1991 Legacy, AWD non turbo, automatic 230000 miles with a blown headgasket

 

the guy wants 350, I'm gonna try to offer 200.

 

do you guys think this is a good deal?

 

the car has no rust whatsoever, no body damage, one crack in the windshield that goes across the bottom and doesnt block line of sight, only peeling paint is the hood, which if i get the car, i will probably paint it black. the interior is immaculate, just needs to be vacuumed.

 

Another point is i am moving to montana, and i need a good car to drive from Western Washington to central Montana and back several times a year. would this be a good candidate?

Pics:

 

Find you a used EJ22 to drop in and do work.

I can get felpro head and valve cover gaskets and new headbolts for 165 bucks, so i think i will fix the old engine, if i get the car. It has all the service records, and the old engine should work great after the gaskets are replaced.

 

Unless there is a reason i should replace the motor that i dont know about?

Edited June 4, 201015 yr by Markus56

They don't usually blow head gaskets unless the motor has gotten hot. Make sure and take the heads to a machine shop.

I was planning on it

 

The strange thing is, when i was test driving the car, it never overheated, or blew excessive amounts of steam after it warmed up...

 

And is it possible to do the heads without pulling the motor?

oh yeah, is there some way of easily getting some extra ground clearance? OB struts or something?

So the guy said the lowest he would go was 275. I'm not sure if i should do it or not

if it's in immaculate condition, that's worth something. you can do the work so if you end up with a reliable car for cheap you're doing pretty good for $300-$400 or whatever you end up having in it. it's not worth much but if the exhaust and tires are in good shape i'd consider it a good find as those are expenses you can't easily avoid for long and can be kind of high.

 

+1 to what he said - EJ22's don't blow head gaskets unless they've been overheated. have the heads resurfaced for sure, do not gasket slap this one.

 

if you replace the head gaskets save yourself the money and don't buy the headgaskets and bolts. get Subaru OEM headgaskets and don't replace the headbolts, they aren't TTY headbolts so it's pointless to replace them....which is why Subaru and all of us Subaru familiar folks never do.

I was going to get fel-pro gaskets, because i can get those for 40 bucks. And if i dont need to replace the bolts, thats sweet! Do you need to do anything to compensate for the stretched threads?

 

And it is going to need tires, but i know a few places i can get deals on tires... hmm, and exhaust wise, they dont do emissions checks, so i'm not too worried about it. and from what i can tell, there is no rust, and the tips still have perfect chrome!

Edited June 5, 201015 yr by Markus56

there's nothing to do with the head bolts - they aren't TTY head bolts, those stretch and need replacing. you're trying to impose procedures from one kind of part on something different. follow the head gasket installation procedure and you're done.

 

the EJ25's eat headgaskets, so I'd stick with Subaru for all EJ's. fel-pro's are great for the EA82 and ER27 stuff, but they have been seen to not last long on the EJ25's (mdjc just commented on having a few returned to him a year or two after - he now uses Subaru only on EJ's). I personally wouldn't want them on EJ22's. i could be wrong, but doesn't seem worth saving $20 on such a big job.

 

add 10 ft-lbs and call it a day!?

Ok sounds good. I was told that i needed to replace the bolts by one of my buddies, but now that i think about it, he's never worked on an EJ. So the dealership headgaskets are only 60 dollars? Sounds too cheap.

 

And can i get a testament to the reliability of the 1 gen legacy's? My dad is skeptical that it won't last too much longer. (230k miles)

There are no guarantees. It's a machine--designed, built and operated by man. Anything can go wrong at any time . . . and sometimes does. (End of disclaimer.)

 

That said, if there's one vehicle that I'd expect to last forever it'd probably be a 1st gen Subaru Legacy! My sons '92 is a wonderful car--and we're not even sure how many miles it actually has on it!

 

Use common sense, evaluate carefully, give regular TLC, do the preventive maintenance, if something breaks or wears out replace it--there's no reason it can't go another 70k miles. Or 170k. Or 270k.

 

Just my rambling $.02.

Well, I called the guy and I am going to pick it up!!!

Great news! Remember, we love pictures and happy progress reports!!!

the first gen EJ's are extremely reliable. the motor isn't likely to give you issues if you do this repair right and maintain it well.

 

at this point you're not worried about reliability so much as the past TWENTY years of maintenance or not maintenance/abuse/neglect, etc. Being a cheap undesirable car they don't typically get top treatment by owners over the past 10 years. But they are rock solid even still.

 

If you're up to replacing a few parts here and there over the years i wouldn't be surprised if you get another 50k-100k or few years depending on how much you drive.

 

the online subaru dealers charge $30 each for the EJ25 headgaskets, i checked last night when i posted. the Ej22's should be similar. local dealers will often match the online pricing, they always do for me. they're selling parts at reduced prices anyway to local garages and mechanics, so they always give me that price too. ask nicely of course and tell them you're part of some online subaru communities and would rather order locally than online. it's about a 20% price difference.

Speaking of 91 Legacies. Somebody just traded one in at one of our other stores. It's literally spotless. Not sure the mileage but it really looks like it just rolled out of the showroom, except for one little spot of rust on the hood about the size of a nickel, probably from a rock chip. I just saw it today, so I have to wait 'til Monday to find out how much they put in it.