About to do EJ22 head gaskets, need some advice!

[silence2-38554]

Alright, working on my girlfriend's '91 Legacy L. EJ22 w/ an auto trans. 234k miles. Cylinder 3 misfires badly, the coolant overflow wreaks of exhaust gasses and it erupts within 10 minutes of driving. Thing is, she needs the car to be in reliable, working order within the next 2 weeks due to an internship she got over the summer. I've never done head gaskets before. I've read through the procedure in the service manual & I'm pretty sure I can do it. I've been working on/tuning my WRX for years & have done plenty of timing belts / clutches / brake jobs, etc. so I don't think it's over my head judging from what I've read on the topic. I do have a few questions, though.
Once the heads are off, will we be able to tell if they are warped before deciding whether or not they need to be resurfaced? Is the warping something I can examine myself? Then, what about the head bolts? Do these need to be replaced? I have heard from some that used head bolts won't torque down properly, while it seems like others have had success.
My other questions are concerning the actual parts I should use. Autozone has a "head gasket kit" for $184 bucks that supposedly includes all gaskets necessary to do the job. On the other hand, there are EJ22 gasket kits on ebay for 30 bucks.... Some come with metal head gaskets, some come with graphite gaskets. Which should I get? Does anyone have a water pump suggestion that comes with a cast impeller? I'd like to avoid a cheapie with a stamped impeller if I could.
I would normally tend to go with Subaru parts for most stuff like this but the thing is, we got the car for 500 bucks, don't want to put a whole lot more into it & only need it to run for a couple years (not to mention my girlfriend drives like a grandma). I've also been reading less than stellar things about Subaru's own HG's so I was curious if there was a particular brand / type you guys would recommend for a N/A EJ22.
Sorry for the long post but we need to get parts ordered & start this project asap. Thanks in advance for any suggestions, Kris.

[cj91legss]

I would say when it comes to the head gasket, go oem if it's a DD and everything else, autozone works great.

Don't stress about the head bolts, you can re-use them once or twice (although twice is kinda pushing it)

i don't think it's possible to just visually inspect a head without tools, i've seen something about some sort of perfectly straight edge and the little shim things that have numbers on them, someone else will probably chime in and give up the name of the tool. BUT if the car hasn't over heated too bad, i don't really see any reason to worry about the head...

[gijonas]

Step one.

remove heads and all else necessary.

Step two.

Get a machine shop to straightedge the heads (prolly fine if wasnt way overheated)

Step three.

Reassemble with all oem stuff (or at the least the head gaskets).

Step four.

Dont worry about the head bolts.

[silence2-38554]

Thanks for the responses thus far, very helpful! Today I ordered both new HG's from subarugenuineparts.com, and valve cover gaskets, intake & exhaust manifold gaskets through Autozone, as well as a new water pump. We're going to be ordering a timing belt kit off ebay tomorrow from a company I have had luck with in the past. I have two remaining part acquisition questions:
Looking through the timing belt "kits", there seems to be a ton of O-ring style gaskets that aren't really necessary to replace during the course of the job, such as valve guide seals & camshaft seals. Are there any other than the ones that I've ordered that are going to be vital? Do I need to replace the fuel injector O-rings, etc?
Second question is on the timing belt hydraulic tensioner. How common is it that this needs to be replaced & what would be a good way to test it? I found one on Rockauto.com for 84 bucks, which seems to be the best deal I can find, as it is not included in the timing belt kit I'm ordering (it consists of all pulleys & the belt itself but not the piston-style tensioner.). Thanks again for the help so far!

[cj91legss]

All you need to do is compress the tensioner VERY SLOWLY with a press. if you don't have a press i use a 6" C Clamp and do a little less than 1/4 turn to 1/2 turn.. just remember very slowly. the shaft that compresses into the cylinder can take on too much pressure and bend if you turn too much. In an emergency timing belt job i've also use a floor jack pressing the tensioner against the bottom of the car and that ws successful but again go VERY SLOWLY.

don't worry about the ijector orings now and the cam seals, don't do them unless they're leaking, but keep the rings and seals put up where you can remember them.

