Head Gasket Service - 2005 Outback 2.5i

[KZJonny]

For a while there I though I had one of the lucky ones that wasn't going to need new headgaskets. I was wrong, again, which shouldn't be any suprise. I know this topic had been discussed ad infinitum in a bunch of forums, but in this case, I just want to make sure I've gathered enough information and aren't missing anything critical.

So, in for doing the headgaskets as soon as the weather warms up a little. I do not appear to have any oil in the coolant, and definitely do not have any coolant in the oil, so I think I should be alright doing just the normal DD routine with it for a while and keeping a sharp eye on fluid level, cooland temp etc... Aside from paying a shop to do it ASAP, I don't have much other choice at the moment, and I think it's hard ot justify the $4K to have it done on a car this old. I would guess it's been leaking externally for a while since my oil top ups have been a little more frequent over the past oil change or two. I would say that over the last 2-3 oil changes I top up the remaining litre in a 5L container over 5-6k kms, where a couple years ago I migh add half of that.

 

Replacement parts look to come up to a few hundo, and I planned on doing the following:

-MLS head gaskets
-intake/exhaust gaskets
-^^^ Or perhaps just get an entire Mahle/FelPro kits with MLS gaskets and replace anything that is easier to get at while the engine is out...

-replace timing belt (AISIN kit was installed 70k kms ago, so I have some confidence the idlers and water pump are still good for another 100k or so...)
-new rad cap
-fluids etc....
 

Clean, inspect and possibly touch up head flatness if needed, remove as much carbon buildup as possible and adjust valve lash while I'm in there.

I'd like to avoid taking the heads apart unless I see something that is really amiss. The car has 240k kms on it, so certainly the gaskets held longer than many, and I generally take pretty good care of it. It's the winter beater, so it does see all the temp extremes, and occassional short trip drives in the winter. In short, it doesn't behave like it's hurt. I just finally had a warm(ish) day to spend under the car, and found a mess of oil all over the rack. Hard to tell exactly where it's from, given it's oily and dirty all over, but it does not appear to be the valve cover gaskets, and they are newish in any case, so considering it's on original OE graphite/failure type gaskets... it seems HG is the problem.

I think the above work is doing a "good" job and covering the important stuff, and not just firing the money cannon at an old, low performance car that I don't ask too much of.

[m sprank]

Was there a question or just expressing a plan? 

[KZJonny]

Ah! Yes, sorry. Essentially just checking I’m not missing something critical.

I know there are fewer na engines being discussed here, but surely someone has done this before.

A friend of mine is in the same boat, so there may be two days of HG replacement in the near future. Don’t want to make a common mistake twice.