The temp gauge while driving sometimes will all the sudden shoot all the way up to red and stay there no matter what...
After investigating some I found that the resevoir was overflowing and that the huge tube from the radiator to the engine is bone dry.
Its almost as if the entire system is blocked somewhere in the radiator and thats why it goes into the resivoir and overflows. You can actually hear the air when you squeze that hose and have the radiator cap off. After a few hours everything "may" go back to normal. it doesn't always happen.
A few months ago I let everything get back to normal and did the proper procedure to bleed the system and get all the air out. This worked for 2 months until today when it all happened over agian...
Oddly enough this happened while I was on a test drive after just creating my cable to test vrg's ECU software... ...
Any information on what the problem is would be greatly appreciated
nope not those... I just had emmisions checked in june and everything checked out perfectly... and this was while I was having the problem I am talking about
I dunno, did they do a compression test? Did they sniff your coolant for hydrocarbons? I don't think exhaust leaking into the coolant would affect emmisions. When does it overheat? What happens when it does overheat? Is it full on coolant first of all? Do you notice any leaks? When was the last time it was bled?
Rio Red 90 Legacy LS AWD 174k
Liquid Silver 92 SVX LS-L 88k
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I'm on First and First. How can the same street intersect with itself? I must be at the nexus of the universe.
welll.....the last time the system was bled was about two months ago but the car hasn't been driven too much since then...(maybe 400 miles). When it overheats the gauge just goes flying up only when you are pressing the gas...so if you lay off the throttle it will remain at wherever it had raised to. If you go and check the system right then the resivoir will be way too full and the big hose to the engine will feel like a balloon ( very full and difficult to squeeze). If you shut off the engine and release the pressure it bubbles like crazy in the resivior and the cap goes from not hot to extremly hot as you are taking the cap off. If you squeeze the hose after you release the pressure it feels like it is empty and you can actually hear the air flow when you squeeze it through the radiator cap opening.
I am going tom. to have the entire system flushed I think its possible some muck has built up inside the radiator and blocks the flow from time to time.. plus then they will bleed the system anyway. Not sure what else could be going wrong if this doesn't work
well there's air getting into the cooling system, how are you getting it bled? Are you removing the bleeder screw also when you do it? I'm still leaning on blown headgaskets, it might be just a really small crack, mine was acting the same way as yours is right now.
Rio Red 90 Legacy LS AWD 174k
Liquid Silver 92 SVX LS-L 88k
[url=http://folding.amdmbpond.com/FoldingForOurFuture.html]Do you fold?[/url]
I'm on First and First. How can the same street intersect with itself? I must be at the nexus of the universe.
ok so I spent an uber amount of time looking through old posts regarding the headgasket issue that you have mentioned. Are there any other signs I can be looking for in order to diagnose the headgasket to be the prob. I mean the car has this problem every so often and then it will have it for consectutive days until magically it will cure itself and stay away for awile. The only thing that makes me think that it may not be the Headgasket is that the main water hose that I have been talking about is empty ( I mean I can't feel anything inside it) when the engine is off but it is ballooned out (as if it were full of air) when the engine is on AND I am having the overheating prob.
I am having the whole system pressure flushed at the local jiffy lube and hoping that doing so may fix my problems.
I also looked at the block real carefully and do not see leaks anywhere and the overflow tank only spurts out fluid if I had it too full to begin with and then it overheated.
Unfortuently for me doing the headgasket job myself is out of the question so hopefully thats not the prob.
When the HG goes it can send air bubbles into the cooling system. These can collect in a pocket around the water pump and prevent it from working. It happened to me and I pulled the thermostat, which helped, but aftera short time the heat went cold and the needle went up. It also happened to me recently after doing the engine swap because it was a little low on coolant. The bottom hose was cold, but the top very hot because it wasn't circulating and the heat was blowing cold. However with a brand new water pump, thermostat, hoses, and relatively new radiator I knew it just needed to be burped again (which worked) however the symptoms are the same as a HG.
Steve
Midnight in a Perfect World on Amazon or order anywhere. The first book in a quartet chronicling the rise of a man from angry criminal to philanthropist. Midnight... is a distopic noirish novel featuring 'Duchess', a modified 1990 Subaru Legacy wagon.
I did some more investigating prior to departing on my "getting it flushed out trip" and noticed some things
Sure enough the overflow tank for the coolant is bubbling at a reasnable pace. I also looked under the car and saw that the place where the exhaust leaves the block is all wet with coolant, and the area where the big hose goes back to the radiator is all wet with coolant, If I take the radiator cap off while the car is running the coolant is not flowing inside the damn thing it just sits there. Also the main water hose to the block never fills with fluid, just air.
Well if someone can give me an estimate to how much I should be expecting to pay for headgasket job that would be great, otherwise how hard would it be to do myself. Becuase I am not a retard and as long as no "special tools" are required I figure I could probly do it with help...Only prob is, it has to be done by next monday
For a headgasket job you could be looking at about 150-200 if you do it yourself. More if you pay someone. It's really not that hard to do. You don't need any special tools, but set aside at least a weekend if you want to do it in a timely fashion. Also make sure you have EVERYTHING you need before you start. If your timing belt, waterpump, thermostat, upper and lower radiator hoses, or oil pump haven't been replaced in a while or they're about to come up to their recommended interval you ought to do them, as they will be much easier to access while you're in there now rather than later. Basically you remove the intake and exhaust, remove the timing belt, and unbolt the heads, replace the gaskets and put it back on. There's more detail to it thanthat though. See some of my older posts, I did a lil mini writeup.
Also jiffy lube is supposed to tell you before you do the coolant flush that simply doing a coolant flush wont fix any overheating or cooling system problems you are currently having.
