98 Outback mystery antifreeeze leak

Short background: plastic around radiator cracked. Engine overheated (praying that I do not have a head gasket blown). Installed new radiator and filled with half and half Prestone. Engine runs fine with no overheating. I drive into my driveway and look under the car, no leaks. The next morning, I find a large puddle of antifreeze under the car. When I check further, it looks like the antifreeze is coming from the back of the motor, but I cannot find a leak.

 

Help

 

Ray

Hello;

Check coolant hoses for the idle air control valve, heater, and check the heater core. Also check the crossover pipe, Steven.

Thanks. Since I can see the coolant dripping from the cross member behind the engine, it should be easy to see. So far, I haven't found it though. Time to dig deeper.

My vote is for the water bypass pipe. There is a t that goes to the TB. Can rust through and get leaks. Check for pool on driver cylinder head.

 

O.

there are 2 large heater hoses on the rear of the engine driver side going to the fire wall.

 

there is a hose going from the water pump to toward the rear of the engine.

 

and there is a metal water line that comes out under the intake driver side engine rear and goes to a heater hose.

 

check them all.

 

also look for coolant on top of the block under the throttle body.

ANOTHER SAD SUBARU TALE

No coolant on top of motor at all. At this point it is probably moot as when I started the car this morning, I had the radiator cap off and saw big air bubbles blow up through the antifreeze. I really hate to get rid of this Outback. Love the vehicle. Too bad the engines are crap. This is my Outbacks second engine. I checked the forums last night and it appears as if there are no good Subaru engines that I can replace it with. My son wants a Forester but I really am hesitating getting one for him.

Drop an EJ22 in there. No more headgasket issues than the average engine (unless it was overheated one time too many) and the 1996 and earlier versions are also non-interference (thought my '98 would be too, but I was later told 1997 on are interference).

The engines are great. The headgasket material used was defective.

In rethinking what I wrote yesterday, I decided to add the following:

In 1950 my dad purchased a 1950 Hudson. The dealer told him that when the mileage hit 70,000, he should get rid of the car. I expect more miles before major engine work these days.

Yes, the headgasket material was defective. Normally when this happens to a manufacturer, it is fixed in one model year at the most. How many years has Subaru had this problem?

Back to my problem. I am going to try to get the gaskets replaced. However, when I tried to get the gaskets replaced on the prior engine, no mechanic would touch it (including the dealership). Their explanation was that if bearings or whatever had been damaged because of the gasket problem and the engine went south after they replaced the gaskets, I would blame them. They didn't want the headache.

They subaru head gaskets were crappy for a long time, lol.

 

That's crazy that no one would touch your engine. Did it overheat so badly the could tell it was toast by looking at it?