revto9k

hi guys:
I need some help on replacing head gasket, not on my s, but on my daily beater
a 95 honda accord to be exact. Figured the great mechanically inclined minds of s2ki would help me diagnose the problem.
so here it goes:
when I took the head off, I found little pits on both of heads and blocks surfaces, the ones on the block side are really small. I took the head to a machine shop to have it milled, and I put everything back together, torqued the head bolts , in steps, according to helm manual. When I torqued down the head bolts, for some really stupid reason I had to loose the bolts and retorque them again.

Symptom: Right now the car runs really werid, the engine feels like it's about to stall all the time, then when I switch on the AC, the engine won't idle, I had to step on the gas to keep it running. No white smoke coming out, at least no obvious white smoking coming out, and according to temp gauge, no over heating either
my question is:

1. since I did loosed the bolt and torqued it down again, did I mess up the head gasket?
2. the pits on the block are really small and are sitting between the coolant passages, will they cause leak?
3. after I replaced the head gasket and idle the engine for 5 minutes to get it up to working tempurature, and remove the radiator cap, there is no air bubbles coming out constantly, but intermediately (when I pull the throttle cable, bubbles will come out for 1 second but that's it) , does that mean the head gasket is still leaking or air is trapped in the coolant jacket when I reinstalled the head?
4. if my gasket is still leaking, is there any sealer I could use? I've been reading on honda-tech about copper spray.
5. I did remove intake manifold, could it be I didn't torque down the bolts properly and it's causing vacuum leak? I did put a new gasket for it.
thanks for any advice

Will

The easiest thing to do is drain the oil, and see if it has anything white and frothy. This could indicate an internal hg leak, allowing coolant into the oil. This almost always produces an overheating condition. Is the t-stat within normal temps, or high?

revto9k

t-stat is within normal temp, and I chekced dip stick, don't see visable sign of coolant in oil

revto9k

it now gives me 2 CEL codes,
map sensor and coolant temp

Slithr

It won't cost you much to have someone throw an gas analyzer on the radiator and check for exhaust gases. Sounds more like you have a vacuum leak might try pulling and resealing the intake. Make sure you didn't forget any hoses.

vader1

Or hooked up hoses to places they were not supposed to go. All those hoses tend to look alike but if you swap the connections of two vaccum lines you can cause all sorts of problems.

Did you label everything well or take digital pictures of before and after to refer to?

revto9k

yes I labeld everything, and now it's giving me an error code, it says coolant tempurature sensor.
hey, what's gonna happen if I torqued the head bolts down, loosed them and retorque them again? is it causing the gasket not to seal?