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Ok so today was the day for the engine to come out.
With the help of Mud King. (Thanks Dan)
Started with the inlet manifold, PERFECT. (Apart from the emissions gear getting in the way.
Bloody Heavy!!!
Rocker gear came out fine, clutch was fine, one bad welch plug, heads appear to be fine.
Here is my new mess.





And the oil/water that was in my air filter.

And here is my problem, on the problem side of the block, part of the gasket is not there.



And in the same place on the head there is a small pin hole. It is almost perfect but neither of us think it should be there.



It is to the right of the small round hole, and is an oval shape with strait sides, curved at the ends.

Ideas, on what it is, and remedies would be much apprichiated.

Cheers Cam

it looks like it should be there but there isnt a matching one on the other side or in the matching head it also leads to somewhere with coolant as i could dry it out and everytime i blew through it seemed to let air out eith the stud hole or water jacket next to it

Ah memories

I couldn't tell you for sure if that hole was on my old engine, I'm pretty sure it wasn't though. Did you have an engine crane to help out or did you somehow lift it out with the two of you? Also when you come to putting the clutch back in, don't get one of those universal clutch aligning tools, they are garbage...not to mention they don't have the right sized adapter for the EA81 spigot bearing

Hey Cam. It should be there not sure WTF it is but photo from an 89 EA81 that my Dad and myself rebuilt a couple of months ago for aero use shows the same mark your are refering to.
NB we used EA82 pistons, will explain if necessary but not relevant in this thread.


Now why did you head gasket blow.
Well the gasket is not original SOOOOO. the head or cyl surface may not be flat. BUT the more common reason might be that the cyl head or cyl top surfaces were not cleaned properly when the gasked was replaced or even incorect torque settings were used.

BTW that is not a mess cause you still have plenty of room to walk around stuff

THANK GOD, yeah true about the mess.
80% strenghth and 20% stupidity, or was that 80% stupidity.
We are thinking about an engine crane to put it back in as it will be heavier then.

Cheers Cam

Ok, then why is it only on one side, and exactly where the gasket failed?
BTW the engine had some blow back when we started it.

well obviously mr fuji was smoking some pretty hectic stuff when he designed the engine

Beats the F out of me except for reasons mentioned above.

Blow back probably cause compression was escaping into the crank case.

OR if the little galery is open to coolant. which if a previous owner did not use proper anti freeze anti boil for alloy engines and just used water, over time water has caused corosion/ low spot at this point relieving the gasket of it's sealing ability.
Yas will need to put a straight edge across it and use feeler guages and or a torch to find low spots.
NB just my speculation.

Cool, Thanks revmax.

Was gonna say I thought same - corrosion, but they are there. And not always a corresponding hole in the head on a lot of engines. Many HGs cover holes on one side and not the other. Who knows history of yours anyway, fit new with faced heads, tension AND retension after hit op temp and overnight cool down, without backing first tension off. Use good coolant, never run out of water or oil, or let it get hot or freeze and you may never need to redo HG

Nice work getting the motor out without a crane, wholy crap it must have been heavy!

+ one for getting the heads resurfaced, doesn't cost much in the big picture and you'll get a nice tight motor from it, plus a lot of peace of mind...

ScubyRoo wrote:Nice work getting the motor out without a crane, wholy crap it must have been heavy!

Only takes 2 people to lift normally off the ground but I'm trying to figure out how they lifted it out of the engine bay...blood sweat and tears?

nope it was a touch heavy but once we stopped everything grabbing the engine it was fine

me and my mate picked up and placed in the bay of my vortex a ej25 dohc, there were some "oh shit" moments

They're not really that heavy! I can safely lift a complete EA81 onto the back of a Brumby without any trouble.

phantomD wrote:They're not really that heavy! I can safely lift a complete EA81 onto the back of a Brumby without any trouble.

Yes Daniel lifted his EA82 out by himself, though he had no front end to worry about.
It's easy to lift them out, but carefully placing them back in is something else.
I know the Oh Sh!t moments, when you think your about to drop it, or when 3 litres of coolant spills out of the water jacket, and everything becomes slippery.

Cheers Cam

Brumby Kid wrote:It's easy to lift them out, but carefully placing them back in is something else.

Bloody oath, even with a crane it's a pain in the posterior; you get the engine mount studs into the X-member, the bellhousing studs into the gearbox, all is going really well until the input shaft gets snagged on something and the whole lot just pivots around it not going anywhere and you have to pull the whole lot out to change the angle the engine is hanging on the crane A properly aligned clutch will help prevent this sort of problem

yea my back still hurts from lifting it out let alone thinking about the back in part

If you have lifing point in the roof I used one of these.
https://www.gasweld.com.au/products/532654