I had an overheating problem wheeling this weekend and I will need to change the head, I was reading through the tread and I wonder If there is any one who could list the steps to take off the head,, I have done it to a little honda but I'm new with trackicks, mine is a 92 tracker 1.6 16V. I have questions like the tightening sequence for head, exhaust, and intake? torque? I have no manuals, is there a manual on line??
I will greatly appreciate your help

Haven't been on line for a bit and just caught up with this...

AMJBLAZER...calm down now it's just a mechanical device it is not out to get you. Really, it just seems like it.

Lets check some stuff out before going any farther...

1) Borrow or rent a coolant pressure tester...its cheap comes with instructions, Pep Boys or
    Auto Zone should have them to rent or borrow.

    By pressuring the system and doing this test it will tell you if there is an internal or external
    leak and give you a chance to find it.

2) Compression test.....are they all even, could be an odd ball problem, this test is cheap or
    free if you can borrow a tester.

3) Check the plugs...are any wet?

I recall you didn't have a lot of history on the engine and had commented that it was badly put together when you were working on it....is this correct?

Do we know if it was ever overheated in a big way?

Lets look at what we know from the posts...

1) The head has been replaced and you had it checked before install so you know it's good
2) The intake manifold etc is all mounted correctly and well sealed
3) A little bit of water is coming out the tail pipe...depends what you mean by a little bit, if is a 
    very small amount is could be normal...water is a by product of combustion....if it is an
    appreciable amount it is telling us there is a leak of water/coolant to the combustion
    chamber.
4) When it warms up, by your last description, it is pressuring up the system without the rad
    cap on and pushing oil and coolant out the rad cap. This is unfortunately a sign of internal
    leakage. Which leads to...

   - Bad head gasket...rare, very rare, but I have seen it before.
   - Block deck badly warped...did you check it with a straight edge before installing the head?
   - Cracked block........I sure hope not. It would mean the poor thing has been heavily
     overheated at some point.

Is there any other info you have about how it ran before you took it apart?..a little more background might help.

Let us know and we can put our heads together to figure it out step by step, cheaply as possible.

Zag

Zag, it ran pretty good when I got it.  Smoked just a bit but it obviously needed the valves done and we figured the smoke poofs were oil.  Didn't smoke at all like it started doing a few weeks later.
Can't say if it ever overheated.  In the 3 hours I drove it home it got to a nice half way warm position, nothing abnormal.  The couple days I actually got to drive it before it started to spew clouds of smoke it didn't get all that hot either.
I did not check the block for warpage.  Didn't really know to and don't have the tools anyways.

Haven't pressure tested anything.  Time/money issues.

I can't say it was put together poorly, just that when they installed it they did some pretty redneck stuff.  Wire nuts on the distributor wires, the crank accessory pulley fiasco, the rat's nest routing of the wiring looms, etc.  That's why I think they knew more about this engine than they put on.

Ok...sounds like it is going to be something fairly basic.

To be clear, once you got it back together is ranok for a couple days and then started this non-sense....right? (Just making sure I understand all the details, not questioning you.)

Does it start running rough when it's warm?

Take a real hard look at the goo coming back out of the rad....does it have silver or black flecks in it?

 Check and see if there are wet plugs....easy and no cost
    - if there are wet plugs are they side by side?
    - which number plugs 1-2-3-4? (from the front to rear, not being a smart a** just want to
      get it right)

Check it out and we can try and go from there.

Zag

It's never ran right since it started really smoking in the end of November.  I bought it about Nov 18th and drove it 3 hours home and a couple days to work.  Ran well enough but was a bit low on coolant.  Seemed to use coolant a bit but the oil wasn't mixed with coolant, if very dark and dirty.   Day after Thanksgiving, the 25th for you Candians , it starts smoking bad.  Like cover-cars-around-me-in-smoke-clouds smoking.  Suddenly it's eating coolant REALLY fast.  Parked it after two days like that.  Contacted you about the head that time.

Fast forward a month I have the head, it's been cleaned/tested/rebuilt, the school year is over and I start working on the engine in evenings and on weekends.  A few weeks ago I get it together and it smoked like it had when I parked it from initial start up.  Let it sit for a week, tried again, same damn thing.  Last weekend I put a new intake manifold on it, went over all of that portion of the engine really closely, and it still smokes like when I parked it in November.  Like the last 2 months never happened.

It actually runs a bit nicer now, aside from the white smoke of death coming out of the tailpipe, but then I also put new cap, rotor, wires, plugs, timing belt, oil, filter, PCV, etc etc etc on it while I was in there.  It wasn't quite right but then I haven't timed it yet either, it might be off a little, it might be off a LOT.

AMJBLAZER.....

Wish I had all this earlier.

Guessing.......and this is just a guess no more or less.

Has all the classic signs of a cracked block that someone dumped sealant in to get rid of it.

I could be wrong....but that's one place the symptoms lead, and I certainly hope I'm wrong.

Start by pulling the plugs like we talked about....

But you are really going to need that coolant system pressure test and compression test
to chase this puppy down.

Lets see what gives with the plugs and then we can take the next step.

Zag

Hey AMJBlazer...


Did you ever pull the sparkplugs?

Zag

Nope.  Haven't touched it since I parked it behind the garage.  Honestly, I'm probably not going to do anything with it.  Got a paper to write and homework in all 3 classes along with an oil change, tire rotation, and a Ranger with a ton of stuff that needs doing.

Don't worry about it anymore.  It's parts for the next one and/or whoever else wants what ever is left.  I'm washing my hands of it. :)  Thanks for all the help though.