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I have the parts most of them in doubles, thank you for the reminder though. Between my frends dad and my friend who use to work on brats here in the US on his own, and some locals who still have non running parts cars, i have most of the parts i need to make the ea81 in my Brat live a while longer

has this been posted before? i found this over on the legacy gt forum and thought it should be included here. i was impressed. apparently the cause of the 99 speedo failure is a bad ground connection on the speedo circuit board. by adding a a wire to replace the bad connection the speedo will work again. and although you have to pull the speedo to fix it you do not have to remove the circuit board from the speedo. (EDIT: i've been looking at the pics and i'm not sure you can fix it with out removing the circuit board, FYI.) the the blue "s" shaped wire is the fix, see the pics. pics: write up, not by original fixer: So I just had this problem in a 99 Legacy Outback that I got and searched the internets and found the solution(at least to my particular problem). Here's a test, if your speedo isn't working and you push in the trip odometer and it starts working again(however briefly) then both of your speed sensors are just fine. The 99s seem to have a problem with a ground in the chipboard of the speedo unit itself. Here's how to fix it. Sorry for the lack of pictures but i'll try to describe it in detail. Start by unhooking your negative battery terminal so you don't zap yourself and/or set of the airbag accidentally. Remove the two screws at the top of the shroud covering the speedometer and the two at the bottom as well underneath the switches(fog lights cruise). Now the whole shroud should come off with a little persuasion and you can get your hand or fingers in there to pop off all the wiring harnesses to your different switches(cruise fog lights etc.) Remember where they are, or as I like to do, take a cell phone picture. Now there are two more screws on the top and two more on the bottom holding your speedometer cluster in place. Remove all of those and wiggle your speedometer out a little bit. There are a total of 4 harnesses to disconnect, one on the top left, two on the top right, and one directly in the middle(the speedo "cable") Take the whole cluster out and bring it inside to work on a table or something. Take the cluster apart by removing the plastic shield in front and unscrewing the 5 screws right behind the speedo head in the back of the board by where the speedo cables' harness was. When you get the whole speedo head out, pull off the chipboard and look at the middle pin of the 5 pins that the harness plugs into. It has a chipboard wire going a few mms to a soldering point called ground. This is the problem with your speedo. The 99s have a bad connection to that ground. THIS IS REALLY EASY!!! all you have to do is take a small wire from anything and solder it to the middle pin and solder the other side to the ground. Voila. You're done! You just bypassed the bad connections on the board with your own wire and now it has constant ground and will be happy. Put everything back together the same way you pulled it apart and your speedometer will be eternally grateful. I had never taken any part of my interior apart, and done VERY little soldering or dealing with chipboards before, and the entire process took me about an hour and a half. hope this helps. taglines: speedofix, 99speedofix

Hello everyone I am back. A longtime ultimate Subaru message board member, since like 1997 I think, anyways I have returned. I have some super cool news that I want to share with all of you. I have been simulation racing online for years now, and for the last couple of years I have been running my own twitch channel to some relative degree of success. I have 920 followers as of this message now. :-) so among other things on this channel, I stream Sim racing games, specifically rally usually, but I also do live music, and coming up in February will be broadcasting autocross racing as well. I'm looking for people who want to be in and around the channel, and the real life racing team. If you have any interest in being involved feel free to stop by the stream and say hello, and let's talk cars. On Twitch my channel name is NathanielTragic, which is my stage name from my real life band The tragic evolution. You can Google these things if you want to know more. Currently I am set up with Bridge City Auto sports to do autocross racing next season. I was able to attend their last event this year, and placed great times. As for things that may interest you Subaru people specifically, a friend of mine is going to be building his first rally car with my help. we are going to put all of that on stream, and I will be reaching out to you my long-time Subaru community for help and parts when we need it. thank you so much for reading, and I hope to hear from you all soon. It's great to be back! :-) Nathaniel Tragic on Twitch.Tv Aka SubyAddict

Welcome Back! Start a thread regarding the rally car build. Kind Regards.

SBF2 is open, or a wire to or from it. If you grounded pins 2 or 3, I have no idea if it would have damaged the Engine Control Module or not. If you grounded pin 5 then when you turned the key on the Main Relay would have closed its contacts. The only fuse to the battery is SBF2. Yellow connector. See image below. Pin-Goes to 2---ECM 3---ECM 5---Main Relay contact (other contact goes to SBF2 30amp) 9---Ground Slow Blow Fuse 2 is located in the fuse box under the hood. SBF2 30amp powers the following. ECM Fuel pump relay Main relay OBD-2 service connector

In northeast terms its ancient, 2005-2009s are dated, and it’s high mileage - you barely need to adjust the price at all. unless you’re trying to sell it fast or get high dollar for it. 1. Disclose the work done, be up front, you’ve got proof it was minor. 2. 40 percent of buyers won’t want a salvage title. 3. 60 percent won’t care on a car in that price/age/mileage. I’m making the numbers up but the illustration is the same: On a car this old/high miles with minor damage - it’ll loose a few buyers more than reduce price. It probably shouldn’t be priced on the high end. look at comparable local vehicles listed and see where your price falls, the closer yours is to the cheapest of comps the more likely it is to sell.

The parts to rebuild an EA81 are basically no longer available. These engine nearly always need replacement oil pumps and they went out of production many years ago and are now essentially unobtainable. Along with intake valves for the 83+ heads, bearings and rings from reputable suppliers, lifters (especially the hydro ones), and no one really has the proper tooling or setup to do line honing, boring, etc. Even decent gaskets and seals are becoming very difficult. The EA81 cars have long since left the domain of daily driving status because of the replacement parts logistics, and lack of service knowledge in the repair industry. It will be a huge fight to daily drive one. As someone that has daily driven them and other 80's cars. Have plenty of long term backup plans in place for when it's out of service for months at a time or longer. GD

I agree, walk away. Find the right vehicle and be patient! Or the other way around really Choose what you want to do, find one that needs the HG and timing done - barter with the seller (private or used sales) to being the price down, then either DIY the work if you’re able to or have a reputable subi mechanic do the work that will give you piece of mind with your purchase and its ongoing reliability. Cheers Bennie

I always resurface the heads, this shop almost certainly won’t do that. Subaru dealers have very good track records and often don’t resurface the heads so that alone doesn’t scare me if the place seems otherwise capable of cleaning, quality tools, prep, torque and good parts selection.

might have been better to get a significant price reduction, then have a local independent soob-friendly shop do the work. They may very well change a gasket, but will they use a quality gasket and properly prep the surface of the heads? also, wonder if the timing belt systems has been properly serviced with Japanese parts? I'd say its risky even without knowledge of the 'shady aspect' of the dealer.

I used a Carter pump on one of mine. Part number on another thread around here somewhere... Really nicely made pump.

The '99 had an issues w/the gauges / dash cluster. Search on the fix, which I believe involves soldering. Also, the 5-speed may still use the same speedo sensor as older models that may wear out / break. It's on the passenger side near the gear oil dipstick. Looks like this and that tab on the end breaks off:

How about a seal for Brat gullwing and standard wagon factory sunroofs? Thanks

Great information. You should post this in the USMB repair manual forum so that it won't get lost in the future.