Woohoo! I wanna thank everybody who helped me out. On Tuesday I worked about 8 hours putting the head back on and torquing everything to spec. Took a one day break yesterday, and worked again today for 7 hours straight putting the timing belt and electrical connections back on.
I swear, I TRIPLE checked the timing to make sure it was right on. When I was done I rolled it out of the garage to put some water in the radiator (I plan on flushing it in the next couple days). Double checked all the connections and looked around for anything I may have missed. Then the moment of truth came... nothing left but to go in and start it up. Turned the key...
And it didn't start! The engine cranked slowly. "Oh well, at least I didn't hear any crunching sounds." I wondered if maybe the battery had died so I turn the lights on and they were nice and bright. I kept cranking it intermittedly but it still wouldn't catch. Then like 3 or 4 minutes later, it starts up! There was a bit of while smoke that came out the muffler. "I hope that's normal" I thought.
Turns out it went away after about 5 seconds, but the car kept wanting to die. I had to keep it revved a little otherwise the revs fell to like 500 rpm or so. I also noted the car sounded quieter or something. Once the car had warmed up, I back it out to the street and take it around the block a couple times.
There were quite a few people outside riding bikes and what not... and everyone turned around to look at the car! Oh I forgot to mention I don't have the hood on. I got pissed cause I kept having to hunch over so I took it off when I first started. After a couple miles the car sounded and responded exactly like it did before Except only this time I hope I don't have to pour a quart in it every 300 miles.
Man that was quite the learning experience. It was a LOT of work, cuts, grease, etc., but it has sure made me much more confident working under the hood. Once again I wanna thank all of you who helped me out and I hope to contribute what I've learned and the experiences I had during this whole ordeal.
#53132, "RE: DONE with headgasket/timing belt" In response to Reply # 0
i get to do the timingbelt and swap heads on my talon this weekend, wish me luck
turbo8u: "jiggle jiggle then vroom vroom pshhhh" -Mike Pruett 2gnt member# 976 MOPAR Stage 2 SRTForums.com member #37 (Yeah, I signed up when it first came out, and ended up getting one, cool huh?) "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his." - General George Patton (1885-1945)
#53180, "RE: DONE with headgasket/timing belt" In response to Reply # 3
Good luck Soldier and Diceman!
Thanks Jim, yeah it feels awesome. Also relieved... there were a couple times when I was taking it all apart that I would pause, step back and wonder if I knew exactly what I was getting into. It's a great relief to have it running again.
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I wondered if maybe the battery had died so I turn the lights on and they were nice and bright. I kept cranking it intermittedly but it still wouldn't catch. Then like 3 or 4 minutes later, it starts up! There was a bit of while smoke that came out the muffler. "I hope that's normal" I thought.
Except only this time I hope I don't have to pour a quart in it every 300 miles.