Rio Red 90 Legacy LS AWD 174k
Liquid Silver 92 SVX LS-L 88k
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I'm on First and First. How can the same street intersect with itself? I must be at the nexus of the universe.
Of course, do both HGs as it's pretty much the same amount of work. I used an impact wrench to get the head bolts off. I have no idea how anyone gets them off otherwise, though I've never tried it with the engine in the car.
Steve
Midnight in a Perfect World on Amazon or order anywhere. The first book in a quartet chronicling the rise of a man from angry criminal to philanthropist. Midnight... is a distopic noirish novel featuring 'Duchess', a modified 1990 Subaru Legacy wagon.
you be a man, thats how naa, you definately dont have to worry about the engine moving with it still mounted in the car, it's attached to the frame at two points, and the tranny, which is then attached to the frame at two points aswell as the rear diff, which is attached at 3 points. put simply, the way you're pulling or pushing isnt going to move the engine enough to make it unstable.
Rio Red 90 Legacy LS AWD 174k
Liquid Silver 92 SVX LS-L 88k
[url=http://folding.amdmbpond.com/FoldingForOurFuture.html]Do you fold?[/url]
I'm on First and First. How can the same street intersect with itself? I must be at the nexus of the universe.
well i can pretty soundly say that the thermostat is correct becuase as I said earlier this happened while I was test drivng the car after building a cable for vrg's ECU software...
All that kept happening was that the temp just kept going up... all the way to 260 somthing if I remember correctly(according to my laptop) and the thermostat was pegged so I would assume it is working properly
You could always pull the thermostat out to see if it goes away, but I suspect it won't.
Steve
Midnight in a Perfect World on Amazon or order anywhere. The first book in a quartet chronicling the rise of a man from angry criminal to philanthropist. Midnight... is a distopic noirish novel featuring 'Duchess', a modified 1990 Subaru Legacy wagon.
I had nearly the same problem with my '90 Legacy. I actually replaced the head gaskets, thermostat, water manifold o-rings, water pump, and hoses. Finally fed up with messing with it myself to save money(yeah right) I took it to a radiator shop. We tested the flow of the radiator and found that it was down to about 15 percent of normal. I bought a new one, put it in, and has been cool sailing for the past week.
So my advice is have it checked out if it has not been resolved yet. The place I went checked mine for free and the radiator cost about $135.00.
I think you should take this one starting with the cheapest component. Take out the thermostat to eliminate the possibility that it is the culprit. If something else is wrong and you overheat, you can ruin a perfectly good thermostat right away so don't assume it is good.
If still showing problems, replace the radiator. Here would be a place for a known good junker radiator just for the test.
If still having problems then your head gasket is blown, and you are inflating the cooling system with combustion gasses. If so I suspect your oil will show coolant, or vice versa. Generally your compression will show low on adjacent cylinders when the gasket is blown. I don't think it is possible for the water pump to cause a big pressure build-up, usually the water just stops circulating (lack of pressure).
Usually when the head gasket is blown through to a water jacket, you'll get lots of white steam on start-up, since water will drain into the cylinder or cylinders when the engine is off, and steam off through the tailpipe. Worse you can hydraulically lock the engine if a cylinder fills too far up with water, and you won't be able to turn the engine over without pulling out the spark plug.
You might want to let the car sit for a day or two, remove the plugs, and have an assistant watch it turn over. If coolant come flying out of one or more cylinders, you'll know the deal then.
If it is the head gasket, make sure you have the heads checked by a shop for warp and cracks ater you remove them, since you've overhated badly several times they could be damaged, or it could be a warped or cracked head causing this whole mess.
While that's generally true, none of that happened when my hg's were blown, except the exhaust leaking into the coolant, no smoke, no oil/coolant mixing, no bubbles, none of that.
Though i do agree with you, test the little stuff first.
Rio Red 90 Legacy LS AWD 174k
Liquid Silver 92 SVX LS-L 88k
[url=http://folding.amdmbpond.com/FoldingForOurFuture.html]Do you fold?[/url]
I'm on First and First. How can the same street intersect with itself? I must be at the nexus of the universe.
well I looked into the other possibilities...and had everything checked.....
About 10000 miles ago all the components of the cooling system were replaced (no joke the previous owner provided me with all the reciepts). took it to the shop today described exactly what had happened in the last few months and the presummed it would be the headgaskets. Sure enough they took it apart and one of the headgaskets was bad so they are replacing both.
No word on whether or not the heads need to be machined but he knows he has a one week deadline, cuz its time to head back up to school.
And yes the radiator the thermostat, and the water pump were all checked prior to tearing the whole thing down
The verdict was, was exatly what THAWA was saying to me...which was exhaust gas was leaking into the coolant line and building up before the waterpump and the waterpump wasn't pumping. So the whole system was backing up and overflowing out the overflow resivoir. Thankfully it will all be better soon
I wouldn't worry about cracks and I just check the heads with a straight edge in three places to make sure they weren't warped. I think at this point Subaru engines take a hell of a lot to warp. Theya re small heads anyway, so they're less likely than some other engines' heads for that alone.
Steve
Midnight in a Perfect World on Amazon or order anywhere. The first book in a quartet chronicling the rise of a man from angry criminal to philanthropist. Midnight... is a distopic noirish novel featuring 'Duchess', a modified 1990 Subaru Legacy wagon.
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naa, you definately dont have to worry about the engine moving with it still mounted in the car, it's attached to the frame at two points, and the tranny, which is then attached to the frame at two points aswell as the rear diff, which is attached at 3 points. put simply, the way you're pulling or pushing isnt going to move the engine enough to make it unstable.