Doing '01 H6 head gaskets, parts advice appreciated

[jonathan909]

I thought I was going to do this in the car, but a single stripped timing cover screw convinced me to pull the damn thing.

(GD:  Yes, I know.  Don't have either the time or money for that option at present.)

Looking to Rock for parts, I would normally get the Mahle MLM gaskets because I've had good luck with them so far, and the price is good at $42 (CAD) each.  But I expect I'll need others - one of the spark plug seals has already broken on me, so all the rubber is probably crispy.  Unfortunately, I don't know enough at this point to a la carte the gaskets (as I would with an H4), and Mahle doesn't have a full kit.  There are full kits (though expensive - triple the price of the head gaskets alone) from Victor Reinz, Ultra Power, Apex, and Fel Pro.  I don't think I can trust Fel Pro and don't know much/anything about the others.  Can anyone offer a recommendation?  I'd lean toward the Reinz kit unless someone has had bad luck with their HGs.

Also, what's the best online choice for Subaru parts?  The final chapter in my trilogy of overheatings last summer was the  hard pipe from the thermostat housing to the heater rusting through, so I need to replace it.  And now that I have the intake off, I see that the crossover pipe is the same (no longer cast Al), and there's another one up there too, so I figure I'd better replace the lot.  I'd like to get an idea what these are worth.  Gotta get all these parts en route ASAFP.

[edit]

Or maybe I buy the Mahle HGs and the Fel Pro ($105 CAD) or Ultra Power ($120 CAD) kit and just not use the HGs in the kits...

[another damn edit]

And since it's my first time into one of these engines, is there anything else I should be watching for, any known gotchas??

Edited July 31, 2022 by jonathan909

[1 Lucky Texan]

check here; https://www.subaruoutback.org/forums/subaruonlineparts-com.121/

dunno about Canadian shipping, but they have offered a 'member discount' over there on occasion.

[jonathan909]

Thanks - I think that (subaruonlineparts.com) was one that I was looking at earlier, though it's confusing because - unless I was going in circles - there are a bunch that look the same.

Is it unreasonable to think that the catalog should be comprehensive?  Because I'm only able to find one of the three pipes in there (Return Pipe 14165AA014).

The shipping is kind of a secondary consideration.  At the moment I just want to ID the three parts and get a rough costing to see whether the local dealer's pricing is reasonable.

Edited August 1, 2022 by jonathan909

[laegion]

I always use parts.subaru.com, the URL changes once you've picked a local or maybe not local dealership through the main site. However, they don't seem to list canadian dealers; so I'd probably use your local dealers website.

I honestly don't know that I'd go aftermarket for something like HG...but I haven't yet done a HG job on my ez30d...I just swapped in a JDM motor instead.

Edited August 1, 2022 by laegion

[heartless]

18 hours ago, jonathan909 said:

The final chapter in my trilogy of overheatings last summer was the  hard pipe from the thermostat housing to the heater rusting through, so I need to replace it. 

finding the correct line can be a challenge,... they are not all listed on the same diagrams...

look for "water pipe" under "cooling system" for the one on top of the block..... and the one at the front, that runs vertical, is listed with the water pump... (i think this is the one you are looking for?)

[idosubaru]

I resurface the heads myself and H6s have always had more high and low spots than H4s.

The hardest parts to get right are all the timing cover orings.

check valve clearance. I grind the shims to adjust clearance and put the ground side facing down so it doesn’t matter. No way I’m playing that shim swap measurement song and dance.

Theres no big gotchas. It’s like an H4 but larger, heavier, more parts and therefore more cumbersome all around. The upper forward corners of the timing cover/valve cover interface have a funny bracket that kind of “goes one way” to get off and back on but it’s easy once you look at it and it’s a really small minor part. You likely wouldn’t have noticed even.

[jonathan909]

1 hour ago, heartless said:

finding the correct line can be a challenge,... they are not all listed on the same diagrams...

look for "water pipe" under "cooling system" for the one on top of the block..... and the one at the front, that runs vertical, is listed with the water pump... (i think this is the one you are looking for?)

Their drawings are better, but still wonky - I thought I had one of the pipes but it's showing me a hose clamp.  Hoping the dealer is open today (local holiday) so I can talk to them.  I think I've sorted out one bit of confusion, though:  Only two pipes, not three.  The third one is actually an oil crossover pipe.  Weird.

[heartless]

yeah, it can be fun trying to decipher some of those drawings, lol  had a similar problem when trying to track down the one i needed a while back for the 02 Forester i had.

dont forget to get intake gaskets, o-rings, or whatever else you may need to do the job.

