SO I am looking for some thoughts on what ought to be done with a sube that is playing dead right now. There is oil in the coolant overflow and after sitting for a day or two, there isn't anything left in the radiator. I am guessing the head gasket. Any other ideas? It's my girlfriends parents, so they are just trying to figure out what they should do. It is a 1987 gl, 2WD, manual. It is a spfi engine for sure, couldn't find the brand on the engine but that year ought to be a EA-82. Any ideas? We wouldn't be taking it to the shop, we'd do the work ourselves. I think it's about 150000 miles. Any suggestions, think it is worth it or will it just die again in a few thousand?

 

thanks

do a compression test, that will tell you which headgasket went. Replacing headgaskets on any engines is a crapshoot, sometimes you'll get thousands of happy miles out of it, others (like a ford 361) will run good for a couple of days, then blow up in worst ways. Do they like the car? If not, sell it cheap to someone else to fix.

oem gaskets are of higher quality than aftermarket ones and will last longer

so the other thing that I forgot to mention was that it won't start now. Didn't think about it till now. Does that mean that there is something else wrong or could that just be the head gasket causing that?

I BHG can cause a no start or hard to start condition since the compression is now lower if any.

 

do a compression check on the engine to determine if there is a HG issue.

 

Also oil in the overflow/coolant is a classic sign for a headgasket failure.

 

the SPFI EA82 Motor's are tanks they last forever long as they arent overheated to many times, all subaru motor's are very heat sensitive due to thier design.

 

I would fix it if it were mine since those engine's are known for lasting over 200,000miles.