legacycentral bbs

So I have been looking to buy a Legacy SS. I found one on Craigslist. The car is clean with no dents, scuffs, and even has the OG stereo. The car has 162k miles on it. The owner said there is trace amounts of oil in the coolant but other then that it drives fine with no other problems (no white/blue smoke, no over heating, and no chocolate milk oil). What is the likely hood of the block being cracked vs. the head gasket being blown? I have no issues pulling the engine to replace the gaskets. The guy wants 1400 bucks for it.

Thanks for any input .

Welcome to the BBS.

If it's a head gasket, usually you end up with combustion gasses in the cooling system....and not so much oil.

Another possibility could be the oil cooler. The 91's came with a sandwich type oil cooler than runs coolant through it to help cool the oil. If that cooler is bad or has a pin hole leak, that could be letting oil into the cooling system. However without doing some tests on the cooling system, compression/leak down tests, it'd be a little hard to say exactly what the problem is.

Legacy777 wrote:Welcome to the BBS.

If it's a head gasket, usually you end up with combustion gasses in the cooling system....and not so much oil.

Another possibility could be the oil cooler. The 91's came with a sandwich type oil cooler than runs coolant through it to help cool the oil. If that cooler is bad or has a pin hole leak, that could be letting oil into the cooling system. However without doing some tests on the cooling system, compression/leak down tests, it'd be a little hard to say exactly what the problem is.

I had no idea they had oil coolers. I'll most likely go ahead and get it. Take it in my shop and do some tests. I'll post what I find in this thread.

Thanks.

Only the 91 model years had the oil cooler.

Let us know what you find out.

I thought I would give you guys an update. The guy was on vacation for the last 2 weeks and just got home last night. I am going to pick the car up toady

Excellent

I got the car. I will post some pics ups tomorrow. Where is the oil cooler located? above the filter?

Thanks.

Yes, the oil cooler is above the filter.

Legacy777 wrote:Yes, the oil cooler is above the filter.

I didn't have time to pull it off but there is a lot of oil around it and dripping off of the filter. This Sunday I'll change the oil and pull the cooler off.

It is a head gasket. The passenger bank has oil pooling along the head and block seam. Today I found tiny traces of coolant in the oil. On Wednesday I will be pulling the engine to replace all of the gaskets. I will take pics and post them in this thread. I also managed to get a PDF copy of the Subaru Legacy repair manual =)

I would highly recommend making sure the heads and deck are good and flat. You may want to have the heads resurfaced and a valve job done.

Yeah I planned on rebuilding the heads. Here a few pics from over the last couple of days

The day I picked it up (camera phone crappy pics).



Getting close.



MMMM milk shake coolant!



She's out!




Then I hit a snag.... On the drive up to the shop the car started to make a horrible noise. I had an idea what it was since I have encountered it on my VW bus. The bus's was only cracked.






The new one will be here hopefully in a week. The new flex plate only cost 60 bucks (that includes shipping and tax) from 1stsubaruparts.com. The local dealer wanted 100

well the head gaskets look good . The only other place it could mix is in the turbo. The turbo is wet with oil and has some pooling in it. I am hoping it is the turbo if not I will have to split the case and have it checked for cracks. I could not see any visible cracks.

What about the oil cooler?

Sometimes it's very difficult to find the point of failure on the headgasket. When I had mine, I suspected where the problem was. but really couldn't confirm it, even though I knew it was a headgasket.

I took the oil cooler off and washed it in the parts washer a week or so ago. I didn't hook up the cooling lines to see if oil was leaching into it. Well I totally forgot to check it for oil....... the coolant passages were pouring oil out of them.... It's not a total lost cause.. The engine had to be pulled to fix the broken flex plate haha. I am getting a TD04 turbo and then on Friday I plan on driving to Delta cams (I'm about an hour away from them) to drop my cams off for a 220 grind.

Just an update. I got the new drive plate Friday morning. I won't be able to go pick the cams up until Tuesday morning since I have to work. I went ahead and got the 230 instead of the 220. Here are some pics of the progress.



I still have a little more cleaning on the engine.

So the oil cooler was the problem?

Ready to go in. Yeah I am positive it was the oil cooler. There was oil in the coolant side of it. I wont be able to start the car until next week since I am waiting for my TD04 turbo and intercooler to come in. That all should be here on Wednesday.

Is there a reason you didn't put the side cam belt covers on?

I was worried that possibly the cams would make the engine an no tolerance engine. I decided to leave them off so I can quickly inspect the belt. The engine is completely back in the car. The only other thing I need is the turbo.

Just an update.








I media blasted the IC so I still need to repaint it. The turbo is also installed now. All I am waiting for is my silicone intake tubing to come in. I also got a AEM tru boost setup

very nice, i have a black SS too. dont see to many of them around. what part of the states are you in?

Just in Washington state. It's going to be even nicer with that haltech E8 in it lol

Wow this thing is coming along very nicely.

Mister Anderson wrote:Just in Washington state. It's going to be even nicer with that haltech E8 in it lol