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Hey all. Thought I would share a new to me discovery about Subaru Ignition lock cylinder replacement. I had a customer who's 04 Forester Ignition lock failed. Seized up, wouldn't return to "off" position so was draining battery in ACC. So, I call dealership, talk to them about ordering a new lock cylinder. Now, I've done this I think 3 times in the past. Always purchased a new cylinder and customers then just used 2 keys, 1 for doors, 1 for Ignition. Not a big deal as all those cars had keyless entry, so they didn't really need the "door" key ever. Now, for this Forester, the customer does not use keyless entry, and wanted all keys the same. So I inquired from dealer this time, is there a kit available to replace all 3 lock cyls (Ig., Drivers door, glovebox) in the car with matching keys? Well sure enough, AFTER I ASKED, they tell me "oh, yes, there is a whole car kit" It's $60 dollars cheaper than just the Ig. cylinder. DOH! Why the HELL don't they volunteer that info! Anyhow here's the kit for a Manual trans, 04 Forester. I imagine kits for other models are available too, but I haven't confirmed how many. Comes with Master key (top), Sub-master (middle w/code tag) and Valet (does not operate glove box) IMG_0101 by Dans Subaru, on Flickr

2 on the left, 2 on the right. Dead center of the Valve covers, under the Coil packs on each plug. If you can't find them, you probably should have someone else change them.

Thanks for your response. Simplicity is the reason. I use the EA-81 engine in my trikes, and they require no extra wiring. Basically they hook up just like the VW engine, and are adapted to a VW trans-axle. Also I am in the middle of the US and parts are very hard to find. I would give some thought to the newer generation of engines, but I am 83 years and kind of set in my ways. Again Thank you for your answer, Have a wonderful life!

if you can, return it and get your money back and go get a low miles used shaft from car-part.com

Returned that bad shaft, then they sent me another one. Which was all scratched up, and surprise, vibrated terribly. 3 bad shafts in a row, the third one looked exactly like the the first one down to the scratches. I think they just sent me the first shaft again. Don't ever buy from Buyautoparts.com or their ebay store.

Giles, Your air pipes are shipped. I included a few solenoids for the front struts. Anyhow, I didn't include my home made tool, but I took these pics of using it. You can easily make one from the body of a "bic" pen. Here's the 2 pieces of it. 1 about 1~2 cm max. Sliced down the edge. Other piece about 6 cm, also sliced down the edge. IMG_0102 by Dans Subaru, on Flickr Small piece fitted over the air line IMG_0103 by Dans Subaru, on Flickr Longer piece now slipped over the first, and pushed up under the locking tabs. Leave the smaller piece puled back a bit still so just the outer tube is under the tabs, all the way. IMG_0104 by Dans Subaru, on Flickr Now use a small tool, (tip of my multitool here) and slide the small piece tight up under the first, pushing the tabs outward. Hold pressure against the outer tube to keep the tool tight against the tabs. IMG_0105 by Dans Subaru, on Flickr Fingernail used to pull the one tab that lines up on the spit in the tool. IMG_0107 by Dans Subaru, on Flickr And then pull the tool, and the line toghether to pop out of the fitting. IMG_0110 by Dans Subaru, on Flickr Giles, hope this helps you and others. anyone that needs an Air Compressor for these cars PM me I've got rebuildable ones for parts.

Sounds like a dead crank angle sensor in the dizzy to me - ECU doesn’t know when to hit spark and doesn’t know when to fire injector. That said, I’m not sure that the SPFI ECU signals the dizzy to fire since it’s still in the mechanical spark mechanism era. Have you checked for codes yet? Cheers Bennie

About the thinning hair...if you wear a baseball cap all the time that will contribute to hair loss. No oxygen getting to the hair roots. That and heredity.

