possible head gasket issue.

[SubaruDriftBoy]

hello everyone, im still fairly new here, mostly lurking and meeting people here one at a time. but anywho, i own a 2000 legacy BE GT LTD 4eat automatic.

about 2 months or so ago i had an issue where my car, sitting in traffic would overheat to the point of almost in the red danger area. i came to find out that it was my thermostat, had that replaced, and now it was better, or so i thought. friday afternoon coming home from work i was stopped in traffic, glanced down after lighting my cigarette and noticed that my heat gauge was up to almost the red, i paniced and steered into the gas station and stopped immediatly.

i popped my hood, let it sit for about a half hour as i sat on the curb working on my tan and noticed my overflow tank was empty, so i filled that, started up and started home no other issues. upon getting home i found my radiator was empty. :smt012 so i filled it up friday afternoon and use it for work yesterday, go out and check this morning and i have to add more this morning. could this be my head gaskets, or a leak somewhere, my water pump still has all the pressure, i have no white smoke anywhere under the hood or out the exhaust no strante smells anything. im so lost as to what it could be.

i know i cant afford a HG fix but i dont want to be using my car if i could potentially blow it up an hour or so from home. i also had no check engine light other than the p0420 catalytic problems with the O2 sensor. so i dunno.. help please?! :smt022

[ShadowGT]

hello everyone, im still fairly new here, mostly lurking and meeting people here one at a time. but anywho, i own a 2000 legacy BE GT LTD 4eat automatic. about 2 months or so ago i had an issue where my car, sitting in traffic would overheat to the point of almost in the red danger area. i came to find out that it was my thermostat, had that replaced, and now it was better, or so i thought. friday afternoon coming home from work i was stopped in traffic, glanced down after lighting my cigarette and noticed that my heat gauge was up to almost the red, i paniced and steered into the gas station and stopped immediatly. i popped my hood, let it sit for about a half hour as i sat on the curb working on my tan and noticed my overflow tank was empty, so i filled that, started up and started home no other issues. upon getting home i found my radiator was empty. :smt012 so i filled it up friday afternoon and use it for work yesterday, go out and check this morning and i have to add more this morning. could this be my head gaskets, or a leak somewhere, my water pump still has all the pressure, i have no white smoke anywhere under the hood or out the exhaust no strante smells anything. im so lost as to what it could be. i know i cant afford a HG fix but i dont want to be using my car if i could potentially blow it up an hour or so from home. i also had no check engine light other than the p0420 catalytic problems with the O2 sensor. so i dunno.. help please?! :smt022

Check your oil. Does it look milky or differently has something mixed in the oil that shouldn't be there?

When you filled the radiator is there a puddle under the car? Green stains around the hose fittings to the block? How about on top of the block near the back under the air idle control solenoid. On the 2.5 the engine coolant sensor sticks in there and if gets loose coolant comes out and collects under the intake manifold.

How about your heater hoses? Still tight? Floorboard carpets under the dashboard damp?
Did you have the correct thermostat installed? Is it even still there under that 90 degree plastic elbow piece under the driver side of the front part of the engine block?

Is the radiator drain cock (passenger side of the radiator, faces the engine on the bottom corner of the radiator) is that open or closed?

Point is.. in my opinion I don't think you have a full on bad head gasket somewhere. The car will smoke / white smoke badly, you will smell coolant and burning chaos under the hood and the temperature gauge will peg out, not just somewhat.

But that is my experience with a bad head gasket in another car. I never experienced it in a Subaru. It was a Chevy that did it and I thought the car was going to do everything but explode when it started happening.

I believe you are loosing coolant somewhere or it's collecting and not circulating. It could be seeping out somewhere and burning off on the hot engine too.

Either way.. regardless of what happens, the rule of thumb of home auto mechanics is to eliminate all the cheap easy things before we start pointing the finger at the expensive and complicated.

[Stang70Fastback]

Well, you are def loosing coolant. I know with my 98, when we had the head gasket issue, the coolant actually overflowed VIA the overflow container. So if that's where its coming out, that's a good sign that that's your problem (because the leak means gas is being forced into the coolant lines.)

We sometimes had some smoke, but it was never THAT thick some of the time. The car just OVERHEATED and you had no indication until you either looked at the gauge, or noticed a loss in power.

[jey]

When you did your thermostat how much coolant did you put back into the radiator? Did you get all the air bubbles out of the radiator?

[SubaruDriftBoy]

when the thermostat was replaced, they put about a gallon jug of the 50/50 mix in, which to me seemed like not alot, but i dunno. it could have been there was air bubbles in it that finally all collected and what not, but im not sure. the weather absolutely sucks dink out there now so i cant go out and check it or anything for any leaks or collections anywhere, i did notice that when i pulled into the gas station friday, that out of one of my vac lines there was a little bit of steam, im not sure maybe it fell off while checking my tranny fluid i pulled it off on accident but thats reconnected and i dunno now. :smt010