well I have a 2000 legacy wagon with he 2.5 in it and I know they are notorious for bad head gaskets. Lately I’ve noticed when I turn the heat on I smell something strange, but didn’t think twice. More recently it has been overheating every time I drive it about every 15 mins. I realized that smell was coolant. Also when I start the car, it eats gas the gauge drops a lot. I Am wondering if anyone here has done gaskets on these and if anyone would be willing to work with me to change these. Obv willin to pay, I just don’t want to mess anything up and or cause damage. Also don’t want to pay a shop a ton. If anyone Is willing to help please let me know
I just did these on my 2000 Outback a couple months ago. in a nutshell: they are a huge, royal pain in the ass to change with the motor in the car, or you can pull the motor which sucks about as much. It’s not overly difficult, just very time consuming. I did mine with the motor staying in the car and had to try all kind of crazy kama sutra positions to get the heads out and in, including jacking the motor up and side to side a few inches to get the needed room.
While you’re in there you should also replace the following as you need to remove it all anyhow to get to the heads:
timing belt, associated idlers and tensioners
water pump, upper and lower rad hoses, thermostat
serpentine belts
spark plugs, wires, valve cover gaskets and grommets
head bolts - apparently are one time use, i replaced mine with new for peace of mind
All parts are readily available on rockauto and are cheapest there as well. It took me about 5 days to do it all working on it a little bit after work every day.
Good luck! You sound like you don’t really want to DIY, so your best bet is trying to find someone on here willing to do it - because it certainly won’t be cheap at a shop.
Fuck that, blow up the car and take the ins. payout.
^^ depending on how rotted the wheel wells are on the car you may not be that crazy to do that
I mean literally blow the car up… or roll it off a cliff.
Lol I should blow it up. But I want to do it my self but just with guidance from someone who has done it before. That’s seems like a bitch to do not too happy. But thanks haha I recently did the valve cover gaskets and the plug seals. Just found oil or little brown bubbles in my coolant tank
It takes QuattroKrant about 8 hours to do them with his cloven hooves, hand tools, and the intellect of a club-footed-midget. Bungee cord the intake to the wiper arm, zap off the exhaust, and go at it… cake.
Fuck that pull the motor.
Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk
+1. Not worth the aggarvation of trying to do it in the car. You can get the motor out of the car in 3 hours if you have a lift and know what you’re doing (maybe an extra hour if your bell housing doesn’t cooperate).
Hah damn thanks guys. This should be a fun time
http://buffalo.craigslist.org/pts/4347687162.html
Call this guy, Mark, to see if he’ll do it. He was a Subaru tech and knows his stuff. He also buys broken Subarus and repairs them.
this. This is the best way to go
You might want to think about doing the timing belt,water pump and cam seals while you’re in there. I wouldn’t mind helping if I had more time. You could do this in a weekend if you have an engine puller and stand. It only takes a few hours to get the motor out, 4-6 hours to do the gaskets if you take your time and a few more hours to get the motor back in. I think 2000 was a DOHC motor, which means that having an engine stand is important. When you pull the cams (which is not needed with a SOHC) you really want to stand the motor up so the buckets don’t fall out. Also try to leave them in place as they need to go back into the same holes.
It’s not that bad.
My 2000 was a SOHC, didn’t need to pull the cams to get to head bolts.
Just did gaskets on my 2000 Outback (2.5L SOHC) a few months ago. Did it in the car with no problems at all. Biggest hassle for me was once it was all back together and fired up it became apparent that the heater pipe sprung a leak at the junction that leads off to the throttle body. Had to pull the intake manifold and coolant crossover back off to get at it. Expect things like that to happen so plan for the worst and maybe you’ll get lucky.
I hear nothing but good reviews for blue devil gasket sealer,I’d try it if you didn’t plan on keeping the car for a long period of time. I guess it depends on the condition of the rest of the car.:gotme:
http://www.amazon.com/BlueDevil-Head-Gasket-Sealer-Ounce/dp/B000NOO798
Yeah thanks ecerybody. I’m going to buy the gasket sealer. I actually believe it’s not a blown gasket I found a small leak somewhere and I think it drained coolant. I never noticed since it was parked on the grass. So I plan to fix the leak, flush it and refill and hope that’s what it is.