Head gaskets go out on drivers side?

[abcus]

A friend of mine, who has had a few Subarus says the head gaskets,when they go, almost always go out on the drivers side. Could this be true?

I just bought a 87 stick,wagon turbo. I think it has a blown head gasket or cracked head. I have just started to look into it. So for I have been able to get it to idle after I disconnected the 2 driver side plug wires.

Thanks for reading.

[nickolai]

I read somewhere that the head gaskets blow more often on the drivers side because that is the side the battery is on, and therefore is the side of the engine that the battery ground cable connects to. If the battery terminals get corroded at all it starts causing electrolysis with the coolant and eats away the nearest head gasket material.

If you're wondering because you're thinking of only replacing one head gasket, I would strongly recommend you do both. Not only do they come as a pair, but if one is blown how much life is left in the other?

[NorthWet]

Although this really hasn't been seriously researched (AFAIK), the US-Passenger-side head tends to have more HG issues, especially with the turbo.

 

If it were a blown headgasket, I cannot think of any scenario where disconnecting spark plugs would make it run better. Did you purchase the vehicle with the engine not running? If so, I would suspect other issues. Typical scenario is someone changed timing belts and didn't do them correctly.

[GeneralDisorder]

Doesn't really matter since only a dealership would ever consider replacing only one - and it's typically a warantee claim that would prompt such a rediculous amount of labor to only do half the job. The other gasket is *maybe* an extra hour of dissasembly, cleaning, and reassembly.

 

I would say this is NOT the case except with a specific model of EJ25 - the phase-II EJ251 and EJ253. In that specific case it is nearly always the driver's side head gasket that blows - my theory is that it's either coolant flow or temperature related on that specific motor. The sealant on the head gasket (which is stamped metal with special coatings) washes away causing external weepage of coolant.

 

I've seen a lot more burned valve problems on the driver's side as well and it's typically the one that needs more valve adjustment too..... I'm not sure of the reason for that.

 

I've seen my share of cylinder 1/3 problems too - blown head gaskets included. Last HG I did because it was "blown" into the combustion chamber was a #3 cylinder on the passenger side.

 

The EA82T is prone to blowing head gaskets (and sometimes cracking heads in the exhaust port area) - period. Doesn't matter which side. The cooling system is a weak link and failure prone on them because they are old and were not given a large cooling capacity overhead to begin with. They are further handicapped by the poorly designed head castings.

 

Even if you were to determine this was actually the case (failure on driver's side has a higher probability).... what would you do about it? . There's no love lost around this forum on that engine and quite frankly I doubt such an issue *could* be fixed even if it were found - not that anyone would want to invest the time. Sadly that's a dead-end engine.

 

GD

[GeneralDisorder]

If it were a blown headgasket, I cannot think of any scenario where disconnecting spark plugs would make it run better. Did you purchase the vehicle with the engine not running? If so, I would suspect other issues. Typical scenario is someone changed timing belts and didn't do them correctly.

 

+1 on the timing being wrong.... pulling plug wires shouldn't EVER cause it to run *better*. That's a pretty strange set of circumstances. They either do nothing or make it worse.

 

GD

[NorthWet]

Another possibility is mixed up sparkplug wires. (Still kind of falls under the umbrella of timing issues.)

[abcus]

Thanks for the help.

It did not run better , it just kept running the same which surprised me.

It reminded me of the Citreon where you could take off the right rear wheel ,put it in the trunk, and drive away on 3 wheels.

Thanks again.