 

[jonathan909]

The intake/exhaust and those other loose ends should be in the Fel-Pro kit.  Hope so, anyway, now that I see how many stupid O-rings are on the back of the timing cover...

[jonathan909]

Okay, so dealer confirmed the part numbers on both of those coolant pipes, and the easy one (return - the one that goes down to the thermostat housing) is available.  But they say there are no crossover pipes in Subaru inventory in North America.  Since that's the inaccessible one once the motor's back together, I'm acutely concerned about it.  A quick search by part number shows it listed by a lot of online parts vendors, but I don't know where to start with those guys. 

I'm assuming I'll be dealing with the simplest shipping case (i.e. to my MT mailbox), so shipping to Upper Soviet Canuckistan isn't a consideration.  Can anyone recommend any online sellers in particular for high probability they have what they say and low bullsh!t?

[heartless]

have had good luck with subarupartwholesale.com out of Libertyville IL

even spoke with them on the phone - very helpful and shipping was done pretty quickly

[Stelcom66]

Sorry to post on your thread jonathan. I wish you luck in the project, and respect anyone who takes on the challenge of especially a headgasket replacement, especially on the H6. Worth doing IMO, I had a 2002 H4 Outback that I miss. Rare to find a vehicle with cloth heated seats.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Stelcom66

[jonathan909]

No sweat.  We - briefly - had an '02 Forester as well.  After a deer strike took out our first one ('99), I got the '02 from a local country junkyard for $500.  Came with barsted motor.  Replacement motor cost another $500, then I put two months worth of work into readying it for an out-of-province inspection, which is much more rigorous than the normal insurance inspection.  Passed it.  Drove it for two months.  Then another fscking deer.  So now we have an '01.  I'm not crazy about the Foresters anyway, but my girls like it.

Back to the '01 H6, though:  The body barely casts a shadow, but it's the VDC model, and the McIntosh stereo is sweeeeeeet, so it's worth putting the effort and a few bucks into.  Glad I pulled the motor, though.  Now that the head is off I can see how much more of a bear it would have been to wrestle in-car.

[Stelcom66]

Holy smokes, 2 deer and 3 Foresters! Sorry to hear. When my sons lived here two of them had Subarus. Like one of mine, two had the 2.2L so no engine troubles.

Great you've got the motor out. Yes the car and the engine are worth putting time, effort and money into. I'd think 3,0s will be desirable given there is no longer an H6 made. (I believe) I wonder how the 2.4L turbo will hold out. Speaking of radios... that McIntosh has got to be great. My '02 Outback had a CD player, and cassette player... and a weather band on the radio, 162.475 or 162.55 is what I'd use. Best of luck with the project. Having a 3.0 HG with new head gaskets will be sweet.

 

[jonathan909]

On 8/1/2022 at 8:20 AM, idosubaru said:

I resurface the heads myself and H6s have always had more high and low spots than H4s.

I have one head off and sorta cleaned up, and it seems pretty flat to me - I have a good machinist's rule (though it's only 12") and I can't get a .0015" feeler gauge in there anywhere.  Unless someone smarter than me thinks I'd be an idiot to do so, I'm thinking that I may put this together without milling the heads - though they might get a pass over the emery board.

[heartless]

2 hours ago, Stelcom66 said:

had? The blue one?

yes, had (the one in my avatar).. it has since gone on to another home, and yes, it was up there in mileage. Now driving an 04 Forester, silver in color

38 minutes ago, jonathan909 said:

though they might get a pass over the emery board.

thinking that would be a good idea, just to make sure.

and if i recall correctly, it is also recommended to chase the threads in the block, and thoroughly clean the bolts...

never done a head job myself, but i do read a lot. lol

[idosubaru]

17 hours ago, jonathan909 said:

I have one head off and sorta cleaned up, and it seems pretty flat to me - I have a good machinist's rule (though it's only 12") and I can't get a .0015" feeler gauge in there anywhere.  Unless someone smarter than me thinks I'd be an idiot to do so, I'm thinking that I may put this together without milling the heads - though they might get a pass over the emery board.

Stats are in your favor to skip it - Subaru doesn't routinely resurface and they have a low failure rate on replacements. Flatness is 1970's shop talk. Resurface for proper Ra/RMS for aluminum and MLS gaskets which are less forgiving as noted by their tighter surface finish spec's.

[jonathan909]

9 hours ago, idosubaru said:

Resurface for proper Ra/RMS for aluminum and MLS gaskets which are less forgiving as noted by their tighter surface finish spec's.

