Good call, I've heard of that before, so I know what your talking about, but I've never experienced it first hand. Give it a shot, if they can't do it, they might know someone who can.

 

I think they call that a leak down test. I did that with my BMW. You can buy it at autozone or something. Just put it into your engine or coolant and turn on the motor and wait for a little, then pull out the black light and check for a glowing color, if you see em, then its bad news, if not, its good news.

 

This test sounds very cool and easy and I'd very much like to get more info on this substance but it's not a leakdown test.
I actually forgot that U can do a leakdown test and it can actually be used to diagnose a blown gasket.
A leakdown test is very similar to compression test. It is where you put the engine at TDC and pump compressed air into the cylinder via the spark plug whole with a leakdown tester. You then check if it's loosing any pressure on the gauges. What's so brilliant about this is that if it's loosing pressure, U can listen to hear where the air is leaking. If it's valves U will here the air coming by the exhaust or carbs and if it's gasket, it will blow bubbles in the radiator.If it's the rings U should get air coming out of the breather pipe. The only complicated part is to find TDC for each cylinder cause I think the one specified in the book is only for cylinder no.1

I found a site where they actually show U how to build one (I'm gonna try and build one)
http://www.motorcycleproject.com/mot.../leakdown.html

The thing is as with the compression test that it's very difficult to connect something to the spark plug holes on these bikes because it's so deep and so little space.

I'm still very interested in that substance of yours. Could U get me more info like what it's called then I can try and get hold of it.

 

Good thing I didn't mention that before... cough, post #18.

 

Yeah but I think I lost U after: "I can't think of anything immediately..." There wasn't suppose to be any good ideas after that phrase in the post (even more I was reading it from my cellphone)

Well it's still kind of a problem to get anything connected to the sparkplug holes on this bike but I'll take that guys advise and try and modify an old sparkplug.
Ironically I think it's probably cheaper to get someone to make you an attachment then to break a spark plug since they are so expensive...

 

lol, nice.

I think I'm going to make one of those testers. Seems how I have some old POS champions that didn't want to run in the bike.

Yea, looking back on it, my post was very backwards.

GL on your test(s?), hopefully you find out something, that way you can move on to either fixing it ortyring to figure outthe problem.

 

I'd prefer to move on to actualy driving it
Does anyone know if U have to replace the headbolts when removing?

 

Do you have a shop manual, probably should say in there. I'm at work, so I don't have my manual w/ me? Check your PM

 

When my supra had a blown HG my co-worker at the garage I worked at used the emissions tester off of the emissions mill to "sniff" the coolant. If the coolant had any vapors associated with gas or oil they immiediately would register in its gas analyzer. Thats a car though. There isn't a simple way of checking this that I know of, I would assume your plugs would be wet though especially just after initial start-up and maybe a minute of running before the engine has time to get hot enough to evaporate the coolant completely. I would contact the dealership and ask what their procedure of analisys is for determining HG integrity. If you do pull the head I would definetely replace the bolts because they usually have a stretch factor designed into them when they are initially torqued and if your having an issue with the HG now then why risk it again down the road when a head bolt fails or loses torque. Studs would be even better, call ARP Racing Fasteners. However, you might want to rethink the engine all together because the previous owner may have run this thing for a while before giving up and parking it. A blown HG leads to other problems quickly, especially on aluminum heads. Hate to heap the depression on you but by the time you get new bolt, HG, and other misc. items associated with this job your looking in the 500$ range, and most used engine are under 800$. Plus, like I said you are running the risk of more mechanical issues down the orad and it would be a crying shame to have a bearing spin or some **** after doing all the work on the top end. You'll know when you pull the head. Good luck man.

 

Thanks for the manual I'll check it out (Manic)

Dude U have a point about the engine cause I got some quotes from Honda for the head gasket and the gasket on the tappet cover and that already is a lot of money.Don't even want to know what they'll charge me for head bolts.

The thing is if you bye an engine around here (South Africa) it's the same risk. You have to take some guys word that the engine has got low mileage and that it wasn't abused.Plus they want ridiculous prices for second hand engines and they don't give U any warranty. In this aspect I wish I lived in the states. You guys can just bye something of ebay. If I order something of ebay it will cost me more to get it here then to just bye it new in the first place. Most of the 2nd hand bike shops here just rip U off (there are one or two exceptions)

To get back to my engine. I'll first strip the head and have a look and also check the valve clearances etc. If I can fix it and the compression is fine after that, at least I know what I have cause if I get another 2nd hand engine I might have to go through the whole process again. I also think it will be a very good learning experience for future projects cause I can't afford to take it to a shop. I don't trust the bike mechanics around here anyway...