ea82 cooling system confusion

[jkinz]

ea82 spfi, I have been having a problem with the cooling system for some time. The main annoyance is that whenever I drive the car, as it warms up the temp gauge creeps up past normal operating temperature and stays about 3/4 of the way up but still out of the red, then eventually drops down to a quarter of the gauge like it normally runs. during the time it's reading hot, the heater is lukewarm so I figure the thermostat has not opened.

 

Here's what has been done:

new OE thermostat, <- maybe I didn't line up the bleed hole properly?

radiator of unknown condition taken from parts car after sticks jammed through old one and it dumped. Seems to have been working ok since I installed it. I don't know if the coolant temp sensor is working right but it seems to read the same as the other one.

coolant flush

new water pump and hose

 

I did all this work during a short period of time so I'm not exactly sure when each symptom occurred. I do remember having difficulty burping the coolant system after replacing the radiator. when it was supposed to open the thermostat and the coolant level should have dropped, instead it would start overflowing and coming out of the radiator.There is some coolant loss while driving but not very much. Exhaust isn't very telling, no white smoke. 

 

I hear gurgling noises from dashboard and the overflow container especially when turning the car off after driving for a while.

 

no mixing of coolant in the oil

 

some crud on the radiator cap and in the tube but I'm not sure if it's a significant amount

 

passenger side head has a noise similar to a belt slipping, sounds like the valve train or cam. Not sure if head cracks or gasket leaks can be heard. It does seem to run rich and miss a little so I might have a valve issue?

 

I figure I should start by inspecting the thermostat and passenger side valves, and I suppose eventually the head if nothing else rules out the issues.

 

Any advice would be appreciated,

 

Thanks

 

 

[Idasho]

Sounds like you just have air in the system.

[scoobiedubie]

tighten the cylinder head bolts.  recheck the timing belt pulley position

Edited April 2, 2014 by scoobiedubie

[silverback]

You have air in the system. Find a steep hill, park and idle to let the thermostat open (keep the hood closed). The radiator cap may be weak. Replace it.  Is the radiator from the parts car a single row or double row?  Is your coolant the proper mix or did you water it down for the radiator re-fill?

[l75eya]

That gurgling sound means you definitely have air in there. It's not going to stop until you fix the leak, ask me how i know; My loyale has had two small leaks in the cooling system for over a year now. When the air makes its way t through the cooling system my temp gauge will creep to 3/4 but i pay no mind to it because i know it's going to go back down. Either fix the leak and fill the cooling system properly (no air), or just deal with an occasionally hot engine. Make sure you keep it topped up.

[Gloyale]

tighten the cylinder head bolts.  recheck the timing belt pulley position

 

Don't do this.

 

Youd notice more issues than just running hot if it was a Cam timing issue.........

 

And retorquing heads with god knows how many 100k miles is not a good idea either..........big risk for the amount of work invovled to even get to the head bolts....a retorque could seal a small leak......or it could move the gasket and make it gush instead of seep.

 

 

To the OP....sounds like a combo of a cheapo thermostat (slow to open.....resticted flow).....and air in the system.

 

Park on a slope.....nose up......let it cool off......fill radiator, fill overflow.  Cap it and run it til its' warm........then let it cool off again til you can open it without steaming out.....then fill again.

[ivans imports]

I do retorque on ea82s when do a used engine install no problems yet and most of the time there are loose ones is worth doing but time consuming. My money is on plugged rad / headgaskets take the air out by cracking the thermo housing bolts and let bubbles flow out

[MilesFox]

fill the block thru the upper hose or the thermostat housing. sometimes if there is an air pocket, the radiator will geyser out the coolant as the air pocket tries to escape. from there, add coolant.

 

Be sure that an internal HG failure is not pushing combustion gasses into the cooling system forcing the coolant out.

 

I have resorted to filling the block from one of the heater hoses. IT might not be a bad idea to add a flushing port on the heater hose for fill/burp purposes.

 

Subarus always have been tricky to fill completely, often times holding the rpms past idle and babysitting it for 30 minutes as you slowly add coolant.

[jkinz]

Thanks for the replies!

 

The thermostat is from the dealer but I suppose it could still be sticking

 

I filled it as much as possible from the heater hose after back flushing several times, and had it parked on a hill, not SUPER steep but seemed enough, I'll try another hill. I think I took out the prestone flush tee, but I guess I'll try that for burping again.

