legacycentral bbs

hello. sorry if this is in the wrong forum, i couldnt find where to post it. im also sorry for my bad english, and i hope you can understand it.

my car has overheating issues, and has been in my garage for a month now. it overheated pretty bad one night,
on the last hill up to my house, i heard a ticking sound coming from under the hood while driving the last meters upward. when i parked it, it came a lot of steam from under the hood, from the radiator, upper right side in front of passenger.


the day after, i had to drive the car to my new apartment's garage. the car worked very fine for a five kilometers, the engine seemed to be very smooth and i couldnt notice anything wrong. it then started overheating, and some smoke came out from it as i parked it, and i could hear pressure escaping from my radiator.

the temparature needle was never in the red zone, on these two tours. but very close to red in the end of the tours.



when i inspected it the day after, i found a crack in my radiator, upper right side, in front of passenger. when i reversed out of my garage, thru some thick snow, and drove it in again, steam and water was coming out of the little crack.

i fear my head gasket or/and cylinder head(s) may be cracked.

first, let me say that i cant see coolant-oil on my dipstick, white thick exhaust, and i dont think there is oil in my radiator. but i cant get hot air from my heater.
when it idles at normal operating temperature, its not overheating at all, the needle is right below middle.
the engine also sounds very good, and its very very cold here in these days. starts very easily too.
i have never seen bubbles coming in my reservoir tank.

my main issue now, is why the radiator is spitting out water when it is 100% full, when car is idling and at operating temperature.
the upper radiator hose becomes very warm, but not so warm that i cant hold it, but the lower hose on the opposite side, is cold.
this is when the car is idling at a middle temperature.


when my radiator cap is off, and i rev it high, like 5k rpm, water is sploshing out of the radiator hole. my expansiontank cap is on.

i filled up my radiator, adding more and more fluid until it stopped dropping, when the motor was idling.

then i revved it up to 5k rpm, and the water came out. there was no bubbles to be seen coming up from the top of the rad while idling.
only a few in the start, but i think that was just air pockets. couldnt see any smoke coming from the big water-pillar that came out frp, the rad while revving high.
it didnt spill out any water when idling, while the rad was 100% full.

do you think this is because a cracked head gasket, or cylinder head? or is it normal that a car spits out a 100% full radiator, when you rev it high, with the cap on.

i would be extremely grateful for some answers, ive read a lot on this forum, and you guys seem very competent. i am not

hello guys.

check this

http://www.justanswer.com/questions/1lk ... hen-engine

do you think i too can settle for that answer? remember my overheating(s) which i desscribed in the big ugly post above.

i just found that link after weeks of reading on the net... really need the magic search phrase, eh? everything is on the web, somewhere...

You say the radiator has a crack in it? That would be why you're losing coolant. Does the lower hose get warm after driving? Sounds like a bad thermostat and a cracked radiator. If you're not getting heat and your heater core isn't leaking and you have full coolant, then the coolant isn't circulating. If you replace the thermostat, use an OEM one. Aftermarket ones don't work well and look really cheap next to an OEM thermostat.

BUT these cars don't exhibit the normal signs of a bad head gasket—you'll seldom see coolant in oil or oil in coolant or heavy white smoke. You MIGHT see air bubbles in the radiator, but they mostly seem to collect by the water pump impeller, which does the same thing as a bad thermostat—stops coolant from circulating.

If the thermostat isn't the problem, you might want to have someone test the coolant for hydrocarbons. If not, you can run without the thermostat and see if the overheating returns. Squeezing the bottom hose without the thermostat installed can dislodge some of the air bubbles and buy you a few miles if you need it.

yes, i found the radiator crack after my second, and last trip, where it overheated the last 200 meters (not in the red zone tho) but came some smoke which was blowing into my car. cant remember the smell

so the best thing for to do regarding head gasket or cracked head, is to check for hydrocarbons in my coolant from the radiator? then i can be 100% sure neither is cracked?

i really want to exclude expensive repairs before i put money into repairing it thanks for your answer!

Hydrocarbons in your cooling system can actually cause your radiator to crack. The pressure of exhaust gasses fills the cooling system and is more than the system can take and it pops at a weak spot, usually right on the tank by the upper radiator hose. You wont usually see water in your oil and alot of times wont see oil in your water. Never have I seen a Subaru blow white smoke out the exhaust with simply a blown headgasket. I have seen em blow smoke but one had a cracked block and the other had the heads barely bolted onto the block. You wont be able to get bubbles in your overflow with a hole in your radiator because all of the hydrocarbons are going out the hole. The only way I can think of without using a 5 gas analyzer is to either just smell for hydrocarbons, remove the radiator cap with car off and start, if coolant shoots 10 feet in the air it has hydrocarbons, or replace the radiator and watch for bubbles in the overflow. Oh and three reasons your lower hose could be cold 1 no coolant in system, 2 air bubble trapped in cooling system, 3 thermostat is stuck.

