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When you go to set the ignition timing, there are 3 connectors you must connect before turning the dizzy does anything. There is the green under the dash near the ECU. Then there's the green connector and the white or black connector near the firewall in the engine bay (by the driver side strut tower). These may be a 2 prong connector but there'll be only 1 wire going to the connector. But the two connectors will be right next to each other. Make sure all 3 of these connectors are unplugged. Otherwise the car is in "learning mode" and the ECU is confused. I'm using improper terminology, I don't have my manuals nor my car in front of me at the moment. If they all are disconnected and this is a "yeah, no duh" then it may be something else. This just came to my mind first as to what may be going wrong. :]

Would love to hear from anyone who did rear brakes on 2018+ Want to know how far up Shitz Creek I'll be heading before starting out if this ordeal can be expected (or avoided.)

I've managed to keep the momentum I've built this last few days by removing the hull of the Impreza from my shop. In the interest of clearing the walkway even more I've decided to start preparing to transplant the rear end, which means removing the old one. This turned out to be easier than expected - probably in part because of the practice I had pulling the subframe from the Impreza, and partly because this one had fewer and more accessible bolts holding the thing on. I've learned a few things from today's endeavors. 1) the Impreza fuel tank is too long/wide to fit in place of its original counterpart in the Brat. This "too wide" feature seems to be a trend and for good reason - the wheelbase left to right when measured before removal were a good nine inches different, give or take. As such I'll likely either end up needing to reuse the original tank and run an aftermarket pump (most appealing, easiest on my wallet), or building/locating/modifying a new fuel cell to fit. Whether or not I will be able to use the original tank largely relies on item 2. 2) While the wheelbases are different, it looks like the differentials and housings themselves are very similar in size and shape - so much so that I'm tempted to think they used a modified version of the molds for the diff cases - or at least a very close one. The only visual differences I've been able to scope out at a glance are a few missing bolt holes on the Impreza cases vs. the Brat. There will probably be something more significantly different that I find as I dig into it more. The big "what if" that stands currently is how much fabrication I will need to do in order to get the Impreza differential and subframe parts onto the Brat without causing interference problems with the original fuel tank. If I'm extremely lucky I might even be able to reuse a couple of the mounting bolt holes and front crossmember from the original brat - albeit with a bushing refresh. My plan here is to remove the struts from the Impreza rear end next - which should then allow me to roll the existing crossmember under the Brat bed to check and see what lines up and what doesnt. 3) Lastly and certainly not least - if the preceding items line up, I believe that again with some creative angle grinder surgery I can, similarly to the front end, move the pivot points for the rear suspension inboard far enough to maintain the stock Impreza components without completely custom control arms. Adjustable arms may still be smart and will probably end up being necessary to keep things tracking straight but at least this way I can still drop in off-the-shelf components for an Impreza instead of destroying my bank account. Onto the next one...

Both ‘17 Legacy’s have eyesight and all 3 have electronic parking brakes.

Still digging.

Hey all, since setting the distributor to somewhat proper idle, the check engine light has started flashing. What do I do about this? I assume this is somewhat normal, as moosens alluded to. Normally I would associate this with complete engine death, but it seems to run fine. The green test plug that is mentioned in either the “how to keep your Subaru alive” book or the engine manufacturers guidelines seemed to make it go away, but I think it was a fluke the time I did it. I’m genuinely afraid to take it up the road and back, but when I did it seemed to handle it just fine and went into 4WD too. Thanks, -Xithael

Do you have one?

I don't know for sure but suspect eyesight equipped vehicles need this step. I heard it's a nightmare to replace windshield glass with an eyesight system and it needs some special alignment and setup again. Not something any windshield shop can do.

Changing out the control arm on wife’s 2022 Ascent and looks like the last thing to do is remove one of the studs so it can slide out. However once I loosened it, it’s still in there and can’t pull out. Am I missing something? Not trying to remove and carpet to see what’s happening on the other end. TIA

Mint looking MY! Auto… “just” manual swap it - you’ll thank yourself later. Cheers Bennie

Well, I think the inevitable has happened to the 3AT in my wagon. I took a 100-mile Memorial Day road trip from LA to Oxnard down Pacific Coast Highway, and it ran great as usual. I parked it while we ate at a restaurant, but as soon as I started driving back, it began slipping in first gear. The fluid level is good and doesn’t smell burnt. I was able to manually engage first gear by shifting into first and then back into drive. Where should I start troubleshooting? Transmission vacuum modulator Band adjustment I want to go through some diagnostics and see if it’s something simple. Or is it time to bite the bullet and swap in a 5-speed manual with dual range? The car has 111,000 miles on the odometer—14,000 of those were driven lifted with 27" tires

Sorry for the late update on this Issue. I'm pretty sure the contacts in the ignition switch are bad. I installed a push button that gives the starter a direct 12V upon press. So when the issue pops up, just key on and Push button.

I've replaced the brake-pads (front & rear) on my 2017 Forester. And with no problems. But my Forester has the old-style hand-brake lever - no electronic brake gizmos.

I purchased a Gearwrench scanner tool (GWSMARTBT) for $145. It promises to reset the Electronic Brake System. After that I should be able to clear the codes and dismiss all the warning lights on the instrument cluster. If not, then I will have to remove the EBS gear units, loosen the parking brake tension, and drive the car to a Subaru mechanic with the professional scanner. Worst brake job ever.

