Jack's Journey, another Poverty Pack

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Jack is a one owner since new (me!) SG MY04 Forester X.
He's served us well over the years, mostly as a daily driver for SWMBO with a few camping trips towing a 7'x4' light off road camper trailer as well as board carrier and shuttle bus for the kids.
The last 18 months He's been reduced to Camper Trailer puller & Mal/Nipper (surf lifesaving) board carrier.
About 8 months back, SWMBO started raising discussions about trading Jack in on "Something Else" to the value of about $15 - 20ksecond hand, hiluxy sort of thing as she felt Jack was getting a little worn out.
This was to be used predominantly as a shuttlebus, camper trailer tower & board carrier mind you, but with a view to more adventurous touring..

With a little bit of effort, I managed to convince her that Jack was not in fact terribly worn out (backed up by the mechanic thankfully) but just needed a bit of a spruce up.

And thus the journey begins..
 
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It could also be the radiator thermostat, only oem Subaru part works well.

Or the water pump....

Try the radiator thermostat first, its a cheap fix !
 
jf1sf5 said:
It could also be the radiator thermostat, only oem Subaru part works well.

Or the water pump....

Try the radiator thermostat first, its a cheap fix !
Click to expand...

Thermostat has been done about 6 months ago, replaced genuine with genuine.

Waterpump should have been done when the fan belt was changed, but the mechanic I was using upgraded their system and didn't carry over the records so I don't know and neither do they.
 
Ben Up North said:
Waterpump should have been done when the fan belt was changed, but the mechanic I was using upgraded their system and didn't carry over the records so I don't know and neither do they.
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You don't usually do a waterpump with the fan belts, ones a 5 minute job, the other is a hour or two
 
Sorry, not fan belt, timing belt
 
Ben, even when the water pump was absolutely buggered in my old Impreza, it didn't overheat.

Have you got any air bubbles or oil in the radiator when idling?
 
Ratbag said:
Ben, even when the water pump was absolutely buggered in my old Impreza, it didn't overheat.

Have you got any air bubbles or oil in the radiator when idling?
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Nope. Didn't have them before I had the heads done either (which was last week)
I was thinking (and had been suggested this as well) that fixing the leaky heads would have solved my running hot issues.

But it hasn't. might be marginally cooler but not much at highway speeds or climbing.

Edit: I'm still not sure how hot is too hot either, so that kinda makes it difficult to know whether I'm getting worked up over not much at all.
 
Ben, your oil temperature is more critical.

Oil viscosity is only true for a maximum oil temperature of 100°C.

Of course, oil and coolant temperatures are closely related to each other.

I also suspect that the water temperature gauge in my Forester is not particularly accurate. It always reads on the bottom edge of normal even when towing my camper trailer and the fans are running ...
 
[MENTION=2832]Ratbag[/MENTION] I'm using an OBDII reader for coolant levels. daytime temps range between 94-97 at suburban speeds, 97-17 on highway, well above going up a decent hill.
on the gauge on the car when I last went up a decent hill (friday, pretty mild day about 25deg C) it was over the top of the two marks enough to see a gap, about 108-109 on the OBDII reader (torque pro).
Only me in the car, not much weight in the back.
 
I have already seen a "bad new genuine" thermostat that had just been changed so it was quite hairy to find the issue.
 
Could be that the Engine Coolant Temp sensor is a problem in that either:

  1. it could be faulty; or
  2. there could an air bubble surrounding it which is giving a false ECT reading.

Burping the cooling system might resolve it:

park on an uphill slope, get a funnel that fits your radiator, run the car so that the coolant heats up, and fill the funnel to a level above the radiator top. Run engine to bubble stop coming up. Search around a bit there are a few threads in other forums on this.

Obviously if its the sensor you'd have to replace it.
 
Sounds like an air lock in the cooling system to me. You need to bleed the air really well and it's a giant pain in the backside doing it. Don't persist with driving it, you will overheat, warp the heads then you are back to a start minus the cost of the last work you did in your war chest. There are numerous accounts of this including my son's 2006 XT = expensive exercise chasing one thing, hoping it's not a biggy then to find the biggy after throwing money at the smaller hopeful exercises. Get onto the air lock - it's likely to be the problem.
 
[MENTION=16414]Jock[/MENTION] thanks for the suggestions, but this has been a problem of mine for some time now.

I'm more concerned that it's overheated in the past due to incorrect burping, and that shaving the heads & replacing gaskets was a waste of time (which is what I've just done).

Prior to doing this, I'd flushed the cooling systems a couple of times and replaced thermostat at least once.

If it's an airlock, then it's managed to stay there for a couple of years now.
 
Ben Up North said:
At Etty Bay Campground
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I’d love to know more about your camper in this pic mate !
Can you sleep in it ?
Any other pics ?

Cheers

1WD


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
1WD Foz said:
I’d love to know more about your camper in this pic mate !
Can you sleep in it ?
Any other pics ?

Cheers

1WD


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Sure we sleep in it!
The tent is an Austrek, this one
Bed on trailer is bigger than King, can very comfortably sleep three on the floor of the tent.
Once the annex is up, it's very roomy, three rooms counting the main bed.. Takes a while to set up the whole thing, but once you do it's good as a base for longer stays, we've lived out of it for a fortnight without any troubles at all.
The trailer is custom, 7x4 in the old way of dimensions with a long draw bar for comfy touring rather than hard off-road. has a gas bottle on the side for hooking up the baby weber to, spare on the front and a cheapyish box from bunnings as well.
I'm running the same rims as the forester on it so I've got a lot of emergency spares, but only one of them is the same tyre currently.
It's rated at 750Kg and is un-braked. unloaded it comes in at a shade over 600Kg. Springs are 1300Kg, so not too stiff. it's great to tow.

might be a couple of other pics in this thread, will look around for some more.
 
Wow thanks for all the info mate !!
The wife and I are starting to look at these types of options so it’s great to have all the info on dimensions and add ons

Cheers heaps

1WD


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
No worries. I'm actually looking at selling the tent and putting a custom hardshell type tent on it (with 270degree awning) in order to reduce set-up time as we haven't been on any long stay trips with it for a few years now.

It's a bit tedious to set up and pull down if you're only staying somewhere for a couple of days.
 
Ben Up North said:
[MENTION=16414]Jock[/MENTION] thanks for the suggestions, but this has been a problem of mine for some time now.

I'm more concerned that it's overheated in the past due to incorrect burping, and that shaving the heads & replacing gaskets was a waste of time (which is what I've just done).

Prior to doing this, I'd flushed the cooling systems a couple of times and replaced thermostat at least once.

If it's an airlock, then it's managed to stay there for a couple of years now.
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they are really tricky and you are right to worry about damage done twice. I hope it sorts, the air lock thiing is a big reason so many boxers get this problem wit head gasket leakages / warped heads / burst radiators / et. and it's like a chicken and egg question on the cause... Good luck!
 
Well...
bought some second hand bits today.
SubaExtreme Bull bar, genuine Subaru rear towbar, headlights, front left & right panels, in fact, an entire car.
$500.00 well spent I re ockon. Now I've got to decide whether to strip the axles and a few other bits & pieces or just sell it all.

I wonder if an SG Forester auto gearbox will fit in an SVX..?! :ROFLMAO:
 
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