For the race we parked the Forester in the main pit for refueling and driver/navigator changes. At the start of the race I rode with JCR in the baja bug, B drove the Outback with slammo navigating, and J rode with in the F100. The F100 was a well built prerunner with full glass and interior. They started flagging off cars one a minute at 5PM which meant the Subaru started around 5:15. JCR kept telling us all weekend he was going to take it easy but it didn't seem like it while I was riding with him. I felt safe but he seemed to be pushing the car hard. It seemed to have stiffer suspension than the Subaru despite having more travel and better shocks but that allowed him to hit things harder without bottoming. The seats were comfortable and the open air was actually much cooler than the Subaru with AC on since we had about 100x as much airflow. Within two miles of the start we started hearing a banging noise in the rear and he pointed at the mirror and I saw the RR fender flapping in the breeze. By mile 3 it was gone. He continued to run the car hard and passed a buggy and a truck but did not catch up to the Subaru despite starting about five cars back. He was familiar with the ranch but I did help him navigate a little and slowed him down for a few hazards I don't think he saw coming. Both of our fresh air hoses kept coming off our helmets so every couple miles I had to shove them back on. At about mile 25 the lightbar above the windshield started flapping around (just one bolt holding it on) so I held that in place with my arm through the windshield opening for the last five miles. I had told him multiple times before the race I just wanted to ride for one lap but when we got to the fork for the main pit he just kept going straight on the race course despite me pointing to the pit exit. Fortunately I got him to pull off into the pits just before the start/finish line. We got out and I unbolted the light bar. A woman from the pit we were near came up to him with a water bottle and a quart Gatorade and he took the Gatorade and chugged the whole thing. He got back in the car and I zip tied his fresh air hose on his helmet. In the meantime B was driving the Subaru hard and had finished the first lap in under an hour. J was supposed to just ride in the F100 for the first lap but had stayed in for the second lap so I spent some time trying to find him. I got some water and tried to get video of the Outback going through the secondary pit (~mile 23) but never saw them come by. I went back to the Forester and waited and got a gas can ready. Eventually J showed up in the F100. He said he'd had a blast and he went to the bathroom and got some water. He kept going on about how he couldn't believe the Outback was making it around that course. About ten minutes later B and slammo showed up in the Outback. They had gotten a flat tire and the hatch wouldn't open so it took them a while to change it on course. Another wheel had a couple dents in it and was starting to slowly leak air so we replaced that and put a good spare in the car. We added five gallons of fuel and J got in to navigate. I told B at that point we had almost no chance of finishing all six laps so just take it easy. I hammered the dents out of the wheel which mostly stopped the leak but did create some tiny cracks. In another hour they came back with no issues so I got in to drive and J stayed in to navigate. Five gallons of fuel was added and the tank was full so we had used ten gallons in 93 miles for about 9mpg, still worse than expected but better than 6mpg we thought we had in the prerun. By this time it was still possible with a good run to do two more laps by the 10:45 cutoff for starting the last lap but it was getting dark, I turned the lights on maybe five miles into the lap. Almost immediately we had an occasional tire rub in the RF, mainly when on the gas. I thought (hoped) it was just because we put on some different tires that were maybe not as worn. We discussed stopping to check it out but there weren't many good places to stop and it's a big hassle to get in and out of the car with all the safety gear so I kept going and it didn't seem too bad. After maybe fifteen miles it was starting to get a little squirrelly so I found a good place on a gravel road to pull off course. It looked like one of the bolts holding the RF control arm bushing had fallen out and then the other bolt/insert ripped out of the body. I jacked/strapped it mostly back into position and used a bunch of hose clamps and heavy safety wire to hold it in place. While I was doing that J was pointing people by and letting them know we were OK. By the time we got back in the car and underway it was 11PM and we heard over the radio that the Subaru was the only car still on the course. I told them we were back on the move but had suspension damage so I was going slow the five miles to the secondary pit. We made it back and the repair seemed to be holding fine. JCR had finished five laps in time to start his sixth but decided he was done as he'd already vomited in the car. The F100 had finished all six laps by 10:30. The fastest lap time in a trophy truck was 38 minutes for an average speed of 49mph, which is slow for a desert race. For example in the Vegas to Reno the winning truck usually averages about 75mph. J told me he was bouncing around a similar amount in the F100 and the Outback but the F100 was going faster. Fortunately I had put my headlamp on when I went to pick up my street shoes I saw a black widow spider that had built a web in the left shoe. I smashed it with a big stick. We semi posterior packed things into our cars and said goodbye to J and slammo and rode with JCR back to his cabin. This is the first off road race we've ever done that I felt was almost too rough to be fun. Many of the rough sections of the course could be driven in a stock Honda Civic but it would be a very rough ride. It's sort of like harsh washboard, it's not really challenging just annoying and shakes the car to death. One more experience that makes me want to just trail ride or race point to point. Also contemplating making the windshield and/or rear glass easily removable for desert racing.

