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I don’t know how true it is but fire departments have told me never to open a hood. what I don’t understand is how many Subarus have oil all under them and never catch fire. It’s not random - there has to be some causation. The ratio of “Subarus that had an engine fire” to “number of subarus with copious oil leaks” is so small I have to believe it’s rare. If we reduce that by the fact that some of those are pure user error like bad wiring or battery antics, or they have no heat shields remaining (assuming oil contacting the 1,000 degree headers matters) then it’s even smaller.

My 2000 OBS does pretty much the same thing. It's fine unless I'm in the mountains pushing itl When the temp gauge starts to increase, if I turn off the AC it helps. If needed I turn the heat to high and open the windows. As soon as the load is removed it's fine. I've replaced the radiator with a full metal aluminum one. It helped some but did not correct he problem. I've changed the thermostat, no change (Subaru thermostats). Otherwise fine. I have not pulled the water pump as to me it's just not worth the time right now.

normally, car needs to be fully warmed up - both engine and tranny - before checking the fluid to get an accurate reading - and yes, it is checked with the car running and parked on flat ground. From the sounds of things, it has been seriously neglected... so i am going to guess the fluid is low. If you are loath to actually drive it, you can run it and just shift thru the gears without actually moving... to get the dipstick loose, give it a slight twist.. they do like to seize in because they are not pulled as often as the engine oil dipstick. also.. 4th gear will not kick in until the internals reach a certain temp.. if it is very cold outside it can take a bit to get things warmed up enough.

I would recommend two things: 1. Check the oil pressure at the port used by the idiot light with a mechanical gauge. Make sure you have the engine fully up to temp. The oil pressure will keep dropping for likely around 20 minutes as the engine oil reaches full temp and stabilizes. 2. Assuming this comes back with a hot idle pressure reading of under 10 psi...... cut the oil filter and inspect. I have not seen any significant failure rate with the idiot light switches - I've seen a couple leak but that's it. They are a rock solid part and I have especially not seen one react exactly the way you would expect it to react under a low oil pressure condition without that condition actually being reality. Further I have never seen a situation on any engine where replacing the oil pump fixed the low oil pressure condition. And applying science and logic to how pumps work makes it pretty obvious why that is the case. The pump isn't the source of the "pressure" that the switch is reading. Bearing clearance is the source of the pressure - or rather the lack of excessive bearing clearance. I've been doing this a LONG time. Back when my EA81 in my off-road lifted wagon had the flickering oil idiot light at idle..... I was about 20 years old (man - has it been 22 years? crap) and didn't recognize the symptoms. I resealed the oil pump and that indeed brough the pressure up just enough to kill the light. About 2,000 miles later it threw a rod on the freeway. IMHO - you have about a 1% chance it's something to do with the idiot light switch, and about a 99% chance that engine is going away internally. GD