Yet another 250T headgasket!!

[cods4]

My 250T has blown a headgasket again. The first time it happened it properly overheated and I took the engine out and had it fixed by the shop. Straight after I got it going again i took it for a drive and it started to overheat again (although this time I noticed before it got anywhere near the top of the temp guage) so i got the AA to take it home.

It turned out that there was a tiny leak in the radiator inlet hose which must have happened when bending the hose to remove the engine. Needless to say i replaced the hose but it looks like the headgasket has blown again because there are bubbles coming out of the radiator.

I'm coming to wits end with this car and would love to just sell it but have had little interest http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=273948173. I'm now thinking of doing the head gaskets myself and am wondering how big of a job it is. Can anyone tell me if it is easy to get to the head bolts once the rocker cover is removed or do you have to disassemble the heads? Also, is there anything else very challenging I should know about?

[Drunkenmonkey]

who did you head gasket and how long ago? should have a 10,000 km/ 6 mnth warranty on it need to take the front cam wheels off, rocker covers off then cam shafts out not to hard to do, with my brother car when his did it we ended up putting a 2 L in instead much easier

[cods4]

Beckenham Autos did it in august last year, it's been so long because I ended up having to get the transmission done after that and then I went back up to auckland for the summer and left my car in christchurch.

By the way, is it easy to redo the timing?

[smokn4]

timing not that hard once youve been show 'how to' properly 8)

[Drunkenmonkey]

coming up 2 9 months this should have happened you may be able to still hold them liable for it give distubes (sp) a call and find out

[cods4]

I'd rather not cause any trouble because the owner was extremely helpful when we were having trouble getting the torque converter seated properly. He came over and did it himself free of charge.

[Drunkenmonkey]

fair enough maybe talk to him about see if he machined/ tested the heads

[Guest boostcut]

maybe you should cut your losses and sell for a price that its worth in its current state... about 1800 bucks..

[Drunkenmonkey]

or drop a 2L motor in like i did with my brothers 250T

[Guest]

Its probably got a blocked heater core which has caused all the over heating problems so far.

[cods4]

I might look into doing an engine swap, could actually be easier than doing the headgaskets. Can anybody recommend a good wrecker in christchurch?

[nzkaosnz]

random qn...

are you sure it hasnt got a bigass airlock?

What i would do (and its cheap)....

Buy a new radiator cap.

Park the car on a steep a hill you can find near a tap - nose in the air

Undo radiator cap (when cold)

Start car, and leave idling with cap off.

Keep going between the radiator cap and the dash, checking that water level ok, topping up as needed, and checking that dash temp ok. Old school method says to turn inside heater onto full heating, someone told me this not needed, but hell, do it anyway.

continue this until it comes up to temperature (dash needle moves, and top hose feels the same temp as the warm hose (carefully reach down and grab bottom hose). if you do this periodically from cold, youll notice that the top hose warms up first, then eventually the bottom hose warms up (thermostat opens)

once car up to temperature (fans also should kick in as an indication - AC should be off), pop the NEW radiator cap on, and check that your overflow bottle is up to full mark/over.

Turn car off, and once cold, just check theres enough in the overflow bottle.

Occasionally, the overheating can be due to airlocks/dodgy radiator caps, and a proper bleed can sort a lot of issues.

Some haters may argue against this... but hell. Whats it going to cost you? And its solved my "damn my new headgasket has blown" issue once.

Heater core... cant see how this could really affect it much? A bunch of people in race cars block the heater pipes off with no ill-effects.

[Drunkenmonkey]

 nzkaosnz said:

Heater core... cant see how this could really affect it much? A bunch of people in race cars block the heater pipes off with no ill-effects.

they loop them out on the engine side

[cods4]

Thanks for the help, i'll give that a go nzkaosnz

[Guest]

 nzkaosnz said:

Heater core... cant see how this could really affect it much? A bunch of people in race cars block the heater pipes off with no ill-effects.

It seems you have no idea how a cooling system on a subaru works. The water flows through the heater core to the back of the thermostat causing it to open when it is hot enough. When the heater cores blocked the coolant doesnt flow past the thermostat fast enough and the thermostat doesnt open/

[cods4]

I found a pretty good description of how the cooling system works. It seems a pretty weird design!

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/interesting-read-subaru-cooling-systems-120477.html?s=426840e133d8f167da1573c770231767&

[Shale]

 caged']

[quote name='nzkaosnz said:

Heater core... cant see how this could really affect it much? A bunch of people in race cars block the heater pipes off with no ill-effects.

/quote]

It seems you have no idea how a cooling system on a subaru works. The water flows through the heater core to the back of the thermostat causing it to open when it is hot enough. When the heater cores blocked the coolant doesnt flow past the thermostat fast enough and the thermostat doesnt open/

http://www.dirtyolbc.co.nz/community/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=95