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With the belt off, spin them. If they freewheel and sound like roller skates there's no grease left inside. The cogged idler is under the most stress and likely the first to fail.

I found that it pays to also order extra main and idle jets either side of the size fitted. it should be mandatory when selling these things, as if it not run sweet out of the box you can go about swapping about instead of waiting (&stewing) for extra jets Mate bought one locally , set up for his application supposedly. The tailpipe analyser picked up something amiss Not even finger tight idle jets !!

Mitsuboshi is the OEM supplier to Subaru for the timing belt. Previous advice about Aisin kit or buying quality parts (NTN, NSK, KOYO) is spot on. Definitely replace the tensioner with a NTN part.

The fitment issue is with the white 8-spoke steel wheels. The early ones with curved spokes contact the brakes on an EA82 (which has straight spokes). I've never seen or heard of alloy wheels having this issue, so the H-style wheels should fit.

Hi Bennie Yes its not too extreme; 32mm (1.25”) all around, but it makes for a world of difference in our situation. We use our cars for normal road driving, and I greatly enjoy the Subaru AWD handling on our twisty roads, but there is a mile of rough track, in parts steep, from our home to civilisation. This was the initial reason we started to look for comfortable ‘family cars’ which could cope with the rough and slippery stuff! That was when I had my epiphany and discovered our trusty stalwart, the Forester. The track is crumbly and rocky in our hot summer, muddy and slippery in our wet winter, and firm but uneven between! The little extra clearance is a necessity. The photo above, taken of the rear of the car shows a less technical part of our track. I shall see how this setup goes, with an aim to fitting better parts and replacing the worn/missing bits in the near future. I had to make it higher urgently and cheaply to get along our track without excessive swerving and constantly worrying about clearance. After the lift ‘experiment’ I now see that I need three new struts due to leakage (four new struts then), plus other hardware. I first have to decide if this lift is enough, before buying a set of replacement struts and proper alloy lift kit. Perhaps more logical would be to buy the full set of Outback struts, and find the necessary kit such as trailing arm brackets or spacers, and hope that the CVs will not be overworked as I do not have plans to space the subframes/diff etc.. Either way I can re-use my springs and some strut hardware. Using long OB struts without associated OB body lift parts would likely mean trouble adjusting the camber- my front bolts are maxed out already with this minor lift.... The other thing that bothers me is lifting it so much to appear non-stock or even ludicrous with the smaller Legacy (non-OB) wheels. I am presently almost at my permitted max wheel diameter- Spanish law will not permit unhomologated mods, nor more than 3% deviation in tyre diameter. It has to be within limits or be very discreet. I have 195/70r14 rubber fitted, 2.5% larger than the standard 195/60r15. Thanks!

Thanks for the help everyone! I think I am going to preserve the 4 speed and keep the old engine and 4 speed together for future endeavors and in the mean time keep looking for the right tranny for the job. Thanks for the input! Cheers

Use a Subaru or Mitsubishi timing belt. That's 15 months overdue on belt replacement as it's 105,000 or 105 months. Most folks on this forum recommend a complete timing belt kit - belt, pulleys, and tensioner, and water pump. Since the timing belt relies on none of those failing to work properly. The belt and lower cogged pulley (it's only $40 from Subaru) are the bare minimum, that pulley fails often enough that just replacing the belt doesn't make sense for only $40. Get Subaru or AISIN timing kits or piece together the koyo, ntn...etc pulleys and tensioner and pump. eBay is a good resource for this as well.

You know recently I moved to a new city, and had to try to find a new mechanic for my 95 legacy. to be honest my old one in Houston wasn’t all that fluent in Sublish, but he was very affordable and honest. And you know going to a new person to trust with your baby, well it can be traumatizing. So knowing the resources here on USMB, I searched for “Austin”. And I came across posts specifically by 1LuckyTexan who I know speaks the ancient tongue of Subaric. Long story short, I found the cardoc sage, his shop is 15 minutes from my house if that, and he works on Saturdays. Life is good. thank you all, again. ‘97

Cardoc knows his stuff. About as good as you can get for Subaru care.

I've seen very few Tribecas in my Li'l country, maybe five or seven... Same number of Bajas and BRZ / GT86 Not a single Crosstrek nor Ascend, yet... Kind Regards.