had, the alumminum engine block gets a groove eroded into the block and probably also on the aluminum cylinder head.

It's time for a replacement engine.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Prii where r u located

 

That's clearly a catastrophic groove... Very impressive and not the good kind of impressive... I wish I knew the specific individuals most responsible for everything they did wrong for Gen3 Prius after the perfection of Gen2. If I knew who those people were, I'd make sure to troll their every message on social media forevermore.

 

I was running behind the '09 or so Yaris yesterday on my powersports machine My motorcycle this Yaris was running 100 mph for nearly 45 min non stop look to be about in the same shape as my 300K mile gen2. I think I'm going to grab one for my daughter versus a Gen 2.

 

I agree with the others. Sounds like it wore a groove in the block and/or head. Both would need to be machined and that messes with the compression ratio, not to mention all the work of pulling the engine and putting back the same engine. Bummer!

 

You go to a glass shop and get a thick piece of glass cut to a size a little bigger than the head gasket. Then you glue on your sandpaper. Lay the glass across the top of the block and move it in circles until you can't see any mark.

Then you lay the glass on a flat table and put the head on it and work that surface.

It'll probably be the most boring, manually repetitive eight hours of your life, but that's how you grind one more-or-less true for almost no money.

 

Yup, did that on a Subaru. It works, but takes time. I had to pull the engine to do it.

WD-40 is the lube of choice, not water. Spray on adhesive to get the wet dry paper to stay put. Start with 240 or so, work up. Also useful to have a very good straight edge to make sure that your pattern of movement is not causing low spots. If you get your pattern right, you will rapidly see the low spots on the head and block.

For my Subie, I filled all the meaningful passages with cloth wads, then some grease. To prevent the grit and filings from the sanding from getting into the internals. But I also had the engine out, so I could invert it at the end and let stuff flow out with cleaner.

You cannot sand out imperfections in a block or head. You MUST use either a milling machine or the poor mans replacement -- a flat thick sheet of glass.

 

Mad Max machine shop high-five.

It makes sense that you'd have to pull the engine from a Subaru given the horizontally opposed configuration. In a Prius you'd have (barely) enough room to do it atop the block.

Good note on the prep and cutting lube.

 

Decking a block with a sheet of glass. (me)

 

In the video, you can see the engine stand wobbling. Each stroke of the glass is leaning the block a little bit up into the glass at the end you're stroking away from. May explain the dishing.

 

Why that guys let it woble. Even if it’s not wobling the outer perimeter areas get cut more than center when sanding manually

 

Long story short: let a machine shop handle it?

 

Yes, that is an answer -- but in the case of the subaru engine, you have to split the engine to put it on a mill. Splitting a boxer is essentially a full rebuild.

Just as is the case of many shade tree mechanics, there is a sort of economic and personal triumph associated with achieving acceptable results under less than optimal conditions!

Said subaru engine in the video is 5 years out, 50k miles down the road and still going. THAT defines success.

 

I used to rebuild Kohler boxer engines without even pulling them out of the machine. Piston ring crankshaft etc. Just pulled the heads off and did it all right there. I guess we were lucky we weren't dealing with warpage back in those days

 

First engine I rebuilt was a 57 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser V8. It was worn out and burning oil. I was a teenager working in our family's garage. Most of what I knew about mechanics came from car magazines. The counter guy at the auto supply asked if I wanted undersized rod bearings - I said sure give me the next size along with rings, one piston, valve guide seals, carb kit and gasket set. The new rings, piston and valve seals went well as did the carburetor overhaul. All bolts were simply tight. Warped heads and blocks were not a concern in those cast iron days but you could easily blow a hole in a piston.

However the assembled engine was locked up and wouldn't turn over no matter how hard we tried. Eventually we figured out you don't put undersized rod bearings in there without corresponding machine work, so we tore it down again and installed standard rod bearings.

Success? No, while it would rotate by hand, the starter would not turn it over. In fact, all it could do was barely operate the solenoid. After a few days of the parts cannon, we towed it out of the garage to a literal shade tree. Finally someone pointed out the ground strap had to be tied to the engine. Ran fine after two teardowns, the parts cannon and some electrical 101 training. However weeks later it was replaced by a 1964 Comet Caliente convertible with the latest in audio, a stereo fm radio.

 

Keep us updated. Sanding that groove out and succeeding has to be a first.