The system was empty when I got the car and was burping a huge air bubble it doesn't lose coolant, but I ended finding the issue and it was the ecm had a buddy come down with his and it lit right off thanks for all the suggestions

Best bet would be to buy a set of heads or an engine that’s thrown a bottom end through the new skylight - if you can find one. All the best, Bennie

I replaced the intake gaskets when I was there. The one I replaced looked perfect and water got into the cylinders after the new one so I don't think it's the gaskets but maybe it's the mating surfaces. We were thinking head gasket as well and we might get to that point but I'm trying to eliminate anything else before we pull the engine out. Couple things make me think it's not the head gaskets. 1. the cylinders on that side have good compression and the exact same compression as the other side and 2. I would think if a head gasket was leaking it would be a slow leak. This basically filled the entire cylinder with water in like 2 or 3 rotations... that seems like a pretty severe leak like water is just dumping into the cylinders. Anyway I'm going to pick up the intake manifold tomorrow so I run my bore scope through it to inspect it for cracks or anything. I'll post and update after that. Thank you guys for your help!

There are two ports in your intake. One for air/fuel mixture and one for coolant/antifreeze. Sometimes that gasket under the intake goes and even sometimes just a bad moment as you’re installing etc. There’s no crack in the gasket your dad put on previous? Left bank only I’d be thinking head gasket. Maybe the shop messed up somehow. Let us know what you find.

So my Dad pulled the carb off and the coolant passage was blocked off by the gasket. He also took off the intake manifokd and said he plugged all the ports in the manifold filled it with water through the heater hose. He then saw water dripping out of the intake side. So in summary we are pretty sure the water is leaking into the intake somewhere in the manifold. Has anyone had an intake manifold leak and suck in water like that? Is there a common place where a crack could form between the water and air passages? We will do some more testing and hopefully we can find exactly where it is leaking if it is and hopefully it is repairable.

I’ve done front and rear brakes on my ‘15, ‘17 and my sons ‘17 Legacy’s and I’ve never had any issues afterwards. Maybe an Outback thing. On these 3, I replaced pads and rotors.

Hey all. I'm needing new front suspension assemblies for my 86 BRAT, and of course have been unable to find any new assemblies. However for those of you that have gotten suspension from GorillaOffroadCompany, have you looked at their offerings for the subaru Sambar? The assemblies look shockingly close to a BRAT's. So has anyone ever tried fitting any kind of Sambar suspension to a BRAT? Are the upper mount spacing and lower tube diameters right for direct bolt in? I bought a set of silverback limited coilovers for my STi some years ago and love them, so if anyone has tried this, I would be extremely curious to know how it went. As always Thanks in advance for any help.

Oh boy, I didn't see that coming. I have done a lot of brake jobs in my life and never ran into this before. Definitely not DYI friendly.

LIkely so 😅. I do own a reciprocating saw, but it is a battery powered model, and the sole remaining battery i have for it is tired. I got through one support rib with it before it decided it had had enough. Probably time to start consolidating to a singular brand of battery tool anyway, so that'll probably get replaced sooner rather than later now. In other news... I'M BACK TO ONE PROJECT CAR. I bought this brat from an enterprising young man who runs his own scrapping and junk removal service. We kept in touch a little after I brought the Brat home and he offered to pick up a load of scrap from me including the impreza hull last week. Later in the afternoon the day of loading he sent me the following: Bittersweet, but now I've reclaimed a great portion of my workshop floorspace. Granted I've still got a huge pile of parts in the place where the roller once sat but at least now I can walk around it, and that pile will slowly and steadily decline as I shift pieces over to the Brat. I suspect this is going to be the last major step achieved for a while - it's fixing to get really hot here for the forseeable future and I'm working on this in the driveway, so I'm going to have to start getting up early and invest in a shade tent to get much done on this for a while. As long as I'm making baby steps in a forward direction though, it'll get done.

Hey Bennie thanks for your quick response! we didn't think about water getting in at the carb thats interesting. My dad is going to pull the carb off later today and let me know what he sees. The car is over an hour away in my dad's shop... We initially thought it was water getting into the intake through the gasket so we replaced the intake gaskets. The old ones looked fine no tears or anything obvious and the mating surfaces look good from what we can tell. Next time I'm over there I'll pull the intake off and give it a better look. Any slick way we can test if there is a crack in the intake manifold? Maybe somehow pressurize it with water... For the compression I read that an EA71 can read up to 160 psi I think? I couldn't find a lot of references to that. When they rebuilt the engine they had to bore 40 over and used ea81 pistons (I could not find ea71 pistons). So I was thinking the ea81 pistons probably lowered the compression overall but each cylinder was exactly 120 so I figured that was pretty good and it seemed to run well and idle briefly even without adjusting the carb or timing. if I had a leaky head gasket on the passenger side at least that side would be significantly lower you'd think but it isn't. Thanks, Dustin.

No transmission work done this weekend, I had a graveyard shift Saturday and Sunday so I stuck to interior work. Also going through all the nuts and bolts. De-rust, ultrasonic clean, and sorting the damaged ones out. And cleaning all the emissions and coolant plumbing. The pedal box is also getting cleaned up and lubed. I just stuck to work I could do in my pajamas and not get all greasy. On a transmission note - One thing I did notice was my two Loyale ('91 & '93) SR4WD also have those two upper dowel holes. Even more interesting that the '85-'90 parts manual I have doesn't show those dowel holes on any of their transmission diagrams. I found a shop in town to get my D/R resealed and synchros bead blasted. I had to go through and make a list of all the seals, o-rings, bearings, and bushings. I bought all the seals and o-rings I could. Pretty cheap to buy all the seals (sans 2 o-rings and the weird "top hat" seals I believe). Think it was around $50. I'm taking the transmission in this week. The RTV on the spare trans is going to be an issue. They really laid it on thick, I cannot get the T-case cover off. :]