[silence2-38554]

UPDATE: I have successfully removed the heads & all necessary surrounding components in just about 8 hours with hand tools. Wasn't too bad for having 234k miles! I also managed to leave the intake manifold completely alone & just unbolt the exhaust manifold to slide the heads out from under the car. Worked like a charm! So now my main question is, what technique would you recommend for removing the old gasket material from the heads/block? It's that soft metallic stuff & seems to cover nearly the entire flat surface of the head....

[cj91legss]

brake parts cleaner and a razor blade help pretty well, just dont scratch or dig into the surface. fine scotch brite helps too, at schucks or autozne in the sanding setion they're maroon scotch brite pads like 6"x8" or something like that

[gijonas]

I stick with scotch 2" conditioning wheels on a 90 degree air die grinder,but then im spoiled by having a fully equipped shop.As said above a razor blade and red scotch pads should do you well.Stick some rags in all the openings to keep the crap out,you will most likely introduce a couple small scratches in the deck of the block but dont sweat it.

[silence2-38554]

UPDATE:
Razor blades & red 3M pads worked great! Got the block cleaned up & the heads dropped off at the machine shop today. They're cleaning them & decking them for 50/ea. Unfortunately, they called today & said that the head which DIDN'T have a blown HG has a crack between the spark plug tube & an oil channel (that explains how oil was getting all over the spark plug boot). I would just opt to replace the head but unfortunately the car MUST be running in less than a week so I had them go ahead & deck the cracked head which I will be reinstalling. Has anyone here had any luck repairing (even temporarily) a cracked head? Supposedly JB Weld can repair cracks in tractor engines & stuff but I know that's not the correct way to go about it. Any ideas?
Aside from that drawback, everything has gone extremely smoothly. Removed the rockers & camshafts last night, including bleeding the hydraulic lash adjusters (which was actually kind of fun). I was wondering: When re-installing the lash adjusters, does the entire rocker assembly need to be submerged in oil so that the channels on top of the lash adjusters are free of air? Friday will be the big re-assembly day so I'm hoping to do something (if anything) about the crack before then....

[gijonas]

it wont be great and it wont be right but for short term you should get someone to TIG weld the crack for now,it wont hold forever but it is WAY better than just sticking it back on.I would personally do it in my shop for less tha $100 bux.Look around and get someone to do that.

[Legacy777]

Regarding the rocker assembly, no you don't need to submerge it in oil.

[silence2-38554]

Well, tonight we finished assembling everything & started it up. For the most part, our issues seem to have been solved! No more overheating! The car does, however, idle EXTREMELY rough & has pretty poor throttle response.... Anything below 2k rpm is pretty rough, and gets less & less balanced as the rpm drops. before doing the head gaskets, I figured the cylinder with the coolant leak was causing the misfire & that replacing the HG's / decking the heads would smooth the idle out. boy was I wrong. once past 2k rpm, the car feels great, but below that & you feel like you're in a washing machine. Even though I quadruple-checked that the cam gears were on the right teeth of the timing belt, do any of these symptoms sound indicative of a timing belt that's off by a tooth? 44 teeth from center on the left & 40.5 teeth on the right side. Does it sound like this might all be due to an imbalance in the bottom end? messed up rod bearing? Also, at below 500 rpm when the idle gets really rough, it is accompanied by a horrible low, scrape/thud sound (very hard to describe). Anyone have any ideas? Thanks so much for the advise thus far, it has all been very helpful!

[gijonas]

Sounds like you need to recheck everything you took apart.I say 99% chance its just one of the many things you messed with doing the work, happens all the time.Major/multiple vacuum leaks maybe bad plug/plugs or even a connector or two left unplugged or bad connection ect.

