Symptoms of radiator malfunction

[ThosL]

What are the symptoms of the radiator not working?  After using some of the head gasket seal products, I ran a gallon of wine vinegar through it to boil out what may clog it.  Someone said the radiator may be impaired; what would be the symptoms of that?

[pnwoutback08]

The products you mentioned are only for short term fixes and never intended for a repair, they basically act like glue and to expand and fill the gaps. The symptoms of a bad or poorly flowing radiator, open the cap and run the engine if you cannot see the flow after it heats up or feel the lower hose that should be warm to eventually hot your either: thermostat of bad and does not open, the engine over heats or heats slowly, radiator passages are clogged. Head gasket leaks can be seen around the head or milky looking or dark coolant in reservoir. If the head and timing, belts, water pump have not been replaced and redone especially on a 2.2/2.5 is time to be done before your damage the entire engine.

Edited September 25, 2015 by pnwoutback08

[lstevens76]

Thosl I thought you had replaced your radiator?  Symptoms would be getting warm/potentially overheating at an idle or stop and go traffic.  You will also typically run higher than normal temps, since water isn't flowing correctly.  The symptoms will be very close to both the common 2.2L head gasket symptoms, faulty thermostat symptoms, and faulty water pump symptoms.  

 

The only way to be 100% sure that is the problem is to have the radiator flow tested.  Here it can be done for around $20, but it varies by area.  

 

Now:

 

Ok, let's correct something here.  The HG Repair products are commonly a form of liquid glass.  They don't act like glue, they coat the entire inside of the engine, radiator, etc... 

 

And in our cars, as most people on here already know, a leaky head gasket can be a simple drip on the floor of coolant or oil or it can be compression gasses (bubbles) into the radiator.  It's a lot rarer for a Subaru to change the color of the oil or coolant.

[idosubaru]

engine running hotter than normal - particularly under certain conditions.

[Rooster2]

I have never read, or heard of anyone having success using quick fix head gasket pour in products. They just don't work on Subarus, like they can work on a Chevy or Ford. I don't think using wine vinegar as a radiator "boil out," will do much of anything. Years back, I had a radiator shop boil out my much neglected radiator. Don't know how, or what process they used, but by what you could smell in the work area, the strong chemicals they used didn't smell anything like vinegar.

 

All the above advise responses from others are absolutely correct.

 

If your over heating problem happens with the temp gauge needle quickly moving from normal to HOT in a hurry, and you see bubbles in the radiator over flow container, when getting hot, and engine is at idle, then it is highly likely that you have a blown head gasket causing the over heating problem. This is likely on 96-99 models with the 2.5 motor. However, it can happen on the 90-95 models with the 2.2 motor, but not nearly as likely. From personal experience, I had a 1991 Leggie with the 2.2 motor that blew a head gasket.

[ThosL]

Car is actually running well with the assumed bad head gaskets due to occasional bubbles in radiator overflow.  I replaced radiator last fall with a new one, water pump was replaced by a shop then too.  I am running it without thermostat though with attendant issues but no performance issues at this point except that sometimes the heater is not throwing heat which is due to water not flowing through there.  Car is not overheating.

[lstevens76]

If you don't have water flowing through the the heater core then you have a lot of air in the system.  Are you 100% sure the system was fully bled of all air?

 

And the head gasket fixes seldom work on any vehicle with a compression gas into coolant problem.  The issue is that the head gasket fixes need to be able to access the problem and if the compression gases are going outwards than the coolant never flows over that point with the fix in it.

 

If the system is burning coolant then you have a better chance of fixing it or if it's mixing w/ oil since the fluids will get to the point where the leak is at.

[Rooster2]

Car is actually running well with the assumed bad head gaskets due to occasional bubbles in radiator overflow.  I replaced radiator last fall with a new one, water pump was replaced by a shop then too.  I am running it without thermostat though with attendant issues but no performance issues at this point except that sometimes the heater is not throwing heat which is due to water not flowing through there.  Car is not overheating.

Well with this description, it is evident that you have bad head gaskets. Proof is in the bubbles in the rad over flow container. With a new radiator, I doubt there is a blockage there, unless you terribly over dosed the cooling system with head gasket additive to the cooling system. The over dose can also plug up your heater core, so heat output is reduced. Your description of the heater not throwing heat consistently is another sign that the bad head gasket is permitting exhaust gas to be pumped into the cooling system. Yea, I have heard of removing the thermostat to reduce over heating. Guess that can work for a while, but in the long run, if it results in more over heating, the life of your motor will be less. Replacing the head gaskets is what needs to be done.

[lstevens76]

Unless he is 100% sure he completely bled the air out of the system I won't say one way or the other. Its way too common for people to not get the air bled out.

[porcupine73]

Or to word things another way ... I don't think bubbles in the overflow would ever be a symptom of a radiator malfunction.

 

You said sometimes the heater is not throwing heat. It's possible there's flow through the heater core just that with no thermostat she's probably running a lot cooler than normal even if the temp gauge seems to be reading about normal especially for short trips where it's not hot outside. I've noticed with a scangauge that until the water temp gets above around 140-150F it doesn't really feel like heat though it will be a bit warm. But then again if you're getting bubbles in the overflow then you actually might not be getting any flow through the core.

[ThosL]

The reason I started this thread was because the part-time mechanic and car flipper who I met at Auto Zone last week said that if you use those head gasket stop leak products more than once you must have clogged the radiator, so I was going on his thought that the radiator was bad, I could get a used one at the local junkyard for around $75.  I don't think that is the problem.  '99 Outback with compromised head gaskets in a transplant 2.2 engine with over 200K miles, the car has around 300K miles.  Getting a replacement 2.2 in with about 175k miles for $1300 installed may be an option.  I see much better Subarus on CL under $2k recent HG.  In the meantime without the thermostat I am getting the water loss at a much lesser rate than with the thermostat.   

[DaveT]

My experience is with the older Subaru engines. You can run with the slow leak bad headgaskets for a while. But watch the coolant every day, or even every drive. It will get worse sooner or later. It's time to reseal an engine and swap it in, or find a useable one..