B came over last Thursday morning and we did some last minute packing up and hooked up the cars to tow down to Texas. Our friend JCR had left South Bend a little earlier towing his baja bug so he was a few hours behind us. I had driven about 250 miles but the gas gauge was still above half. I was going to stop soon and the car started cutting out and the fuel pump was making a lot of noise, you could hear it occasionally get some fuel and quiet down, just enough to get to the end of an off ramp. We dumped in the 2.5 gallons of fuel from B's gas can but it still wouldn't start. I pulled the pressure hose off at the engine and a lot of compressed air with some fuel sprayed out of the engine side. B cycled the key a few times and we seemed to have a reasonably solid fuel flow. I put the hose back on it and fired back up and ran fine. Took 20 gallons to fill including the 2.5 we'd put in. We got past Tulsa and camped at a city park at Stroud lake. Friday was fairly uneventful. There were giant grasshoppers on the road leading into the ranch. Their body was almost the size of two adult human fingers. They could barely jump. We made it to the ranch around 2PM, slammo and J were already there and we picked out a place to park in the shade of some trees that we ended up camping in all weekend. We put the door bars, harnesses, numbers, and lights on the Outback and went through tech and registration. While we waited around we saw some other critters: I cooked some dogs and then we watched the handful of unlimited class vehicles (trophy trucks and ultra 4s) qualify. JCR had rented a small cabin on a lake near the ranch so we stayed with him Friday and Saturday nights. There were about ten long piers out into the lake, most of which had some kind of covered square pier at the end so you could fish in the middle ice fishing style.

It was the main propeller shaft. I put in a used one I had bought a while back from a junkyard and the vibration disappeared. Originally I bought the new driveshaft because the junkyard one was rusted and pitted at the transmission end and wore out the seal. So that part outfit sent me 2 bad propeller shafts, the original one was bad and so was the replacement.

Just had to share the ridiculousness of the day. Making a cardboard mock up of the control arm mods to visualize where/how to cut/weld/extend the XT6 arms. Didn't intend to make anything so funny or dirty, but once it happened, my wife and I could not stop laughing for the rest of the night. I spit out beer twice laughing so hard. IMG_3854 by Dans Subaru, on Flickr You're welcome.

And now back to the main event. 5 lug knuckles, with Impreza brake rotors + brackets, swapped for EA slider upper slide pins. New Balljoints. AND the big reveal........Modified 2011 Outback front struts fitted with 03 Outback rear springs! The '11 fronts and the '03 outback rear shocks have the same travel, and distance from spring perch to top, so the springs should be just the right length, And the rump roast of the 03 is pretty heavy, should hold my little EJ22'd EA body pretty well. IMG_3833 by Dans Subaru, on Flickr Close up of the spring perch clearance. It only works with the knuckles tipped all the way "out" on the camber bolts. Should be fine though as it's going on an EA81 body. In fact I may need to slot the mounting tabs to tip the wheel out away from the strut even more if there is too much negative camber. Either that or build adjustment into the new front lift blocks for the tophats. IMG_3838 by Dans Subaru, on Flickr IMG_3834 by Dans Subaru, on Flickr If these springs don't handle the weight of being in front, I can at least now use narrower springs, there are options for 4 runners that should fit nicely. But I am hopeful these outback springs will be just about right. I don't want the front too stiff. IMG_3837 by Dans Subaru, on Flickr Nextup, Lengthen and beefup XT6 front control arms!