Head gasket on 8 valve 900s

[JohnJardine]

While timing chain not needed but the head gasket is done. We got everything off last night in three hours. All bolts came free without any problems. Motor looks great. Two head bolts were loose. I think the oil leak came from them. Waiting on head gaskets. This is my sons daily driver that he got 2 years ago for $1.00. Car had three small rust spots that we fixed and got running after replacing the wires under the hood. He has a good idea with putting all bolts etc. for each part in zip bags and label them to make reassembly easy. We did find a bolt miising from power steering pump bracket, that was noise we thought was timing chain. This car has 180000 miles and no drips or smoke til gasket blowout in school parking lot. Parts are coming from Rockauto.com which has been very cheap and fast. Got all four shocks and upper and lower ball joints at same time. Car will be like new when done. Will be taking pictures.

[nordwulf]

How is everything going with this 900? No news is good news?

[JohnJardine]

We had a little problem with a brokem warmup regulator fitting. It took three weeks to get a correct part. In the mean time we changed all four shocks. Had a problem with lower bolt on rear. Had to grind bolt off first. also replace axle due to bad boot. Had air bubble in fuel line, Replaced fuel injector. Car running again. My son is very happy to have car back and running better than ever.

[JohnJardine]

New problem with blown head gasket. Got that fixed but then had a new running problem. We found a weak fuel pump. Had to machine a brass bushing to make up space on new pump. that worked well. But fuel distibutor failed on numer 2 and 3 cylinder. We found a rebuilt unit and wow what a great running car we now have. We now have the car preped for bodyshop to do a repaint.