legacycentral bbs

I'm in the middle of replacing my headgaskets on my '90 legacy L. I was removing the heads today when I came across something really strange. One of the combustion chambers looks like it has never ever seen a flame!! The top of the chamber on the head is clean and shiny and so is the piston!! This car is almost 20 years old, how is this possible? I didn't really pay much attention to the plugs when I pulled them but after a second inspection, they all look the same, so I don't think spark is an issue. It must be fuel. Now, I've know the history of this car. It was my ex-girlfriends Uncle's car, he bought it new. Then his Mother drove it, and then my ex bought it. I ended up buying it from her and then sold it to a friend. I recently got it back from the friend because he was going to scrap it after blowing the headgasket. To the best of my knowledge, the heads have never even been off this car, much less the bottom end.

I would love to hear what you all think about this.


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That is what would happen in a perfect world. Gasoline and air burned to make just water and carbon dioxide. ""C8H18 + 12.5 O2 ---> 9 H2O + 8 CO2 "" Just in case you wanted to know. Any who, now that we know this world ain't perfect. Being that you are the sixth owner, counted you twice ,and who knows what the others did. When the head gasket went a flop, or blown. The coolant was steam cleaning that cylinder. Thus it is miraculously clean. That is all I can think of.

Yeah....the cylinder got steam cleaned when the gasket went.

Yep. I'll give another confirmation that that was the cylinder with the blown head gasket. I've seen that a few times, but never that clean. In my experience the piston has been cleaner than the head.

Well, that all certainly makes sense. More sense than my first thought that the cylinder had never ever fired! hahah I've never done headgaskets on a car that had blown one before, only precautionary replacements.

Thanks everyone!