I helped a friend this weekend replace the headgaskets on a 2000 Outback with 109K mi. Neither of us have pulled an engine before, so was a long process. Thankfully, he got his hands on the FSMs bits for engine/valve stuff so we knew the order to take stuff off and re-torque down.
I was under the impression that the pistons and valves were suppose to be cleaner, etc. Here are pics from each -- do they look normal? All that rust lookin' stuff on the pistons didn't want to come off either.
that looks pretty normal. Then tan color near the ignition area of the head means that it was probably running 100% properly (i.e. not too rich, not too lean). But the plugs tell the real story, how did they look?
These engines can look like absolute crap and still run well, and make decent power, and make good gas mileage. My 93 had 190k on it, the piston tops were CAKED with hard crud, but it still ran great when I took it out, and made good gas mileage even though it was leaking oil like exxon valdez (cam seals, rear main, rear oil plate).
You do have to scrape the crud off the pistons, just be careful and use brake cleaner to help break it up. Same with the heads, just be careful and work slowly enough not to gouge the aluminum.
Yeah, a little oil blow-by going on there but hey, it's got over 100k on it.
Heck, if you yanked the engine to do the head gaskets..... wouldn't be too much trouble to hone/re-ring. Course you might want to see if a shop would re-do it if you don't have the tools, but I'm not 100% sure a place could/would hone with the rods still in the cases. But then again, you could just scrape all the crud off and clean everything (brake cleaner is your friend!), then slap new gaskets and go.
since the engine is out, I 100% recommend that you put a new rear main seal, cam seals, oil pump seal, anything else that is cheap and easy to do ("low hanging fruit") and if it does have the stupid plastic rear oil plate (I dunno when they changed to the metal one)...
12 Outback 3.6R Limited
94 Leg LS wag AWD, sold
93 Leg L wag FWD, sold
06 LGT 5EAT, project
When cleaning my pistons, I had the best luck with carb cleaner and a toothbrush. I tried brake cleaner, but the carb cleaner worked much more effectively. Of course, not all brake cleaners are created equal.
