Hello everybody! I'm a novice at working on cars, but have bought two for under a grand and kept them working so far with minimal trips to a professional garage.
My 1996 Subaru Legacy L with 2.2 liter stock engine overheated on me the other day after driving on the highway for about two hours. It just hit 200k miles. I have had it for over a month and have done some simple things to tune it up, and also have a stack of old service receipts.
Steam started coming out of the passenger side of the hood and I immediately pulled over and took a look at the engine. A small amount of steam was coming out of the radiator cap, but most was pouring out from just underneath the upper radiator hose. I got a tow. Today I removed the radiator hose and it looked fine, but I went ahead and replaced it, poured in some coolant. I could see the coolant dripping from the passenger's side bumper from under the hood before I started it up, but I couldn't really see where that might be coming from. There is a bundle of tubing behind the bumper there I let it run for 5 minutes and the drip rate increased during that time.
I'm guessing that it's good news that there is an obvious leak as this might indicate that the head gaskets aren't the problem, but am wondering if the best steps from here are to replace the water pump and timing belt. I grabbed a new radiator from auto zone, but would rather not replace it if that isn't the obvious problem. Any advice would be much appreciated. I have not replaced a water pump before, but think I am up to the task. However, I'm worried that replacing the timing belt and bearings would be beyond my ability. Any advice, questions, or encouragement is much appreciated!
