[GregsKia]

Driving up a steep grade recently, I noticed the temperature gauge in my 06 Sedona with 193,000 miles begin to rise rapidly. I looked in my mirrors, and there was a large cloud of bluish-white smoke behind me. Once I was able to stop in a safe place, I opened the hood - and the coolant in the surge tank was bubbling, and the oil on the dipstick looked like chocolate milk. Coolant was dripping down the back of the engine block. Sure enough, blown head gasket. Being the mechanical guru that I am, I decided to replace the gaskets myself. So far I have 11 hours into the project, and the disassembly phase is done. I removed the entire front end and heat exchange assemblies in order to more easily access the engine. In a nutshell I have, in this basic order:
*Drained oil, coolant, power steering fluid, and recovered refrigerant.
*Removed headlamp assemblies, front bumper cover, front bumper support
*Removed radiator fans, radiator, condenser, transmission cooler, PSF cooler, and radiator support/hood latch, clamped trans lines shut
*Removed battery and battery tray
*Removed air box, air intake hose, and throttle body
*Removed intake surge tank, and all vacuum hoses
*Removed fuel rail and injectors
*Removed ignition coils
*Removed intake manifold
*Removed exhaust manifold
*Removed entire engine wiring harness, engine fuse block, and starter motor
*Removed valve covers
*Lined up timing marks
*Removed serpentine belt, alternator, idler and tensioner
*Removed power steering hoses and pump
*Removed A/C compressor and refrigerant lines
*Removed water pump pulley and engine crank pulley (harmonic balancer)
*Removed coolant pipes, water supply pipe assemblies and heater core hoses
*Removed oil pan
*Removed timing chain cover and water pump (This step was a BITCH)
*Removed timing chains and oil pump and chain
*Removed bearing caps and camshafts
*Loosened head bolts and removed heads
-
All three of the rear (RH) bank of cylinders were steam-polished, and the number 3 cylinder had coolant sitting in it. So, it was for sure a shot gasket. Maybe cobra can answer the one question I have....does Kia sell a complete gasket set? Head gaskets, oil pan gasket, intake and exhaust manifold gaskets, valve cover gaskets, and a few other little ones - is what I'm looking for. If you do have something like that, what is a price on it? Once I get everything cleaned up, it's time to get parts and reassemble. Luckily I am in no big hurry. I snapped some pictures, too.

 

[gtd2000]

Wow, that's a heck of a lot of dis-assembly there

I wonder how the manual describes doing this job?

Looks like they have the head gaskets and a few others at RockAuto.com

Lots of different options on eBay too.

 

[GregsKia]

I loosely followed the instructions provided at Kia Tech Info. I wasn't keen on dropping the whole engine/transmission assembly, so I did it my own way. My uncle (I'm using his shop) laughs at me. I have all bolts and screws I removed in labeled zip-top baggies. I'm going to get a case of brake cleaner and individually clean up every part I removed. I will be buying parts cumulatively over the next few months, as I am not financially able to pay for everything at once at the moment. So I have plenty of time to scrub the damn thing with a toothbrush if I wanted to. By the time I get it all back together, it will be like-new. 193,000 miles and 7 years of road grime, spills when changing fluids, minor gasket leaks, and some valve blow-by have left for a dirty engine and dirty engine parts. I have not been kind to this van for the 60,000 miles I have owned it. Those 60k miles are really hard ones. I have done a lot of urban delivery work with it. While it's out of service, I'm replacing several suspension components also. Ideally, I would like to get at least 107,000 more miles out of it.

 

[gtd2000]

It's great that you have the ability and motivation to complete this task.

The problem I'd encounter is that I don't have the facilities to undertake it but the motivation to save money on repairs is always there

 

[Johnster]

Are you going to check the block and heads for warpage ? does Kia list a spec for this ?

This would be my largest concern - if the heads or block warped out of spec during the coolant blowout, you might be back where you are now in about 10k miles or less.

-John

 

[GregsKia]

Yes, I had a local machine shop ensure they were in spec.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Flatness of cylinder head gasket surface
Standard : Less than 0.05mm(0.002in.)[Less than 0.02mm(0.0008in.)/150x150]

 

[GregsKia]

So, I have finally finished my project. While the heads were off I disassembled and cleaned them with kerosene, lapped and polished all the valves, and polished all of the gasket surfaces. I also replaced the spark plugs (first time since 60k miles...at 193k miles!). I also replaced all of the valve stem seals...which were all extremely degraded, allowing a lot of oil past them. I removed the oil pan to clean out the remainder of the coolant-infused oil, and to allow a better seal for the replacement of the timing cover. I removed the oil filter/coolant bypass assembly, and thoroughly cleaned the engine bay with kerosene and brake cleaner.

 

[GregsKia]

Managed to get a fairly decent price on an OEM gasket kit, so I got that. It had all of the gaskets and seals I needed to rebuild the motor from the ground up. It even came with a tube of Kia-branded RTV gasket maker. Head bolts were almost $6 per-piece, but I expected that. Got Fel-Pro valve seals for under $30 - Kia wanted $148 for OEM and I couldn't justify the difference. Dealership let me borrow their valve spring compressor, which I thoroughly appreciated! Once I got all of the individual engine parts cleaned with kerosene, and brake cleaner, I started reassembly. Could not imagine how difficult timing a DOHC chain-drive system was before doing it....WOW!