 

been through 2 radiator caps, I started with the kind with a lever on top so I could park it on a hill and bleed out the air. seemed to work for a time but it was pretty crappy so I went to another which looks about as funky as all the rest I've seen but still appears to hold pressure.

 

I might try cracking the thermo housing and see how that works, maybe re seat the thermostat while I'm at it

 

It might be combustion gases from the head considering the odd noise, I always noticed a sort of "swooshing" sound from the cam pulley or somewhere behind it. I've had to take off the timing belts a few times, I wonder overtightening the belt at one point could have screwed up the bearings or alignment?

 

Thanks

[jkinz]

I think I found the problem. Air pocket definitely caused by combustion gases, coolant is being pushed out of system into overflow and smells strongly of gasoline....  time to pull the heads I guess. or try sodium silicate, has anyone had success using it on the ea82?

[mudduck]

I think I found the problem. Air pocket definitely caused by combustion gases, coolant is being pushed out of system into overflow and smells strongly of gasoline....  time to pull the heads I guess. or try sodium silicate, has anyone had success using it on the ea82?

Sounds like what mines was doing. Pushing coolant out of the system. And coolant smells of exhaust bad.  If your gonna fix it, do it right and replace the head gaskets, don't dump head gasket in a bottle crap in there.

[briankk]

I've had exactly this problem for some time.  I've replaced everything in the cooling system but the heater core, i.e., all the hoses the radiator (brand new) the cap, new from Soob, the t-stat, (twice), the coolant several times, and block seal... Nothing worked until I accidentally found a plastic elbow in the smog system totally blocked with goop, which I dug out with a pocket knife.  The ell is between the driver side PCV hose and the crankcase, has a small third leg off to the base of the EFI throat.  since cleaning that thing out, oil loss/leakage has near to stopped and the engine has quit using water, I don't have to top off the rad every morning and it runs nice and cool. 

temp ges about half way up in the morning, returns to normal level for the rest of the day.  Car makes boiling noises in the coolant tank when I shut down, but it always has.

 

This doesn't make much sense to me, but what the hell, it works.

 

 

 

428 thousand miles and counting...

[jkinz]

Someone mentioned that little ell hose was an issue and hard to get to, I'll check it out. I doubt that has been my problem but I might as well check every possible point of failure. I like this engine, even though it has been having trouble it still runs like a champ. Especially after I found and removed a severely kinked section of exhaust pipe after backing into some train tracks...  I had it parked but then had to use it due to other vehicle issues so I took a friend's advice and put a 3 gallon gas can under the hood and ran the radiator overflow into it. I removed the thermostat again because the air pocket was not allowing it to get up to temp at the right time. Now as I drive the coolant gets pushed into the gas can but the engine doesn't overheat, and when I shut it down the excess sucks back into the engine... Not very elegant but seems to be effective! At least for now.

[jkinz]

I'm hoping to bring this topic back up and maybe get some advice.. The car sat for quite a while after rigging it to run just enough to get done with school last may and after that my driving needs diminished. I pulled the engine and removed the heads to find that the culprit was indeed a blown head gasket pushing combustion gas from one cylinder into the cooling system. There is some very minor corrosion from coolant entering the cylinder but I'm not sure if it is really bad enough to matter. See attached photo. There is some white buildup in all the coolant journals but doesn't seem too bad either.

 

I cleaned and inspected the warpage on one head, and I could fit a .008 feeler gage under the straight edge between the combustion chambers. The manual says the tolerance is .005. I'll measure some more with a better straight edge to confirm. I see no evidence of leaking between cylinders though I do remember somewhat lower compression on one side of the engine so maybe they were.

 

The heads are cracked between the valve seats but I've noticed that is common.

 

so I have a few questions:

 

is the head warpage enough to warrant having them shaved or using different heads? I have three other engines of somewhat known condition that I could try to use heads from.

what is a good way to remove the gasket material? It's hard not to gouge the surface trying to remove the stuck gasket chunks and there is a black residue that sort of comes off with sandpaper but I don't like using it on machined aluminum surfaces.

 

I have the head gasket kit but don't want to just slap it back together and have problems I could maybe have avoided.

 

The engine ran surprisingly well despite all the issues, was run hot a few times but never really overheated. so if the only major problem was the head gasket in one spot, is it a terrible idea to just clean and reinstall? Or is the head warpage really an issue.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

[naru]

That head is quite warped.

