sedanlegacygt Posted March 5, 2005 Share Posted March 5, 2005 Could someone please help me. I have a 98 Legacy sedan GT. The main pulley has started to slip off the harmonic balancer, so I replaced it. On the test drive it overheated and that's when the fun began. I pulled off the front engine cover and there was no damage. Put on new thermostat. Radiator is only 3k miles old. New timing blet and tensioner from previous repair. I know about the famous head gaskets, but the car doesn't smoke, no oil in coolant or coolant in oil, and no coolant leaks. The weird thing is the car will run at idle for hours with no problems. It will even drive for a few miles before overheating. I am stumped. Could it still be the head gasket or is there something I missed. Has anyone else had this problem? Please Help me. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dude Posted March 5, 2005 Share Posted March 5, 2005 Is the cooling fan coming on? You might try backflushing the radiator, changing the thermostat, and radiator cap. And of course, make sure the cooling system is free from air. However, you do have the infamous 2.5L DOHC Phase I engine, so a blown head gasket is a real and ugly possibility. Do a search on head gasket failures. Run the car up to operating temperature and look for bubbles in the expansion tank. You might consider having the radiator "sniffed" for exhaust gases before you put a whole lot more time and money into this problem. Often you will not see cross-contaminated fluids with a Phase I HG failure. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HobbyWrench Posted March 5, 2005 Share Posted March 5, 2005 I experienced the same symptoms with my '90 Legacy EJ22 - normal temperatures idling in the driveway but pegging the temperature gauge at "H" after only 5-10 mins down the road. (I was lucky because this problem first reared its ugly head a couple of miles from home, shortly after a couple of 1000+ mile trips!) Doing an Internet/thread search at this and other websites, others who had this same symptom with an older Legacy as mine fixed this via the dreaded headgasket replacement. I'm currently working on this at a slow pace in my garage - it's unheated, but the temperature is slowing heating up in Chicagoland! If you plan to do it yourself, I followed others' advice and went to https://www.1stsubaruparts.com/partscat.html for parts. The prices and service are great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sedanlegacygt Posted March 5, 2005 Author Share Posted March 5, 2005 I do have the DOHC 2.5. But how do you know if it's a phase I? Another question while I'm at it. If I'm going to dump all this money into it, can you swap a 2.5 turbo from an 05 Legacy and if so, does it bolt right in or is it a painstaking process. I'm considering the swap because my 98 only has 83k miles and has had more than it's share of expensive problems, but I love smoking the hondas with the fart bomb mufflers on them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmix99 Posted March 6, 2005 Share Posted March 6, 2005 If the crank pulley is coming off, you need to put Loctite on the crank pulley bolt and tighten it to 120 ft-lbs. My friend had a similar problem with his 2.5L overheating. Turned out when he replaced the timing belt, he lined it back up slightly off, by one tooth, thus causing all the weird overheating problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmix99 Posted March 6, 2005 Share Posted March 6, 2005 "The main pulley has started to slip off the harmonic balancer, so I replaced it. " Oppps, I didn't read you correctly. Forget my comment about the Loctite. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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