Coolant Leak! need advice and moral support

[1 Lucky Texan]

lower Dayco hose needed trimming, seems OK after 3 inches off 1 end, and about 3/4 inch from the other end. I was prepared for that, Gates was the same with a warning about cutting, but a review at Amazon seemed to indicate it still was kinked?  Top Dayco seemed like a perfect fit and has nice protective sleeve on it. They were easy enough to slip on. I used Gates constant pressure clamps. They have some kind of stack of dished washers that act as springs? (I think?). They don't seem to crawl backwards as you tighten them either.

Filled some thru the top hose, then rad and little turbo tank and put some xtra in the overflow. First run-up after that and it tried to overheat so I shut it down and let it sit overnight. Kinda expected there's be air. In the morning I added, dunno, maybe a 4th or 3rd of a gallon asit had pulled a lot in from the o'flow. Ran to temp, fans on, temp gauge good. Drove to work on Monday. Everything good today as well. I swear it's indicating lower temps. Probably changes slowly with age and the other one was getting less efficient?

 

thanx for the help guys!

[idosubaru]

8 hours ago, 1 Lucky Texan said:

lower Dayco hose needed trimming... I was prepared for that, Gates was the same with a warning about cutting, but a review at Amazon seemed to indicate it still was kinked?  Top Dayco seemed like a perfect fit and has nice protective sleeve on it.

Filled some thru the top hose, then rad and little turbo tank and put some xtra in the overflow. First run-up after that and it tried to overheat 

All common and normal.  They frequently need some added after the initial top off. It doesn't feel very good though seeing that needle creep up after all that work.  But it's common, just keep it topped off and watching the needle.  I've never had issues after the first drive or two, so you can relax very soon.  i've always wanted to cut open old radiators to see if they're "clogged", particularly cracked ones that were properly working before failure.  my kids are old enough now i can have them crack one open if i run across one. 

8 hours ago, 1 Lucky Texan said:

Everything good today as well. I swear it's indicating lower temps. Probably changes slowly with age and the other one was getting less efficient?

I've been suspicious of that before as well.  I think it can be perception, an artifact of looking more closely than normal, and some lag caused by radiator cooling capacity impacting the t-stat to temp sensor response time, like data lag sort of. 

The cluster temp sender is a separate system and in a different location that the temp controlling t-stat. So a fresh radiator would feed cooler coolant to the temp sender, for the same flow rate and heat load of the engine, through the tstat.  That should also cause lower internal engine temps, for the same heat load, and a commensurate response from the stat, ending up in an overall similar steady state temperature that was previously seen.

I wouldn't expect much difference, but maybe it's enough to be perceptible. 

All that to say - I've suspected before as well.  There is some room for conceivable variance.  But I'd also take the time to ask about the thermostat. 

How old is the thermostat? 

They very rarely fail and the ones that I've seen have all come from overheated engines, engines that have sat for extended periods, or were drained of coolant for awhile. And a couple of them had large crusty build up on them, indicative of sitting or overheating.  it's just a mechanical part so they can fail but I think well maintained, never (significantly) overheated, proper coolant maintained, vehicles are far less likely to have tstat issues.  I think yours just overheated once and mildly?

When I've boiled failed tstats - I think all of them have opened, just not enough, so it's not a typical binary on/off failure, they can open but are stuck or caught in a groove so to speak, etc.  Is it possible for one to stick "too far open", say from a settling into a decade+ and 80k miles of use?  

You could plug in and see what your engine temps are, though you may not have any pre-work numbers to compare it too. 

Edited June 3, 2020 by idosubaru

[carfreak85]

I'd be surprised if your running more than a few degrees cooler, only because the factory coolant temperature gauge is basically a three position pointer.  The needle will sit in the middle of the gauge for a much wider range of temperatures compared to the lower 1/3 and upper 1/3 of the gauge.

The coolant temp gauge on my 1987 Toyota Tercel has no filter on the circuit and you can see the needle rise a bit when stopped at a light, and fall when the fans come on or the thermostat opens.  This sort of movement scares people, so manufacturers started building temp gauges that were more sloth like to prevent scared drivers.

[forester2002s]

42 minutes ago, carfreak85 said:

This sort of movement scares people, so manufacturers started building temp gauges that were more sloth like to prevent scared drivers.

On my 2017 Forester, the Subaru designers have taken this to the extreme: there's no temperature gauge at all!!

[GeneralDisorder]

2 hours ago, forester2002s said:

On my 2017 Forester, the Subaru designers have taken this to the extreme: there's no temperature gauge at all!!

It's really not that "extreme". Many GM products from the 80's had similar setups. 

For the average consumer, they don't need to know what the exact temp is - giving them more information just turns into a customer service nightmare. We see this with AccessPort's on turbo models. Give the STI owner that barely knows how to drive an STI properly a bunch of internal ECU information and watch them freak out because they see some number change and they googled it and the interwebs told them their engine was going to blow up. 

GD

[1 Lucky Texan]

I briefly considered changing the stat but, it seems failure is quite rare and, though 14 years old, it has under 80 K miles. I'm comfortable with it until the next time I change fluid or am into the system for a repair.

 

The know car is gonna need some tlc soon, I love driving it but I know it's going to need some stuff I will likely hire done. $$$, nervous about finding a shop to work on it that's nearby and trustworthy. Eh, maybe spend my stimulus money on it or first coupla Soc Sec checks next year lol!

 

lets see; clutch, plugs, TGV delete, air cut block-off plates, killerB oil pickup,heavier rear sway bar, MC brace, TUNE! hah!

[1 Lucky Texan]

12 hours ago, carfreak85 said:

I'd be surprised if your running more than a few degrees cooler, only because the factory coolant temperature gauge is basically a three position pointer.  The needle will sit in the middle of the gauge for a much wider range of temperatures compared to the lower 1/3 and upper 1/3 of the gauge.

The coolant temp gauge on my 1987 Toyota Tercel has no filter on the circuit and you can see the needle rise a bit when stopped at a light, and fall when the fans come on or the thermostat opens.  This sort of movement scares people, so manufacturers started building temp gauges that were more sloth like to prevent scared drivers.

 yeah, IF it's cooler, it's subtle and certainly only a few degrees. No sign of leaks and seems like everything is good.

[CNY_Dave]

Thermostat failed on my Forester at about 200k miles.

 

[1 Lucky Texan]

my wrx has under 80K miles.