[Shaggy]

U could try cleaning the idle air control valve. Replace the coolant temp sensor. Clean the throttle body, check your plugs and wires. Check the air filter. Listen to your injectors to make sure they are working properly. If u where triple checking yourself I would say that u probably did everything right. If the car was had these symptoms before and it's still doing it it something else I would say. It could be the info in the computer.Put some chevron supreme in it also. It still is posible that u might have messed up tho. But if u were triple checking yourself I would think that that was done right and wouldn't be the problem.

[silence2-38554]

One odd thing I did notice when I was doing the HG's was the 02 sensor. It was a Bosch sensor, but also had a FORD logo on it! The plug also looked like it had been chopped & crimped to accommodate the mismatched sensor. Does the front o2 sensor on our cars dictate idle behavior much? I didn't really think much of it because I'm not getting a check engine light or anything. Perhaps I should swap it out? I tried checking for vacuum leaks earlier by spraying brake cleaner everywhere there might be vacuum & no change in idle at all... One thing I did notice when test driving it today is that even when driving on the highway, if I'm accelerating then the car is totally smooth. When I let up on the gas, however, I can feel the engine start to shove itself back & forth under the hood.... So it doesn't exactly need to be at idle to run rough, although that is when it is the roughest. It also drops below 500 RPM once warmed up, which I don't think is normal.

[Shaggy]

I just noticed 5 weeks ago that mine was disconnected, i've been driving my car for a little over a year now. I'm not sure if I didn't realize that the harness was disconnected or if it just came apart for some odd reason, but my car was running just fine when it was disconected. but I have got better gas mileage since I've conected it. If u wanted u could try disconecting it and see if it helps. I would check everything I said before too.

[silence2-38554]

Alright, so today, the car finally threw a check engine light. I've only checked trouble codes on OBD2 cars before, so it was my first time trying to decipher the flashing CEL on an older car like this. I followed the procedure on this site:

http://legacycentral.org/library/literature/codes.htm

However, I found that once the page gets to the part about the green test connector, the description of what i'm supposed to look for gets pretty confusing. With just the black connector plugged in, I got codes 22 and 41. When just the green connector was plugged in, I got 4. According to the chart, 22 is for the knock sensor, which I'm guessing to be caused by the horrible misfire the car has. The 41 is for A/F learning control, which I figured is probably from the sketchy o2 sensor, but as I was looking around under the hood after reading the codes, I noticed that I managed to leave the passenger side crankcase breather hose disconnected from the intake, which would be letting all sorts of unmetered air into the motor, being after the MAF sensor. After resetting the ECU with both connectors connected, code 22 seems to have cleared but 41 is still there. Idle doesn't feel any better, either. I'm letting the battery sit disconnected over night to try & reset the ecu that way but we'll see. Has anyone seen code 41 be thrown due to a faulty o2 sensor? How could I test the sensor to see if it's working properly (what pins & what resistance to look for?). Sorry for another long-winded response, you have all been a tremendous help so far!

[silence2-38554]

UPDATE: After reconnecting the battery this morning, the CEL stayed off & the car runs much stronger! The idle still sucks but it's not quite as bad. From here, I'll be checking out the injector's o-rings for possible leaks, then just start replacing sensors, starting with the janky Ford o2, then probably the engine temp sensor (since it's been over-heated before, there's a good chance it's messed up). I also need to pull off & properly clean the IAC, rather than just shooting it full of carb cleaner from the intake hose.

[Legacy777]

Good updates.

[Shaggy]

Good to hear it's gettin better. Keep us posted

[Aeryck]

Any luck after cleaning the IAC. I am running into similar issues, I have a A/F learning code popping on and off and it's idling poorly in D at stop's, also a bit rough on take off, but, all intermittent. I replaced the O2, it was original, and while that helped it still does these thing and still has the code. It's a stand alone code at this point. I have not checked the IAC, I am tempted to just replace that.