Doing head gasket

Hi there people, I unfortunately have come to the point where I have to change the head gasket, I am obviously going to buy a full head set of gaskets and a new set of head bolts too. I am taking my head to the local guy to test it and get it skimmed, I'm going to get him to fit my new valve seals and reseat my valves aswel! Oh and I'll fit a new cam belt and then flush and change the oil when the job is done. Anyone have any tips or tricks to help me along the way? And is there anything else I should do aswel? Keep in mind it is Xmas so not got loads to spend lol! It's an '87 1.6 carb cabby by the way! Thanks for any help or info….gives me a good chance to give it a good degrease and clean under the bonnet anyway I suppose lol :s any tips on cheap engine degreaser haha

Picture of what you will be looking at over Christmas. fit new bolts to as much as possible as it makes removing them next time a lot easier

main thing is be aware that the dizzy will spin free once the belt is loosened so take off the dizzy cap so you can keep an eye on its position. ideally take plugs out first then manually spin it over to TDC on the cam and crank that way you have a reference point for when you refit the cam

Another tip for you…

If there is alot of carbon build up or bits of gasket left on the top of the engine block when you take the head off get a bit of copper pipe and flaten the end with a hammer you can then use this to scrap the carbon off the block as the copper is soft and should not damge the surface of the block try not to get bits falling into the cyinders, stuff some clean cloth in there and clean out all the little bits which fall in.

Have you started this job yet?

with this what i do is put the pistons so they're all about half way up the bore then smear a ring of grease round the edge to catch any rubbish that tries to drop down into the rings. then when you're done simply crank it over by hand with a socket on crank bolt and it'll leave a ring of grubby grease at the top of the bore which can be wiped off

edit: oh and if the head will be off for any length of time put a load of grease on the cylinder walls to protect them. it may be an idea to do this regardless unless the head will be going straight back on as its a bit wet out there at the moment!

Hi people sorry i havent been on here for a while as i have been busy as with other things(building new stables and fencing) so the car was on hold! Thanks for the replies and advice, someone could have told me about the couple of tricky(impossible) bolts on the inlet manifold though lmao! I started today by removing the head to prep for the machinist on monday! Anyway I ended up disconnecting the down pipe from the exhaust manifold and lifting the head off with both manifolds on still, then took these off with the head on the bench which was much easier and I would advise anyone to do it this way if they are doing this job! I couldn't find any particular breaks in my head gasket though, it's been done before and there was sealant everywhere to my annoyance! There was water/oil gunk everywhere though, and was not very nice at all lol, the coolant oring was perished so bailed that, but where tht bit meets the head seems to be blocked, is this right?? Do u get an oring in the gasket set? Also I snapped one of the rocker cover threads, are these available to buy? Other than them couple of bots the job was pretty simple and would not discourage any1 from doin it themselves, save a bucket load of cash 

if theres no hole where the coolant channel is on the inlet then you might have a GTI head, are there 4 fuel injector holes?

if you have a 2e2 carb then you'll have to get coolant to it somehow, if its a weber then no need to worry just leave it off

There is some holes on the back that I thought would be for injectors if it was on a gti and they are blocked/capped off too(obviously) I thought this was possibly normal but ur telling me that it is a gti head? Is there any other way I can tell? I think everything else is in the same place! Yea it's got a weber carb, I'm just confused now lol, the part on the head where the coolant channel on the inlet meets is definately blocked though, I was poking at it with a screwdriver and it's solid! 

if it has 4 holes above the inlets then ya its a gti head, handy!

if it has a weber then great, no need to worry carry on with it

Mint, as soon as I get home I'll be double checking this, I hope it is right as it will be a weight lifted thanks jonny! I'll update later! Anyone know about these rocker cover threads? I will be replacing with another cork gasket

With the rocker cover thread you could always just fit a bolt in place of the threaded stud and nut.
VW might still sell the stud or put up a wanted ad as anyone replacing there cork rocker cover gasket will get new studs and will not need the old studs or buy a rubber gasket your self (they are better than the cork ones) and you get 8 new studs in the box (you need to check its comes with it)

the thread is m6, vw will sell you new ones worst case. the cork ones should have a shoulder on them to prevent you over-tightening the rocker cover

Looks good man….

I have been toying with the idea of taking the head out my self on my 1.6 diesel

but dont know where to start from….

You guys are legends man,….

I haven't been home yet but remembered I took a pic(first time uploading a pic do hope it works!) you can see the 4 blocked up injector holes just above my inlet manifold, how do people do this? So now I've determined I've got a gti head, is the head gasket that I've ordered the right one? Also what advantages does this head give me? Apart from I'm guessing bigger valves? Thanks for all the replies and any more that follow

Whoop it worked lol! Check out the underside of my rocker cover when I took it off

gti head flows better, hopefully the cam is in there too as that'll give you a nice chunk of extra bhp. the head gasket is the same for later 1.6-1.8 engines

just make sure its not a 1.6 gti gasket as thats slightly different

Yea I've got the right gasket set lol! Picking the head up on Tuesday/Wednesday so should be back on by end of next week ready for the beginning of February for new tax lol is there anything I should do when putting it all back together? I'm guna flush the cooling system and renew the coolant, change oil and oil bits, there anything else I should do? Main question is what torque settings do I do the head bolts up with? I can't wait to get it back on the road and spend the money on things I want to do not silly mishaps like this one lol! Atleast I saved a packet doing it myself

Oh yea, is there any way of checking if the cam is a gti one or not?

get yourself a brown haynes manual lad, everything you need to know is covered in there. if you keep your eyes open can get one off ebay for 99p

rubjonny said

get yourself a brown haynes manual lad, everything you need to know is covered in there. if you keep your eyes open can get one off ebay for 99p

I 2nd that


I got mine for 0.99p plus postage