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The top plate of cylinder head is cracked. Fixable?


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Hello guys, got a vehicle with no history. Overheats after 20-25 min of driving on highway, or 10-15 in the city.

 

Subaru Legacy Sedan 2006 Automatic Non turbo. 

 

Pulled the engine, took off the heads and found the crack in two heads in "unusual place for cracks". Was wondering what you guys think, if it's a big deal or not; repairable or fixable, can I get just the top parts?

 

1A: looks like a crack, don't know if it's deep or not.

 

1B: looks like a tiny hole, don't think it's deep, also not sure how important it is..

 

Also, first of all I want to do it right without spending much money (as we all are), but.. How important is it to take the heads to machine shop overall? (adjusting the valves, checking the pressure, cleaning) In my case do I have to do it, or I can just clean them up carefully, change the valve seals and good to go?

 

I guess I would say if you can put yourself on my place, and ask other questions if there is :)

 

Any suggestions would be really appreciated! 

 

Thank you!post-52920-0-47596000-1402444952_thumb.pngpost-52920-0-23038600-1402444955_thumb.pngpost-52920-0-42613600-1402444959_thumb.png

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Those are just irregularities in the castings. Nothing to worry about.

 

Overheating like that suggests the coolant level was probably low, and was probably that way for quite some time. Knowing it has been overheated multiple times, its a big gamble to put head gaskets on it. The rod bearings could be compromised.

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Rod bearings are in the block. They're in the connecting rods that make the pistons move up and down. Overheating thins out the oil and scores the bearings.

When those go bad, things go boom, and you end up sitting on the side of the road with a hole in the block.

 

There's no good way to tell of they're damaged without disassembling the block.

You can send a sample of oil for analysis to find out if there are high amounts of metal in the oil, but this may not be conclusive if the engine can not be started in order to circulate the oil before taking the sample.

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