I have two OBW, a 98 and a 99. Both were bought used, so don't know if PO replaced the HG. Remember someone posting earlier about looking for a corner of the HG sticking out to see if it is the new three layer type of metal HG, but, I am not clear about preciesely where to look around the edge of the heads, and exactly what to look for. Should I first power wash around the heads to produce a good clean view? Thanks for any advise.

look down behind or around the base of the power steering pump. having a good flashlight may help. i believe one of the exposed edges sticks out there. just follow the head to block mating surface all the way around. i believe you can see well across the back and maybe underneath as well. i picked up a legacy a couple weeks ago, popped the hood and within 10 seconds i could tell and said "oh cool, the headgasket was replaced". the seller looked at me and said, oh yeah, they replaced it when i bought it from the dealer (used). the last two that i've bought this year both had new headgaskets on them and i did not know it until i picked the vehicle up.

Thanks, I will take a look see per your instructions. I guess I am still a little confused, if I see the edge sticking out, then is that the indication that the HG has been replaced? If so, then I should infer that the original HG must not stick out?

 

You are very lucky that you bought your last two used Subies with replaced HG replacements. Sure, no guarantees that they will hold up, but beets relying on the ones that came with the car new.

 

My previous experience on bad HG was on my 91 Subie Legacy with the 2.2. The HG went bad, then excessive pressure caused the radiator to leak. The motor had about 175K miles on it, so I went the route of replacing the motor with a 2.2 from a wrecking yard out of a 92 Legacy with 112K miles on it. Overall cost came to about $1,000 to complete the swap. That was a great running motor for about 3 years, then traded in the car when the auto trany went south. Car would not shift into high gear.

also something to look for if the engine is out or apart, is to look for a "heat tag" on the cylinder heads. Machine shops always put these on when they work on heads. It is a small metal disk with a softer metal core that melts out at certain temperatures. This will tell a shop if the engine overheated at all since the last time the heads were worked on.

 

I learned this just this week when I brought my 2.5L heads in for a checkup while doing a HG job. I thought the engine was original. Nope! It's been worked on before. Only one head had the heat tag, and it was the one that failed again. The gaskets I removed weren't the updated MLS (multi-layer steel) gaskets though. I'm guessing the work was done a long time ago and the same type of gasket was used again.