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I have a 1990 Subaru Legacy L station wagon 5spd. I have a blown head gasket. I don't know if the head is cracked or if it is just the gasket. I have 185,000 miles on it. Would it be worth having fixed? The dealer says they will replace the gasket for $450 and he said if the head is cracked to just junk it. What is the oppinion of this forum.

junk it, wtf? Tell the dealer to not be an idiot. Assuming that's the only major problem with it you'd be willing to spend 450 just for him to take the car apart and if the head is cracked to junk it instead of paying at the most 50 bucks for a used good condition head. So you'd be out 450 bucks, assuming you dont get any money for the car, and car-less. What was he suggesting you do once you junk the car? Buy one off their lot? The hell with that. You can do it for half the price yourself and it's not even hard nor do you have to lift the engine or anything. I say at the very least you let the dealer replace the gaskets and start searching for a used set of heads (might be both cracked). Though I can't say I've heard of anyone cracking an ej-series head, so that scenario is very unlikely. More than likely it's just a gasket or both. At the most you would be out like 500-600 dollars and you'd be pretty confident that your engine would last another 185k Also while he's in htere you should get him to replace anything that is coming up soon, like water pump, timing belt, oil pump, that kind of stuff.

You could get a newer engine for the price of the HG. You could take a chance or just try it. It's likely not a cracked head unless you've driven it really hot for a while.

Steve

Thanks guys. If I follow the Haynes manual is it pretty easy to do? Also are there any suggestions of places on line to get cheap parts. Like the used heads.

yeah its easy for the most part, haynes is not very descriptive but they give you the jist of it. Probably the cheapest would be from a junkyard. You'd also get some beforehand experience on what you've gotta do to get the heads out . You should also ask mattmonson if he'd be willing to take the heads off his ej22e he was selling a while back, or hell ask him for the whole engine. As far as the gaskets and stuff I'd only trust OEM parts for stuff like that. I think I still have a brief writeup of when I did my hg's lemme find the link.

EDIT: hmm guess not, oh well its pretty easy, basically you drain the coolant, might want to remove the rad/fans for more space but you dont have to I didnt, take off all the intake pieces, and pcv and stuff, then disconnect all the sensors and shit, remove the plug wires, throttle cable and all taht, take off alt/ps and ac belts unbolt ps pump and push it to the side (fits very nicely on the airbox or where it was if you removed it) disconnect fuel lines, then remove the intake and exhuast manifolds, disconnect any thing else connected to them. take off crank pulley, remove timing covers, take off belt, and tensioner and all taht, remove cam sprockets, and unbolt the heads, you have to sort of finnesse them out if you didnt remove the engine or raise it at all (I didnt do either and they came out okay), put new gaskets on and torque down EXACTLY as is shown in the FSM, josh has this on his site you can dl so there's no excuse not to do it right. Then just do everythign in reverse Of course there's other minor things you have to do but you get the gist of it. Also this is why people suggest doing things like thermostat, waterpump, etc while you do the hg's, because you've already go all the crap off so if they haven't been replaced since they were supposed to, or if they're coming up in a bit you should do them now. Or if you dont even know when the last time they were replaced. But yeah, if you do decide to do it yourself and still need help feel free to post

Thanks I will probably have more questions. I think I have talked a friend into helping me do this myself. I appreciate the help. I hated to junk the car. I have had a new water pump put on and a new timing belt. I had just put new tires on it a week before the head gasket blew.