I finally finished the head gasket job on my 97' Legacy GT and while I'm running the engine to fill the coolant it starts lightly smoking from the bottom of the cam caps. After I filled the coolant and tried to burp it, the driver's side no longer smokes which leads me to believe it's cooling system related. How do you properly get coolant thoughout the whole engine? Other than that the car has been sitting for a while and when I drove it to park it around the corner it made a lot of noises, propably need to look at the brakes and power steering. Thanks.

i wouldn't worry about it. when you do major engine jobs it's fairly often that you'll get a spot of grease, oil, cleaner or something somewhere that burns off on first start up.

 

or prior to the job coolant gets in the exhaust and burns off after the job. or during pulling the engine, power steering fluid or coolant spill into places that burn off later...etc.

 

smoking after pulling an engine or going as far as the head gaskets isn't that strange at all.

 

they generally run poorly, particularly if they have HLA's instead of solid lifters, when first started too.

Yeah, it didn't sound that great at first, but it's better now... I was wondering if I should get a new radiator, but I think I'll just keep an eye out to see if it overheats first. A new radiator is allways good I suppose and the gunk that I saw when I pulled the heads is also in the radiator... we'll see.

Did you flush the radiator out first? That should be the first step in any head job, otyherwise that gunk will force you to replace the radiator.

No, I didn't flush the radiator... looking to buy another. It would be worth the money.

Burping:

 

Idle engine with the rad cap off. Cloth handy to collect small spillage as she burbs.

Once it's up to operating temp...the fan will switch on...top off the coolant...quickly now...and re-install the rad-cap. Drive...let cool. Don't remove the cap again, just make sure it doesn't suck the overflow dry as it cools overnight.

Morning time: Fill expansion/overflow to the max line.

 

Done!