catalina68

I have an '85 GL carb EA82 that was pumping exhaust into the cooling system, thus overheating. This was only 7,000 miles after I had replaced the head gaskets. I used ebay head gaskets the first time; DON'T DO THAT!!!!! Big difference between the perm-a-torq and cheap s**t. When it blew, I didn't want to do both of them again, although I would recommend it. To figure out which head it was, I did a couple things. First, I pulled out all my spark plugs and labeled them to the cylinders they came out of. Since my car is in tune pretty good, the plugs looked good; grey across the board, except for one. It had a slight orangish tint and was a little blacker. Orange is usually a sign of burning coolant. Next I pulled down the y-pipe and found the exhaust port on the drivers side wet. It was the rear cylinder on this side that had the discolored spark plug. I decided to pull that head off and it was the one. I knew right away since there was already rust starting to form on the bottom of the cylinder from coolant pooling up and sittting and where the gasket blew out, there was a clean line about an inch wide from the gasket to the exhaust valve. This is from the coolant washing away the carbon. So if your going to do one gasket and you need to figure out which head to pull, try these tips. They worked for me and my subie is running great. Good luck, Eric

I have a carb. 85' GL 4wd wagon, stick, that gets a little hot. EA82 engine. Here's whats happening. I'll start it up cold and start driving it. The temp gauge will rise all the way to the red and then fall to normal temp and stay there the rest of the trip. I know its not a gauge problem because the heat gets really hot, the electric fan kicks on, and it pings when its really hot. I changed the thermostat and same problem. (Old one looked fine as it was only a year old.) I then changed the radiator cap with one that has the pressure release lever and still same problem. Today, when it was in the red zone, I flipped the lever on the cap and it blew the cap off the resivore, sprayed alot of coolant, but did cool down to normal temp right when I did that. I then left the lever open on my next trip to see what would happen. It got hot, not to the red zone but close, stayed there for about five minuites, and then returned to normal. I put alot of work into this car this past summer and don't want to risk major engine problems on a fairly fresh engine. Let me know if you guys have any thoughts. Thanks, Eric