 

[GregsKia]

Photos of installing the heads and timing chains.

 

[GregsKia]

Once the timing was done, it was pretty smooth sailing. Installing the timing chain cover was NOT a fun task...it's nothing but an RTV gasket, and that is a LOT of RTV, and a LOT of bolts. After that was on, it was pretty cut-and-dry.
*Installed oil pan (MORE RTV!)
*Installed power steering pump, water pump pulley, idler, and tensioner
*Installed alternator, A/C compressor, crankshaft pulley, belt, and torqued crank bolt
*Installed starter motor, heat shield, and wiring sub-harness
*Installed exhaust manifolds
*Installed lower intake manifold
*Installed valve covers
*Installed fuel rail, injectors, and ignition coils
*Installed engine fuse block and engine wiring harness
*Installed power steering lines and refrigerant lines
*Installed upper intake (plenum/surge tank), vacuum hoses and throttle body
*Installed air box, air intake hose, and replaced engine air filter
*Installed battery tray and a new battery
*Installed new radiator mounts, radiator, condenser, trans cooler, fans, and PSF cooler
*Installed radiator support, hood latch, front bumper assembly, headlights, and covers
*Filled oil (5W20), coolant, power steering fluid (actually I used SPIII trans fluid) topped off other fluids, and recharged the A/C system. Bled the power steering system.

Turned the key and it fired right up! Ran a little rough until it hit operating temp, took about 5 minutes to smoke out the remainder of the coolant from the exhaust system. Once it reached operating temp it smoothed right out....never even threw a code. Sat overnight, and not a drip of any fluid underneath it. Will be changing the oil tomorrow, just to flush out the remaining milkshake oil. So, at 193,000 miles I have an almost-new, perfectly running engine - and I did it without paying a DIME for labor!

(Note: the last 4 photos are from a previous project, but the basic build-up was the same, and the photos were readily available visual aids. I did not take any more pictures after the first one on this post, as I was pretty excited about getting it back together.)

 

[GregsKia]

*UPDATE*
It has been nearly 2,000 miles since replacing the head gaskets, and everything is running smooth as silk! Just changed out the dino oil I refilled it with after re-building the engine, and it still looked pretty good. Back to running Mobil1 Extended Performance. I finished adding up all of my receipts, and it looks as if the total cost to replace the head gaskets was around ~$650. A little over $300 of that was for the OEM gasket kit, about $90 for the head bolts, a little over $30 for the valve seals, and around $100 for all of the fluids. The remaining costs were mainly supplies, and other little things (radiator mounts, valve lapping compound, cleaners, etc). Overall, I think $650 was a very reasonable amount for using (mostly) OEM parts.

 

[mybrock]

head bolt tourque kia 3.8 litre

hey mate im completely rebuilding one of the kia engines 3.8 just like yours I was wondering if you have the head bolt tourques mate stage you do it in cherers from Australia mate

 

[mybrock]

hope fully you remember these kia wont tell me in australaia we call them grand carnival cheers my email [email protected]

 

[WeAreNotAlone]

hey mate im completely rebuilding one of the kia engines 3.8 just like yours I was wondering if you have the head bolt tourques mate stage you do it in cherers from Australia mate

You can download a FREE copy of the SERVICE MANUAL for free thru Kia Tech or Hyundai Tech

Note this are the links to the US sites, you will have to google for website of your region.

Grand Carnival aka:
Kia Sedona
Hyundai Entourage

https://www.kiatechinfo.com/Index.asp

https://www.hyundaitechinfo.com/

 

[WeAreNotAlone]

hey mate im completely rebuilding one of the kia engines 3.8 just like yours I was wondering if you have the head bolt tourques mate stage you do it in cherers from Australia mate

PS: Since you're asking about torque specs you're probably getting ready to put the heads on but for others that might run across this thread you can get a FACTORY REBUILT CRATE ENGINE direct from KIA /Hyundai... Last time I checked for a factory rebuilt it was around $1,200 US.

 

[GregsKia]

Well, I got about 6,000 miles out of the new head gaskets, and I was burning coolant. I ended up replacing the engine with a junkyard engine that had 105k miles. Took me 14 hours to swap them out. I don't remember the torque sequence, but it IS on Kia Tech Info. I think that I performed this incorrectly, and that is why my re-build didn't last very long. Also, contrary to what the machine shop said, I think there may have been some warpage, too. I mean, it overheated TWELVE separate times before the head gasket finally blew.

 

[WeAreNotAlone]

Well, I got about 6,000 miles out of the new head gaskets, and I was burning coolant. I ended up replacing the engine with a junkyard engine that had 105k miles. Took me 14 hours to swap them out. I don't remember the torque sequence, but it IS on Kia Tech Info. I think that I performed this incorrectly, and that is why my re-build didn't last very long. Also, contrary to what the machine shop said, I think there may have been some warpage, too. I mean, it overheated TWELVE separate times before the head gasket finally blew.

Ouch!

Q: So as the info might help others from a over-heat situation how did you overheat the engine TWELVE separate times in 6,000 miles ?

What failed?

Please post in detail- expand on what happened, what you did to address the issue!