GL fluids consumption & hot operating diagnosis - ayiyiy

[josolong]

hey guys. i've been having some issues for a while now, and i haven't had any money to address them so the car has been doing it's good part to hold itself together for me in the meanwhile, but now seems like the time to really take a look at them.

 

i have issues with running hot, burning a lot of oil and occasionally coolant, though at this point they are not mixing with each other in either reservoir. when i start up i have straight drops of water coming out the tailpipe and after it's hot it turns into sweet steam. i've had to start running the blower on 4 to keep it from running too hot while i'm driving, but once the heater is blowing the temperature stays right where i want it to. i also don't always have to blow the heater, but it really helps when it's hot out or for going up hills. sometimes in fact it seems to be running just fine, tho this is certainly the exception rather than the norm as time goes on. gaskets?

 

i took a trip a few days ago from seattle over the curtain and drove around eastern wa for a good five hundred miles at least and over a few passes with no catastrophic results so far. this car is tough! i kept her filled with oil and coolant and left the blower on.

 

when i take a moderate left at highway speeds i also get a plume of white smoke out the back that lasts a couple seconds. i figure that this indicates what side the leak is on, but that's as far as i've got. 

 

it's never gone into the red on the thermo but it gets a good 2/3 of the way up the gauge if i don't turn on the heater and that makes me sweat.

 

car is an 87 gl 5 sp weberized

 

i want to know if this fits any picture of any particular pattern of wear.

 

thanks for your help!

Edited July 1, 2014 by josolong

[wagondragon]

Could be a cracked head, ive had issues with those... the hot gases from the combustion chamber leak into the water jacket making it run hot. Or maybe blocked radiator section / bad fan.  But since your burning fluids i have a feeling its cylinder head related.

[josolong]

yeah. i'm thinking heads too. but do you think it's cracked if it still gets up and goes whenever i need? i suspect it's been an issue since winter even but that the temps weren't an issue in the colder weather. i've put at least 5k miles on since it began to drink coolant noticeably.

 

 

would anyone think torquing the heads at this late stage is a good idea or would that make a testy situation worse? what about blue devil for a quick fix? i don't really have anywhere to pull the engine or do any other sort of serious work and taking it to a garage is pretty much off the table.

[wagondragon]

well from personal experience you can run heads with them cracked. Ive heard that quite a few heads are cracked to some degree. It all depends on the seriousness of the crack. IF it is cracked, tightening it would do no good. Because the cracks are not around the gasket seal. They form next to the valves. From what ive seen there is no way of fixing heads with cracks. you either have to replace them or live with them.

[Uncle Ed]

You say your car has a weber carb on it! I'd almost be willing to bet you money that the gasket under carb is leaking coolant into the intake. Thats why your getting your white cloud when you make that turn. If your thinking it's a cracked head or blown HG, then find someone (radator shop) to do a block test for exhaust gasses in the cooling system. Normally If it's a head or HG, then you'll hear a gurgling from the air in the heater core at start up also. The other places that like to leak are the intake mounting gaskets, where it bolts to the heads.

 

Ed

[josolong]

forgot to say i have gases in the cooling system for sure. before i was staying on top of it i would let it run low and get gurgling from the core. but since then i've burped it and keep the coolant topped off at the reservoir. thats why i suspected head stuff originally.

 

i know that the carb isn't attached that well. just after i bought it i noticed that a few of the nuts were loose connecting it to the the adapter (or connecting the adapter to the intake, or all of the nuts were loose.). since then i took some ether to it and sprayed around to find leaks, torqued it down some (but not at all in a job well done sort of way). what i'm wondering now, is it possible that as the carb sucked in coolant, the radiator was drawing in air through the reservoir (which was not being kept topped up) and introducing bubbles into the cooling system?

 

it's a far and optimistic reach, especially since i still have overheating issues. but it would be nice for it to only be the carb gasket instead of carb and heads.

[wagondragon]

Well, having an intake leak is no good... if you are getting too much air into the system it can cause it to run hot. But to what extent i do not know.

 

Any air that was introduced into the coolant system should be pumped out if your topping off the fluids.

 

On the original carb there was a port for the hot radiator fluid from a hole in the intake to heat the carb so it would preform better in cold conditions. The weber does not have the same port. so you just end up blocking it with your gasket, and stopping the flow from getting to the hole in the intake. Getting back to the main point... if that hole was not plugged, and all that stands in the way of the coolant from getting into the intake is the gasket from the weber, and that gasket was not properly tightened.... you could be sucking in fluid right through that hole. If i were you i would do a more permanent fix of that gasket, and make sure you do not have any other form of intake leak.

[josolong]

this is really good info. thanks buds! i'll crack that open when i have time and see what i can see.

 

 

this is a picture from when the weber was gettin put on, before i owned it

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/139592-just-picked-up-my-first-dual-range-suby/page-2

After
taking off the carb I noticed no coolant in the overflow... Took the
rad cap off bunch of white crap in there. And this starting flowing out
on the intake Mani..



That is not normal ....

 

 

not sure yet on what's sealing that up currently but i'll know soon. can i just stick some jb weld down there or is there a better solution?

[wagondragon]

I wonder if the previous owner fixed the radiator being cracked, as he was talking about in that post. Are you in contact with the previous owner? you might get allot of good info from him. 

 

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/71510-ideas-on-swaping-a-weber-carb-on-ea82%C2%B4s/?do=findComment&comment=1027134

 

This is an excellent write up on webers, you can see what he did with his intake there. But its also just a good read for knowing how your system works, and making sure its all set up correctly.