I've been skimming through my repair manual and this is the best I can come up with.

I can't tell for sure without compression check and dissasembly, but here are my symptoms. (Sorry if this has been posted before, but there is little time for me to explore the problem given this is my daily driver)

Starting about 5 minutes into my drive to school yesterday, the car developed a 400 RPM idle and has become very lopey... it sometimes dies if I drop to idle too fast, and I get power surges throughout the RPM range, to top it off I get a very strong smell of burning oil from time to time and when I popped the hood there was oil seeping from the head gasket areas on both sides of the block.

Up until this time I had had some hesitation off the line and an occasional lopey idle. I couldn't figure out the problem at the time but it seems that it was a warning of things to come.

The fuel filter is clean as a whistle and the timing is still where it's been for the last year. I replaced the airfilter about 4000 miles ago and I don't think I've pushed my engine enough to bend a valve... plus the exhaust smells fine which tells me that the valves aren't leaking...

I do have a hole in my muffler, but I would highly doubt such erratic behavior from that.

Anyhow, if anybody can confirm within reason that it is likely I'll need to replace the gaskets... I can go out and get the last head gasket set at the parts store... only $53 for every possible gasket I'll need to replace.

Thanks
-CPC

 

Are you getting any white smoke from the exhaust?

 

No smoke from the exhaust, no coolant in the oil (via distick check)

Is there anything else it could be?

The idle isn't just lopey, it's kinda raspy like it's gonna drop parts all over the ground... and there is considerable vibration at certain RPM's

 

the logical thing to do if you suspect you have a head gasket leak would be to run a compression test or leak down test

 

Would it be a logical thing to do though to buy the top engine rebuild kit since it's a pretty low cost and there's only one in stock... we've got many thirdgens in the area...

The thing is I can't aquire the compression checker until friday...

 

Guess I'm gonna wait til friday when I can actually check stuff more thoroughly...

 

It sounds like it could be a worn cam or faulty lifters. I bought my car with a worn cam and it acted just like you describe with yours.

 

Well, I compression tested all my cylinders to find all of them very close to 175, then I changed the spark plugs after fighting for an hour to get them out, and fired the mother up again... the car was being a little better behaved, so I got out and listened... and what did I hear? clackity clackity clackity... so I said "Oh SH*T!" ran to the key and turned the car off... my friend and I both said "timing chain" Thus began our 16 hour adventure into the front of my engine...

Starting saturday around noon we proceeded to take everything off in the next 7 hours. Well almost everything, the timing chain cover was being a beotch so we bent that to hell and decided to go to the parts store a final time that day and see if I could get a replacement... only thing there was chrome, so I said what the hell I'll let it match my valve covers. Starting this morning around 10 we worked past nightfall 'til 9. When the timing chain cover came off around noon today there were about 2 inches of side to side freeplay. Anyhow, I'm still getting a slight oil burning smell which I hope will subside, but the jumpy acceleration that I've had since I bought the car last year, and the really craptacular idle I acquired last tuesday have completely dissapeared, it's running better than it has ever run.

We've decided next time to set a camera on a tripod and video tape the entire uncut repairs... lotsa good swearing, getting dirty, cut and bruised... none of the pretty pictures taken every once in a while when the rusted part is finally pryed off and what not... real mechanics.