quick head gasket question

[contrldsub]

does the motor have to come out of a 97 legacy outback to change the HG's? (2.5 motor) subaru tech told me it was causeing my overheating problem. which makes more sence to me now after reading around the site some. but they want 1000 USD to do it and i dont wanna pay them to do it. ive got a shop and plenty of tools and know how ive just never done a subaru motor before. a simple yes or now is all i need. but any bits of tips would be greatly appreiciated :)

[decke48]

no you dont need to. but unless you know what needs to be done in car. you'll have trouble the whole way. so pulling the motor is the best option. and its simple to do

[StatGSR]

yes it can be done, but the motor can be pulled in a couple hours and would make the job much easier to do. i can hardly imagine how big of a pain in the ass it would be to do while keeping the motor in the car.

[contrldsub]

i should be able to do this myself and a buddy in a day tho? i have an actual shop with car lift and the whole nine yards. ive pulled motors before and put them back in.

[Huffer]

You should have no problems then. The biggest thing will be making sure the heads aren't warped. You can buy full HG gasket seal kits from Subaru to make sure you have the revised HG design.

[decke48]

book time is 9.6hrs for both sides. so a day or two depending how fast you like to work

[97scoob]

yeah, i am only 17, and me and another member who is 18 pulled my motor in the same car as you to do the head gaskets and it took us less than an hour to pull it from start to finish and a couple hours to do the head gaskets on both sides. that was in his dads 2 car garage with basic hand tools and an engine crane. total it only took us about 6 hours of labor, the thing that took the longest was getting the head gaskets and the head bolts and all the other gaskets and hardware.it is hard enough just to get your spark plugs out, i dont even want to think what it would be like to take the heads off and put them back on and torque everything back down... the only thing that was really difficult was putting it back in. make sure you organize everything REALLY good to make it easier to put back together. i didnt organize as much as i should have and it made it harder than it should have been.

[contrldsub]

update:

well its done... took me about 8 hours to do it with it in the car. one side had been done previously and they way over torqued the bolts so when i was backing them out one broke yay... luckily it was one i could get to with a drill once the head was off. over all not a bad job even with the motor in the car. Had to stop my help from over torqueing bolts back down he thought the FSM said 132 ft-lbs but it was actually in-lbs.. would have been really bad. but its done now. im a fuel leak away from selling this car now.

[decke48]

11 ft-lbs? for head bolts?
this is the torque specs for 2.5l
Apply a coat of engine oil to washers and bolt threads.
Tighten all bolts to 29 Nm (3.0 kg-cm, 22 ft. lbs.) in alphabetical sequence. Then tighten all bolts to 69 Nm (7.0 kg-cm, 51 ft. lbs.) in alphabetical sequence.
Back off all bolts by 180° first; back them off by 180° again.
Tighten all bolts to 39 Nm (4.0 kg-cm, 29 ft. lbs.).
Tighten all bolts by 80°to 90° in alphabetical sequence.
Further tighten all bolts by 40°to 45° in alphabetical sequence. CAUTION: Do not tighten bolts more than 45°.
Tighten bolts (A) and (B) by 40°to 45° . CAUTION: Ensure that the total "re-tightening angle" [in the two previous steps] do not exceed 90°.

[contrldsub]

11 ft-lbs? for head bolts?
this is the torque specs for 2.5l
Apply a coat of engine oil to washers and bolt threads.
Tighten all bolts to 29 Nm (3.0 kg-cm, 22 ft. lbs.) in alphabetical sequence. Then tighten all bolts to 69 Nm (7.0 kg-cm, 51 ft. lbs.) in alphabetical sequence.
Back off all bolts by 180° first; back them off by 180° again.
Tighten all bolts to 39 Nm (4.0 kg-cm, 29 ft. lbs.).
Tighten all bolts by 80°to 90° in alphabetical sequence.
Further tighten all bolts by 40°to 45° in alphabetical sequence. CAUTION: Do not tighten bolts more than 45°.
Tighten bolts (A) and (B) by 40°to 45° . CAUTION: Ensure that the total "re-tightening angle" [in the two previous steps] do not exceed 90°.

yeah i went back and looked at it. i had mixed the cam shaft cap bolt torque with the head bolt torgue when i wrote that.