My 1993 Legacy 2.2L is overheating. Probably for the past year or so when I came to a stop or the car was at idle the heater would turn from hot to cold air. Four months ago the car started overheating bad I took it in to some good subaru guys I know and they said it was head gaskets for sure. I changed the head gaskets and had the heads decked. It has run fine for the past four months until a few days ago it started to overheat again. In the past few weeks I had noticed the temp. gauge would start to quickly go toward hot, but then it would dart back down (I assume when the t-stat would open) to normal temp. I changed the t-stat, water pump, and threw on a new timing belt for kicks, and it still is overheating. The top hose will bloat and be super hot and the cap on the right side won't even be hot? I'll take the cap off to see if the fluid is circulating and it isn't? I'll run the engine and it just gets hot and starts to steam and bubbles every once and a while? Is it head gasket again? I did see some water coming out of the tail pipe - is this a tail tail sign of another blown head gasket????????

Are you able to get hot air out of the vents? At first it sounded like tell tale signs of a heater core stopped up. First thing I would do would be to replace the radiator cap. My brat did some goofy things with a bad radiator cap.

I'm able to get hot air out of the vents intermittently. I'm trying to find out some kind of pattern or logic to this whole thing but have been pretty unsuccessful so far. I guess heater core could be an option?

Also could be a clogged radiator, and there alot easier to change then a heater core.

Old ej22 with a bad head gasket, sounds kinda unlikely. Do a block test to see if exhaust gases are getting in the coolant.

 

Do the fans work?

Sounds like a bad HG again. Where did you source the HG's from?

 

 

Was the engine ever severly overheated?

 

 

nipper

Interesting. My old 93 legacy N/A had 330k + and it was overheated many times when the waterpump was leaking like hit H and engine started bogging. For a good week drove like that. Then put stop leak in that car, clogged up the entire system and still kept driving overheating. Then eventually got the pump, and belt replaced, and just flushed everything else. 3+years driving 250 to the 330k NO issues with overheating never touched anything had original rad cap, thermostat etc.

 

I would suspect a bad rad though with your car. The cores could clog and when a couple cores clog I don't think it is that easy to unclog. I would just get a used rad to test things.

 

I would suspect a bad rad though with your car. The cores could clog and when a couple cores clog I don't think it is that easy to unclog. I would just get a used rad to test things.

 

 

there is another way they go bad, they fall apart.

 

Do a physical inspection of the part of the Rad that you can't see. Make sure it hasnt lost any cooling fins.

 

nipper

I know you said you replaced your T-stat... you might want to check it again, it sounds like you either put it in backwards or the t-stat is stuck shut.

 

Yes it is possible for a T-stat to stick shut, I've seen it many times.

Yes both fans do work. Is there an easy way to check and see if the radiator is clogged?

When my radiator clogged up, diagnosing was as simple as draining it, removing it, flipping it upside down, and shaking it gently. Got a chunk of mineral deposits out the size of my thumb, plus a lot of smaller pieces.

 

Mind you, this is after the garage I bought the OBW from swapped two engines, plus a lot of extraneous work on anything cooling related.

 

The radiator fins looked fine... no corrosion. It was just clogged up, bad.

My opinion is a bad head gasket. Yes, the 2.5 is notorious for bad HG, but I am not forgetting the 91 Leggie with the 2.2, that I owned that developed a bad HG.

ther are 3 or 4 2.2L cars, 90 - 95? with bad head gaskets for sale on craigslist right now, in VA, MD, NC, maybe as many as 6. some with 200k and some with 125k miles.

 

of course i only have the sellers word for bad head gaskets. it wouldn't surprise me to learn that some overheating 2.2s actually have a clog radiator but are diagnosed with HGs because of all of the 2.5 problems. but i'm not going to buy one just to find out and i bet most if not all are bad HGs.