Problem with my mates impreza!
 

hay all, ok i dont actually own this car its my mates and iv been trying to sort it for him! i know my fords and VWs well but im hoping for a lil inside help with the boxer engines!

1997 2.0 turbo.

Ok he bought the car sat nite and drove it from scotland and on the M6 near rugby he broke down (so it got pretty far)
He says it started to over heat and got some unconvincing sounds, then it wouldnt start up again unless it cooled down and now runs teriable and over heats quickly!

he got it tailered back to bedford which set him back a sad £400 :(

now if been working on it 2 nite in a row! iv done an oil change, coolent change. But there is 2 coolent tanks a full metal one on the left hand side and a thin plasic one with the max levels in the far front right with pipes goin into the wing. iv dione what i thought was rite but when we started (which took a few turn overs) the coolent pipes were ROCK SOLID hard as if the coolent wasnt curcalating! Any advice about the 2 coolent tanks?

SO replaced the thermosat (nightmare that was the bolts were rounded off).
And the one that came out only had the top part! no spring or nothing and had clearly been modiyed!

WE are still yet to turn the car over to see if the thermerstat had helped.

Sorry about my spelling and not owning a scooby myself but i really wanna try and get my mates one running well and get it on the road! Its a loverly car!

Any help would be really greatful!

Thanks for all your time

Paul

If the coolant wasn't circulating I'd look at the water pump, went on mine and kept overheating and dropping the coolant. I think the only way to test that is to let subaru or somewhere do a pressure test on the system but if someone has changed the coolant incorrectly they are an absolute bugger to sort out. If you find it keeps using the coolant up, try filling it from the rad top hose, worked for me. Just do that, then when no more will go in (you'll know cause it'll run from where you disconnected the hose) then reattach it and fill the resevoir tank up. Run it till the fan kicks in which will open up the thermostat and release the trapped air. Very carefully release the resevoir tank cap and just let teh air fizzle out till it stops, then top up and it should be good to go after that, hopefully for your mate.

Is it dropping the coolant at all when its sat? Sure fire sign the water pump has gone when that happens.

I would also check the coolant temp sensor as if this goes wrong (which they do on the imprezza's it will send wrong info to the ecu which will affect fuelling (can report engine is cold when its hot so it overfuels and vice versa)

Was there any loss of coolant ?