What do you think ?
 

hi everybody first time i'm posting a message from a year of reading messages, i bought my svx last year , and since i got a lot of problems . i bought it at 198000 km, since that i've change the crank pulley seal,1 cam cover seal ,rebuilt the transmission(i've let one guy try it....he was going backward and he put it to drive without stopping the car"i think he hates me", changed the coil plates and coils spring(i've let a girl drive it and she ran into a walkway at 30km\h"was partying" ,conclusion:a car can't be driven by somebody else than yourself, got my car stolen and found it with ****ed up front left wing"they stole it at the garage when it was for the transmission and they got stuck so he kicked my wing",changed the antenna , installed radio new speaker\subwoofer, blew up one speaker and the radio"short circuit due to the crime",bought a steering column at junkyard"hard to find but i did it", brand new elecrical main window oppener, new relay for windows....now i need the suede dash that goes under the steering and the small one at the left of it...anyway just letting you know i've spent a lot of money on that car and i'm trying to make it a project but damn its hard.

i'm now at 211000 km, and i'm suspecting a head gasket job, i ain't got coolant in engine oil,even if i'm not missing oil that much in the engine i'm having another fluid in the coolant reserve bucket (its a dark brown\black color having some deposits in it."not in the rad(its green there)".

i had some leaking in my coolant system , fixed it up. happened 2 times that engine temperature got up to near red , never got to it "had stopped the engine before it.

after doing the leaking job i've noticed the problem with the coolant reserve.
i've cleened up the bucket and put it back there with new coolant,it did it again about 1 week after. some think its the H.G. some other don't understand anything about it , they just find this weird because they told that if it was H.G i would have coolant in my engine with white smoke and i dont !. i've notice that the transmission gage has some small bubles in it but i dont think that it the problem, because it has its own coolant bypass."between rad and a\c rad"
anyway i'm letting some pictures "notice the picture of the bucket take a good look "its dark but you can see a little of it,the picture down-left"

i'm kinda tired of spending money on it, at least i bought it only 2000$ from my grand-mother...:)

btw: thats a 92 ls-l burgundy 2nd edition

let me know what you think, thanks

I'm a little rusty with my english i'm sorry if you had problem reading this.
http://www.nflq.net/images/photo001.jpg

seems like your headgasket is gone. i had the same problem pretty much from what you have wrote.
i didn't have the white smoke, coolant in the engine oil.but the main thing was a lot of pressure in the radiator causing the coolant to leak out of the coolant cap.
and the temperature going all over the place.

in the end. i swapped in a jdm engine because it was going to cost the same as changing the headgaskets. i'm in canada too, ontario actually. and my find for an engine was hard. was only one in the city. my search did come up with one in montreal i believe...but honestly. you would be better getting an engine from the states since it's much cheaper than up here for us canadian guys.

i estimated the price, 2000$ for all the gasket and time of working , oil pump and something else that needs to be changed that cost 74 $...anyway , i hope its not this, i can still drive the car, ....i don't know if i can blow the engine or not if i continue like this

subaru told me it would be 1800$ plus taxes. the jdm engine installed cost me $2200 flat...it would be about the same. your estimate is right. but my car was on and off...but it wasn't good..i'd see smoke coming from under the hood. you should get it done as soon as you can. try to reduce the risk of anything worse if it could get worse

oh well, my uncle owns a garage but "he did the transmission" , he do not want to work on the engine...so maybe one of his employee will like to be paid cash for working on this , i hope

whats a jdm engine ?

JDM = Japanese Domestic Motors. Supposedly there's a different engine in hte japanese cars, a long block is what i hear, though i'm not sure. I'm sure someone can clarify better than i could, as i'm still new to this car.

i had some time to waste so i made a picture showing you my baby....as long as i'm not pissed

Would you do a HG job with this ?

Except for the things mensionned in the pictures , everything is fine everything works great,

the tranny has just been rebuilt.the power steering needs a new cooler(i've by passed it) it was leaking from there. the frame sounds to be in shape...still looks solid . the rear coil spring and coil plates are brand new. new antenna.got all my sound systeme in it with audiobahn amplifier and radio(infinity reference 6 1\2 (doors), infinity reference 6x9. seat belt works great, electrical seat too. window main control and relay brand new. radiator looks great(still shining) a\c don't work i guess no more frayon and here in canada frayon in car is illegal i think, anyway maybe i could get it by ebay. suede and leather in very good shape........it has 211*** km done, about 3000 with new tranny,(didnt pay the tranny job tho my uncle owns a transmission garage in sherbrooke, it says it was a aproximatively 2300$can job.hum,abs light is on, i removed the relay (my uncle says it has senser down). both differential are working great(oil is good so...)i guess thats all i can say...oh brand new winter tire...need to get new summer tires...

what i want to know is . would you do something with a car like this ?....if yes how much you think it will cost...and by the way it definetly needs a body job and paint job...btw one exaust tip is falling apart, needs to change it soon.needs new lin kit soon too

is it harder to work on the engine or to remove it ?

coil spring\coil plates changed : 400 $can
cam cover gasket changed (one bolt was leaking i torqued it too much...i broke it so ,had to remove the cover to take out the bolt ,had to toss the engine one side,i guess its not that hard to remove from car): 300$can
Crank seal changed: 20$can
antenna changed: gift(mom)
main window power changed: gift(mom)
tires: ( 376$can)
new tranny ( gift uncle)

when i was having problems with the head gasket going, i read that you would have to take out the engine. however, there was a member here that did it with the engine still in the car. he had time to do it, which is another factor to consider.
i am sure it's a big job, i believe subaru estimate a 14 hour job - of course it's not necessarily true but something to charge you.

oh i just read one of my older posts about the jdm engine. that was $2200 installed

Not sure what you did in the end but my engine had exactly the same symptoms. We figured that it wasn't oil/coolant mixing but exhaust getting into the coolant. My engine is currently apart and upon examining the head gaskets there is really no noticable point of failure.