[SOLVED]Help with diagnosing possible head gasket failure please.

[evljat]

I was driving home after a trip to my panel beater (who was closed) and decided to give the car a bit of stick. I noticed that I was only pushing 11-12 psi instead of 15 so decided to pull over and check my boost controller.

I only pulled over for about 15-20 seconds and as soon as I left I could hear a weird sound coming from outside of the car. At first I thought it was a flat tyre so I pulled over again and got out of the car only to see a trail of coolant behind the car and more pooling out. I wasn\'t to far from home so I babied it and kept an eye on the temp gauge and it didn\'t move above the half way mark.

Now the header tank resevoir thing was completely empty so I topped that up and it all leaked out, but it didn\'t suck any from the overflow tank. There is some sort of brown sludgy looking s*** in the overflow I don\'t whether it\'s oil or just dirt build up. I\'ve only owned the car two weeks. The engine oil isn\'t milky. There is no coolant sprayed on the bonnet or engine bay. The sump and k brace are covered in it though.

The car has done 170,000km and afaik is still on the original engine and head gaskets. The previous did say that the cambelt was done at 165000 though.

I jacked the car up and had a little look under and the only thing I could see that was a little suspect is this little hose which had a tear in it. But I don\'t think it is able to leak out the amount of coolant that came out.

It\'s on the bottom of the passenger side of the engine and I think it connects to the thermostat.

I apologise for the vagueness in the description I\'m not very mechanically knowledgeable so any help will be great.

Also if anyone knows some Subaru specialists in the East Tamaki/Flatbush area I could take it to it\'d be awesome.

Cheers guys.

[ADIKT]

You\'d be suprised on how much fluid can come out of a tiny slit like that. Especially on a hot pressurized system. Replace that hose. See if problem still persists

[evljat]

Can\'t believe I left that out. It\'s a 1996 WRX STI RA.

I\'ll get onto replacing that hose.

[Johnnynz]

 ADIKT said:

You\'d be suprised on how much fluid can come out of a tiny slit like that. Especially on a hot pressurized system. Replace that hose. See if problem still persists

This. I lost almost an entire engine worth in about 30 Mins of driving from a radiator crack that was probably 2 CM long once the car was hot.

[loner]

If you need to drive for a short distance, top it up, but don\'t seal the radiator cap properly... so that pressure won\'t build up and

spew the water out in 30 seconds.

[Koom]

 Johnnynz']

[quote name='ADIKT said:

You\'d be suprised on how much fluid can come out of a tiny slit like that. Especially on a hot pressurized system. Replace that hose. See if problem still persists

/quote]

This. I lost almost an entire engine worth in about 30 Mins of driving from a radiator crack that was probably 2 CM long once the car was hot.

I like comparing things to other real world things to get an idea of what I\'m dealing with. The pressure in the coolant system is around 15psi, so if you compare that to say a small puncture in a mountain bike tyre it\'s easy to imagine how quickly it can spew out the coolant through a tiny hole.

[evljat]

Cheers guys,

Tore the hose into 3 pieces while taking it off haha. Replaced it with a new 90 degree bend, this one doesn\'t kink in the middle like the one. I\'m only running water in it atm because I forgot to pick up coolant while I was at Repco, No coolant leaking so far so it\'s safe to say that it was the hose.

OT: The car is still only boosting 11psi no matter what I do with the boost controller even if I turn it off. What could this be?

[ADIKT]

 evljat said:

Cheers guys,

Tore the hose into 3 pieces while taking it off haha. Replaced it with a new 90 degree bend, this one doesn\'t kink in the middle like the one. I\'m only running water in it atm because I forgot to pick up coolant while I was at Repco, No coolant leaking so far so it\'s safe to say that it was the hose.

OT: The car is still only boosting 11psi no matter what I do with the boost controller even if I turn it off. What could this be?

lol not leaking coolant because there is none! Ba good shit dude.