okay. thank you.

tomorrow i will let the car idle while i fill up coolant until it stops dropping, then i will let it cool down, and start it again a while after.
it will probably splosh some up in the start, because the car is idling on 2-3k rpm for a while when i start it. sinks down to 900 after a while tho.
then i can refill water as needed while idling, and hope there is no air trapped, and see if it overflows with max water on it, while idling on 900.

i must unplug the air screw while filling water on idle, right?

and two more things, will a cracked head gasket and a cracked cylinder head show the same symptoms?

and is there anything else expensive stuff i might have cooked?

edit: would the expansiontank-cap burst open before the radiator would crack, you think? if hydrocarbons were pressurizing the system.
i couldnt see any steam, or open cap on the exp-tank the worst evening, the first of the two above tours.

Usually the hydrocarbons will just push coolant out of the overflow all over the ground as you are driving, it doesnt blow the overflow. The signs of a cracked block/head and headgasket are the same, but usually the car will be hard to start in the morning because coolant will leak into that cylinder and wash out the spark plug. You do have to open bleeder screw untill coolant starts to pour out a little when filling. I had a car with blown headgaskets and never saw any steam, only indication was the trail of coolant coming down my road on the ground and then I would pop the hood and see that super full overflow, I then knew I had hydrocarbons. If the car didnt get real hot too many times I would say the most damage it caused was warping the heads.

thank you all for such good response. why didnt i sign up earlier

i think im gonna take a gamble that no engine damage has happened. my car runs and start very smooth you see.

i think i will buy a new radiator, bleed n flush the system, and fill up with coolant and drive and see...

are the engines on these cars known to be sturdy? im fairly certain that the couple i bought it from had followed all services too, naive naive

keelhaul wrote:are the engines on these cars known to be sturdy?

Ya my old 2.2 motor in the 96 Legacy blew it's head gaskets, and I drove it for another 40k miles, by topping off the radiator every morning. Hope yours is not blown, the only way you could tell on mine is that the coolant would be pushed into the overflow tank as the engine cooled when turned off, and bubbling sound in the radiator as well. I had a 2.5 motor lined up for that car and was just waiting for the 2.2 to die so I could swap. But she never died! (I did the swap anyways)

ya pretty much 2.2s dont die unless you run it dry of oil. I am talking about stock 2.2s though. Mine has about 250,000 miles on her and shes still running strong.

hello.

can anyone be so kind and tell me which thermostat i must get for my car?

long link

is it the one on the top? i guess it is OEM parts on this site

Keelhaul, you didn't mention (that I saw) where you lived, but I know that the 1.8 Legacy never made it to the US. Because of that, I would say you need to call up your local or distant Dealer and request a part number for the thermostat.

Otherwise, the site you provided does not show part numbers and it would be impossible to tell you which one is correct. That site does, however, accept input of part numbers. I purchased a thermostat from my local dealer, and it was $18.

keelhaul wrote:hello.

can anyone be so kind and tell me which thermostat i must get for my car?



is it the one on the top? i guess it is OEM parts on this site

hey. i will check with them, thanks. living in norway

so now my heater is blowing hot again, when i fill up the rad, reach normal operating temperature... that means my circulation is working, right? thermostat too i guess.

so next step is buying a new radiator, as i can see coolant escaping from it, togheter with steam.

im thinking of taking it on a ride now, with the rad filled up, and see if something happens. bad idea?

hello again, keelhaul is back with his messy thread.

i had two questions:

on my EJ18 engine, what is the safest sign for a blown head gasket?

if my radiator is cracked, and thermostat stuck, but the radiator is full of water (leaking though), will the car still blow white smoke if the gasket is toast?

im pretty sure i can see the water circulating in my radiator, and no bubbles are coming up.





ive really searched my ass off on the net for a month, i think ive read most there is about my engine. i hope one of you gurus can take your time to once again answer my post. i would be very, very happy.

Do the hydrocarbon test as others have suggested. Then you'll know for sure what you're dealing with.

My car ran beautifully for some 500 miles or so with a blown headgasket. Only overheated occasionally, no oil in coolant, no coolant in oil, no white smoke, no compression loss. Only after I did the hydrocarbon test did I discover I truly had blown headgaskets and stopped trying other fixes.

yes. the car is standing at a workshop now. when they open in about 8 hours, theyre gonna go over it. dont know what you call it over there, but "black work" is the shit.
no, nothing to do with afro americans.

yay, my car is back again. was just the radiator and the weather forecast has reported 30 cm snow within the end of the week. lovely

keelhaul wrote:yay, my car is back again. was just the radiator and the weather forecast has reported 30 cm snow within the end of the week. lovely

Subaru weather.