Blowing off some SERIOUS automotive steam!!!

[DRASTiK]

okay, here's the deal. We have a 94 cavalier, and we let a friend drive it for a month to help him out. When we get it back, it has water in the oil and runs like %$#@! He's broke and pretends like he didn't know it was blowing water out of the pipes and overheating for about two weeks while he kept driving it!!

Okay, so now we've got the car back with a blown headgasket, or so we thought. I took the head in to the machine shop to have it checked. It was warped and pitted. They said 180 to fix it. So I went to some sources I know and got a used head with a warranty for 40. Put it on the car and reassembled the engine, taking my time and tourqing everything down correctly. While I was putting it back together, another friend calls and says "I need a car badly because mine just died and I have the cash to pay for it right now." We tell her that I'm in the process of fixing it and it should be running by the end of the day (yesterday). She says "okay great, I'll be there in a minute to go ahead and give you half the money to show that I'm serious." She was here in about 15 minutes and gave my wife half the money.

Well, when I get it back together, my wife gets in it to start it and it won't start. Hmmmmmm. okay, no big deal, I probably didn't connect something, or it's something easy. Well it has fuel and spark and it's a DIS, so the timing isn't the problem.

I took a spark plug out and turned the motor by hand and water came pouring out of the spark plug hole!!!! All four of the chambers were full of water!!!! wtf!!! I just took it apart and it looks like someone just put the head on, didn't bolt it down at all, and tried to start the car. I have no idea what the hell happened, or what to tell the lady that is expecting to pick up her car this evening. I called her and she said that she trusted us, so instead of demanding her money back now, she'll call this evening and see how the progress is coming and decide from there. That is nice of her, but WTF is up with this headgasket problem. The gasket was on correctly and wasn't scarred or torn the least little bit. I'm gonna try it again with new head bolts, and put a tap through the threads of the block, but I did that the first time. I'm just pissed and figured I'd share my great labor day woahs with fellow car buffs who can relate.

Thanks for listening,
Dave