Interesting - I've never had a reason to learn about roughness and its measurement (and I think this is the first time I've run into RMS used outside of an electrical/electronic/acoustic context).  I would guess that there are probably relatively low-cost optical profilometers out there these days - or is this measurement capability still a pretty badass thing?

Btw, spent three hours in the yard today fetching that set of three (including the one to the oil cooler) coolant hard pipes.  Having to pull the manifold for the crossover tube was bad enough, but the heater return tube was trapped behind a pinch point between the head and the frame, so the engine needed a little lifting to squeeze it out.  But I got 'em...

Edited August 4, 2022 by jonathan909

[1 Lucky Texan]

rugosity and maybe tribology are related to 'surface finish' and in some applications are very important.

[jonathan909]

14 hours ago, 1 Lucky Texan said:

rugosity and maybe tribology are related to 'surface finish' and in some applications are very important.

This is why my favourite thing in life is hanging around people smarter than me.

Tribology is certainly relevant - and a tractable problem, because it relies as much on empirical data as theoretical, and probably moreso.

Rugosity probably less relevant, but kinda more interesting, because it looks like a maddeningly difficult problem to tackle.  I really want to dig into the etymology, because it sure sounds like a rug is a perfect example of the problem:  We know what the area of the rug is.  What is the surface area of all of the rug's fibers?

(Back to the problem at hand, though:  Started bolting the 3.0 back together tonight, and without doing much to one of the heads - we did a careful cleaning before maybe ten minutes on the emery board, and it handily meets the .002" flatness (warp) spec.  A couple of the intake valve clearances were a teentsy bit over, but not enough for me to want to start screwing with the lot.  We'll move on to the other head tomorrow morning.  Oh - one other thing.  I thought it was a good sign that the Mahle head gaskets listed the COO as Japan, but it's better than that.  They have the Fuji Heavy Industries logo on them.)

Edited August 5, 2022 by jonathan909

[idosubaru]

11 hours ago, jonathan909 said:

A couple of the intake valve clearances were a teentsy bit over, but not enough for me to want to start screwing with the lot.  We'll move on to the other head tomorrow morning.  Oh - one other thing.  I thought it was a good sign that the Mahle head gaskets listed the COO as Japan, but it's better than that.  They have the Fuji Heavy Industries logo on them.)

Where they all on one side or all front or all rear?  I almost never see intake valves out, they don't deteriorate fast at all and safely assumed to last the life of the engine, so I wouldn't worry about those either. 

[jonathan909]

46 minutes ago, idosubaru said:

Where they all on one side or all front or all rear?  I almost never see intake valves out, they don't deteriorate fast at all and safely assumed to last the life of the engine, so I wouldn't worry about those either. 

One valve in each of two (of the three) cylinders on one side, and less than a thou over, so leaving it alone felt like a pretty safe bet.

[idosubaru]

21 hours ago, jonathan909 said:

One valve in each of two (of the three) cylinders on one side, and less than a thou over, so leaving it alone felt like a pretty safe bet.

Interesting. Was just curious as a data point if there was a “pattern”. Same side is interesting, youre right, on a Subaru valve risk is about zero here. 

[jonathan909]

On 8/1/2022 at 8:20 AM, idosubaru said:

The hardest parts to get right are all the timing cover orings.

Theres no big gotchas. It’s like an H4 but larger, heavier, more parts and therefore more cumbersome all around. The upper forward corners of the timing cover/valve cover interface have a funny bracket that kind of “goes one way” to get off and back on but it’s easy once you look at it and it’s a really small minor part. You likely wouldn’t have noticed even.

As they say out east, Lord Tunderin' Christ.  I get now why GD says "replace it".  All the time and effort is in the timing cover.  Comes apart pretty fast if you don't have any stripped screws, but with 60 right out there, facing the elements, there are going to be bad ones.  Putting it back together?  Now you're talking about 150 screws, a dozen different lengths, locations important, every one of which has to be torqued.  And taking apart both the water and oil pumps.  And two long beads of RTV to seal the cover.  The chains themselves weren't hard, but it took a little searching and a couple of tries to get it right - you have to line up the coloured ID links.  Add the time to clean the front and back covers and all the bits, and the timing cover alone is a full day's work.

[edit]

I was going to mention the O-rings.  Those weren't a problem at all - since I've been turned on to Molykote, it's the perfect stickum to keep them in place while bolting up the back half of the cover.

Edited August 7, 2022 by jonathan909

[lmdew]

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