two steps forward, one step back

I spent last Saturday pulling and examining the head. Photos are here for the whole thing.

Since it was just me pulling the head, it was a bit tricky to lift out of the engine bay. First, I rotated the head a bit so I could get a better grip on the bottom. Then, I lifted the front of the head and rested it atop the water outlet. Then I lifted the rear of the head and rested it on the engine compartment cross-brace. I could then grab the front and back and carry it to the fender, which I'd covered with some rags to protect the paint. Then I carried the head into the garage and placed it atop some cardboard on the dryer, which I'm using as a table for this project.

On the block, I noticed drops of coolant all over the top. Coolant was also in the oil galleys and bolt holes from when coolant went everywhere when I broke the head gasket seal. Pistons number 2 and 5 were very black, and the rest were brownish-black. Pistons 5 and 6 were also wet with either water or coolant.

On the head, exhaust port #1 was very black. Both #2 ports were wet. Exhaust port #3 was wet. Exhaust port #4 was whitish-pink and looked almost ceramic and very clean. Both #5 ports were wet. Exhaust port #6 was whitish, although not as much as #4, and also very clean.

No cracks were visible in the head gasket. It still looks new, which is expected since it's only a few years old. No cracks were visible in the head itself either.

I used some shop towels to wick out the coolant from the bolt holes. I'll have to tap them to make sure they're clean before reassembly. I also pulled the temp sender fitting from the head, and noticed that there was something like teflon tape on the upper threads of the fitting. I cleaned up the push rods with some engine cleaner. There didn't look like there was any odd wear on any of the push rods.

One of my co-workers recommended a shop in Puyallup, which is about a half hour south of Seattle. I took the head to the place, called Hagen's Hiway Auto Parts, to get pressure-tested and Magnafluxed for cracks. I also had them put in hardened exhaust valve seats, which will work much better with unleaded fuel than the original seats. They cleaned and ground the valves and seats ($90 labor), and had to replace one valve which had worn unevenly. The total cost was $444 ($315 labor, $93 parts, $36 tax).

The pressure test ($40) found no leaks, and the Magnaflux ($15) showed no cracks, so that knocked out the theory of the cracked head. But when I went to pick up the head today, the guy at Hagen's said that the head was pretty warped and they had to surface it a bit to get it flat. So . . . maybe that's where the problem was. I need to take another good look at the head gasket in the daylight (assuming there is daylight in Seattle tomorrow) to see if it shows any obvious leaking due to the warped head.

Then... the big question is, should I hope that the warped head was the problem, and reassemble the engine myself, then pressure test it? Or should I assume the worst case and pull the engine to have it properly tested at Hagen's? I just don't know...