EA81 engine woes

Because the repair worked/lasted for 200 km, I think your guess the cylinder heads are warped is probably on the money.

johninKY wrote: : Because the repair worked/lasted for 200 km, I think your guess the : cylinder heads are warped is probably on the money.

Did you flush the cooling system before/after you did the work? Maybe the water pump was bad and/or cooling passages blocked. That could have caused the blown head gasket in the first place. It may have warped the heads, or just blown another gasket when the new one had a hotspot.

-Cory

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• Cory Papenfuss *

• Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student *

• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *

Hi,

I used to use a caustic flushing agent (sold under a lot of names at the auto parts store) when draining iron block/head engines. When heads started going mostly aluminum, I switched to "quick flush" products that claimed to be safe for aluminum. Today, I just use water. You can get kits at the parts store that "splice" a connector into a heater hose, then you connect a garden hose and flush things out. You can do about the same by figuring which way the water flow runs thru the heater core, then disconnecting the appropriate hose so you can simply insert a nozzle on the garden hose in the end of the hose and flush so the water flows "backwards."

Regardless of how you do it, be sure to remove the t-stat BEFORE flushing! I always thought this was universally known, but my brother in law had his Explorer flushed at the Ford dealer, and they DIDN'T remove the t-stat first! About 100 miles into an 800 mile trip, in 100 deg F plus temps, the vehicle started overheating cuz junk broken loose by the flushing lodged in the t-stat. He had to limp along with the A/C off, heater on full blast, and my sister's "input" on the entire situation (clue: walking might have been preferable to listening!)

And since you've got the t-stat out anyway, it's not a bad idea to install a new one. Go OEM on that item for sure! And when you refill the system, be sure to use a 50-50 mix of anti-freeze and DISTILLED water: really cuts the need to flush things in the future.

Good luck,

Rick

Thanks Rick, One further question. Are you only concerned with running watter 'backwrds' through the heater core......or are you trying to run it 'backwards' through the entire engine block as well? Al.

Hi,

If you disconnect just the heater hose (at the block, head or whatever connection the engine has) and run water backwards thru the heater core, it SHOULD then go backwards thru the engine and come out of that point your hose will connect to when you reconnect it. If it looks like you're going to flood parts of the engine that probably should remain dry (electrical connectors, sensors and such), you can put a spare piece of hose on your temporary outlet and direct the water flow to a safe spot. Be sure the heater lever is set "full on" both when flushing and refilling--some heaters have a valve that cuts water flow thru the core when you're not using the heater, others (such as at least some--if not all???--Subies) have a constant flow of water thru the core and the heat to the cabin's regulated by air flow ducts and "valving." Most of the time it's easy to tell which system you have by looking at your heater hoses: the water valve's usually installed in one of the hoses if it's the regulated water flow style (and generally on the inlet side of the core.) If there's no valve, it's probably the regulated air flow style.

Hope this makes sense--if not, let me know!

Good luck,

Rick