The tolerance limit is .002(.05mm),not .005 inches.

[Gloyale]

Like naru said....it's .05mm limit

 

.008 is closer to .10mm

 

But the head can be ground .3mm so you should be able to surface those and use them.

 

Standard height is 90.6mm    so you can take them to 90.3mm.

 

They'd have to be cut several times to get to the limit.

[jkinz]

Thanks, I certainly misread the manual. I'll measure the height to see if they've been shaved before and I guess start pulling heads off the other engines to see their condition, or maybe drop a whole motor in for the time being and save the gasket kit for a later time...

 

I suppose I should be checking the block for cracks and warpage as well. Once you start machining surfaces are there any issues that will arise from the removed material? I know on engines with a timing chain this can be an issue, or the combustion chambers shrinking or other stuff.

[naru]

Not  issues if you stay within the machining limit,but,you will get a slight compression ratio increase and slightly retard the valve timing.

[jkinz]

OK! After much delay I have made progress on this engine. I didn't trust my measuring tools so I purchased a precision straight edge from McMaster-Carr that supposedly is straight to within .0005 inches which then should allow for measurements accurate to .001 inches. I cleaned the head a little better (that may also have been my problem), remeasured with the straight edge and the head appears to be warped by .002 inches or .05 mm, just at the max allowed.

 

normally I would just throw it back together but I read GeneralDisorder's thread on diy head surfacing  here which is excellect and extremely helpful. I've been trying to read up as much as I can on these forums but for some reason I have a lot of trouble finding the right threads and then when I do my head starts spinning with all the information, but it has been a great learning process. I have all the materials to perform the shaving process, but now I'm unsure if it will be necessary to do.

 

My question is, I assume the warpage is not as big a factor as I thought before, but I would still like to remove the indentations around the combustion chamber from the old head gasket and end up with something like in GD's post. However, Miles Fox has said that some concavity to the head is important because it flattens out when torqued down and this prevents the outer portions of the head from lifting up and I assume being more prone to leakage. Which is worse? not removing the indentations and having failure, or flattening the head out too much and having failure? or am I over thinking this.

 

also, is there any work that can be done to the block mating surface? I assume just cleaning it or is anything else recommended?

 

Thanks

Edited February 9, 2015 by jkinz

[nillvurt]

I know this is an old thread, but I am still curious how it all went. I am currently in the middle of doing the same thing, and had the same issues (coolant loss and exhaust gasses in the coolant, but nothing in the oil)

 

I have also been scouring the forum and finding all the awesome knowledge. My conclusion has been to take a pretty low key approach. I have not seen my heads yet, but I don't have a fancy straight edge to get that accurate anyway. So I will use the good old post apocalypse machining, thick glass and sandpaper. I am planning on scraping off the gasket from the block and possibly sanding that too (with glass). I want to lap the valves, change all the valve seals, check the lifters (or Hydraulic Lash Adjusters (HLAs)), change the cam tower o-ring, and put it all together. I will use hylomar universal blue on all the gaskets, since I have read good things about it. And Universal Grey RTV on the cam tower housing to head surface. 

 

According to my hero miles fox, it seems like these heads don't tend to warp (except turbo), and they don't really need to be machined. I think he actually said that the only one that leaked was one that was re-machined. Other people seem to swear by getting them resurfaced, and no one I have found has had bad experiences with the glass sandpaper method. The main thing seems to be to not nick the surfaces at all. And clean everything before putting it together, cover all the holes etc.

 

You've probably already found this thread, but it is good: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/126445-ea82-head-gasket-replacement-how-to/

 

I am real curious as to how it all went! I love my old gutless ea82 with 275K miles on it! It has always been weak and trusty and has not getting any weaker the 10 years I have owned it.

[Len Dawg]

Here's how my story went... still rolling at 287,000 miles i didnt have the option for glass and sand paper... I used a flat 1'x 2 1/2 inch board that over hung the width of the head using various grit paper..- if anything try to get what they call the "Fire ring out as much as possible-

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/155547-my-compression-test-resultsea82/?do=findComment&comment=1332752

Edited May 16, 2017 by Len Dawg

[DaveT]

Yes, when you begin sanding, you will see a mark from the fire ring. Sand until it dissappears. The hand sanding as described is resurfacing the heads.