Almijisti

Ok. Thanks!

Kinda figured this would happen. It won't overheat if you refilled the coolant and your leak is not external (which usually means fluid loss is more rapid). You will be burning coolant as it enters the cylinder and once you burn about a cup or more, it will start to overheat. Plus, I don't know where you are, but the ambient temp this time of year is pretty cold so your heater is on and the engine won't overheat as quickly anyway. A miss at overdrive by itself is not significant; it will throw a code only if the miss endangers the catalyst. That said, coolant in the cylinder will cause a miss and the overheating itself will affect everything about the operation of the cylinder. Another thing to check is see if the radiator hose (top) is very firm and full once engine is shut off--it might not even be warm to the touch. This would indicate exhaust gases are pressurizing the coolant system. Open the reservoir and see if it is overly full, as in way above the full mark. If it is bubbling while running, that is either gasket failure or bad thermostat. A more risky test is to touch the radiator cap when car is overheating; if it is not hot, then again, this means there is exhaust pressure in the coolant system, which can only be caused by a gasket failure. As I said before, a very easy check would be to start car cold with reservoir cap off and have someone look to see if it is bubbling. Bubbling while cranking or cold, as opposed to bubbling at operating temperature, afaik, can only be caused by head gasket failure. Yeah, you could have bad plug or coil, but that's an easy check with any of a number of tests, which you want to do anyway, of course. But finding fouled plugs or a bad coil (especially if coolant was spraying out from reservoir) would not prove that it isn't gasket failure as those can be caused by blown head gasket and coolant spray. If you pull the plugs that are missing and find coolant on them, or they appear super duper clean (or occasionally have whitish film) then you are likely getting coolant in the cylinder and you have a blown gasket. Again, a chem test is easy and if you don't do it yourself, it's still relatively cheap (the kit is about $40 and a shop will charge you not much more to do it, though they will probably want to do all sorts of other irrelevant tests). IMO you have a blown head gasket causing coolant to leak into the exhaust and vice versa (exhaust is going into coolant).

Curious about your outcome. My subaru (1997 2.5l DOHC) was overheating and missing as well, but did not have CEL because PO apparently disabled the light or it just went out. On Torque app, showed the miss. Started blowing white smoke after a flush, indicating coolant leak, though I am sure it was leaking prior to that as I had a couple random overheats prior to that. A slow leak will not show up as white smoke or be noticeable, especially in winter. After blowing smoke, it would not start, and I checked plugs only to find that there were drops of coolant on 1 and 3. Hoping it was not enough to cause hydrolock, I took off radiator cap and cranked engine, only to see puffs of steam/smoke come out of radiator. All together, this is a 100% internal blown head gasket, from coolant to exhaust. If it were just bubbling while running at op temperature, that could possibly be a bad thermostat, but to bubble while just cranking can only be a blown head gasket, afaik. Coolant in the cylinders would definitely cause missing in your case (did in mine) and possibly worse (pre ignition, detonations, worst case=hydrolock) So I would check that out. If your gaskets are blown, you'd be wasting your time doing timing belt stuff separately now as you will just have to take it all off again to replace the gaskets. I would be very careful, and if you are not getting exhaust or bubbling in radiator during crank, but only at op temperature, it could just be bad thermostat, but a chemical test at radiator is also pretty foolproof. Lack of cabin heat probably just indicates airlock in the heater core. Finally, if the coolant is occasionally blowing out of the reserve tank, that will spray onto other components, such as sensors, plug wires, ignition coil, etc.. I have been filling and burping constantly since things went bad, just to keep it running till I am able to get a space to work on the gaskets and do a total breakdown of at least the top end (plus I have to replace the Duty C solenoid as well). A fill and burp makes things look like everything is fine for a little while, but you will soon get a sudden overheat it will start to get worse and more frequent. If you do a flush and fill, chances are it will show up very much then, which was the case for me and also seems to be consistent with others' experience. While you may be able to deal with controlling the overheating through constant filling, if the failure gets worse, you will eventually get coolant in the crankcase, which will deteriorate the oil and lead to crankcase bearing failure, essentially totaling the car. Do yourself a favor and confirm whether gasket is failing or not asap.

Hi; my subby is at 192k and I'm about to embark on replacing the head gaskets (apparently second time, as previous owner had Felpros installed at some point). I assume they replaced the belt either at the 100k interval, or whenever they did the head gaskets. That said, it's almost time to replace the belt and idlers anyway, even if it were done before. I've been noticing a sound like a bad bearing or something from the front of the engine that eventually quiets down by warmup. Unfortunately, this is when the car starts to overheat (I have the exhaust-in-coolant variant of blown gasket). I have no reason to think the sound is a rod knock, and it's distinct from the Subaru Slap sound. It's possibly the alternator or a/c, of course and I will do the screwdriver sound test to be sure, but I am very worried about a bad idler bearing, which could cause the belt to give and total the engine. Anyway, I will do the timing belt since I pretty much have to, regardless. What I don't want to do is order one of those DIY timing kits and find that I got the wrong tensioner. My subby is 1997 2.5l DOHC and I believe they switched the tensioner in the middle of that year. It isn't clear to me whether there are two or three variations: the pulley-on-arm hydraulic tensioner (believe this is later); a bar shaped hydraulic tensioner (earlier); a single pulley thing (not sure if this was ever correct). When I look for the kits, all three come up as "Fits 1997 Subaru Legacy Outback 2.5l DOHC". Are they, in fact, interchangeable, and if not, how do I know before opening it up? Though I'm going to be in there anyway, I don't want to have to have things opened then wait for a week for one tensioner to arrive, nor do I want to pay for the wrong tensioner and have to deal with returning it or reselling it somewhere. My intention is to get in and out as quickly as I can as I have to rent a space to do the work. That, of course, depends on whether the heads need to be machined....So is there any way to tell which tensioner I need without removing the timing belt cover?