hey man welcome to the site .. sorry to hear about ur car.. where abouts in sydney are u because i am a mechanic in the sydney area

Dan

hey, yeah the car has just now been towed to a workshop for the work to be done. Can anyone give me some hypothetical prices for a) bew head gasket and machining heads (hopefully they are not cracked) b) new or reco'd heads c)new engine (GULP!).

I believe the gasket has just only gone in the last day or two and I'm hoping that the heads are okay....... fingers crossed. I realise the car has 200k on it, but it is in beautiful condition (apart from that darned gasket!) The car has great torque, superb pick up and great top end power. I was stoked to drive it (although it looks like I pushed the fella a bit too hard for its liking) though 200k's might have something to do with it. I went to Subaru this morning and told them the symptoms and before even looking at the car I was told that I'd need a new engine which I could expect to cost 7-8 grand. Needless to say I aint going back there.....

As Ii said the car is in great condition, so hopefully when the motor is back up and running I'll post some pics. Thanks Dan for your reply but I have been put onto a friend of a friend, a fella who has his own shop nearby and he organised for the car to be towed there tonight, in fact the tow truck just left with our baby on the tray! Here's to a speedy recovery and hoping that the engine didnt suffer too much in the last few days.

Any suggestions for improvements while the donk is out? its a 98rx 2.5 manual wagon.

Cheers.

(the liberty is still by far my favourite car!)

Welcome.

Sounds like a nice car. I love the Gen2 wagons.

Bummer about the motor.

Have you tried someone like BM Higginbottom? They do exchange engines. Not sure if they'd have one that you would need to suit your application.

Depending on the damage, perhaps rebuilding would be the most cost effective solution?

Perhaps an engine conversion may be best? (EJ20 Turbo!)

Anyways, I trust you'll come to a good solution.

Cheers

Alex

alexxx wrote:

welcome to the disaster that is the ej25 dohc.

buy a WRx long motor, loom, ECU (2K) and WRX FMIC kit(600).  Sell your old donk for scrap.

Follow Al's guide on splicing WRX and Gen2 looms together on RSLC.  It's long, tedious and scary but worth it.

Bolt the engine to the RX gearbox, install spliced loom and FMIC.

Sleeper RX looks, WRX performance.

Lottsa fun to be had.

Cheers
Darryl

Probably work out a LOT cheaper to find a good low K motor than re building yours, there should be quite a few around, ask on Rexnet, RSLC & here before he opens it, cost me $1200 to get the heads etc done on mine when I cooked it & I took the motor out & put it back in, and at 200,000 it's getting old, ask if he can wait a few days while you try to find one, try the importers too.

still in need of another set of heads? or going to check yours out?

All's well that ends well. Everyone needs a bit of luck.

Pick the car up tomorrow. Cant wait. With 200k on the clock the car will be good hopefully for a few more years..... in the meantime I'm gonna start a savings account and I might treat myself to a front cut conversion just before the 300k mark. This is my first liberty and I'm telling ya, the rx my98-99 wagons (manual of course) are physically stunning cars (im sure everyone knows here anyway....) Having only ever owned three 1970's cortinas our liberty feels like a new car. When the car comes back I'll be sure to post some pics. The car is pretty much completely standard and will stay that way (apart from a Brant alarm coming soon!) until the motor needs replacing. One of the cortinas I had packed a draw through 45mm webber turbo alloy head 250 straight  six cylinder. Needless to say that went like the clappers. I havent been into cars for a while, but forums like this and the community here help me remember why it was so much fun. The dark grey liberty has ACT plates so if you see us round Syds honk away!

how come?