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When a rod bearing went south on my first '99 EJ25D Outback it was run for at least another hour before giving up and getting towed home. The result was an undersized crank and oversized rod, so bad that they couldn't be rescued. Even with all that abuse and punishment, nothing hit a valve and I went on to bolt those heads onto a used short block and run for many more years and miles. I think your odds are good.

Went up to the UP last weekend. Based on a previous trip I didn't think there were a lot of trails in the Keweenaw but we decided to check it out. I wanted to try a trail that supposedly went north from Bond Falls and A said he'd never seen the falls so we did that hike. Tried one trail that was fairly short and dead ended at a large dilapitated cabin owned by the US gov't right along a river. Hit the highway for a while and headed to the start of the Bill Nichols trail. Saw “Adventure Mountain” on the map and Z thought we should check it out. Took one dead end trail along some houses and then took another one that went to an awesome overlook with a great view of Mass City. Checked out the Adventure mine entrance (looked like copper and ice on the rocks) and some other mining ruins and a Pinzgauer parked by the visitor center. Hit the Bill Nichols trail and walked the Firesteel trestles and took some pictures before driving over them. Stayed at a state park along the trail not too far north of there. Tons of mosquitos but the people weren't super noisy and it was nice to have a bathroom with running water. Drove through Houghton and Hancock and went to the Quincy mine. Got there around 10AM and their next tour wasn't until 1:30PM so we figured we'd check out Gay beach in the meantime. On the way we hiked to Hungarian falls. Fairly short hike, less than a mile, uphill on the way there. Two big falls, smaller one much easier to see than the larger one. Got to Gay and went out on the tailings (crushed rock byproduct of copper mining, almost as fine as sand). 23 million tons of mine tailings were dumped and less than 3 million are still there on the beach. They're reclaiming them to use as an aggregate in cement. The tailings are mostly soft and generally required full throttle in first or second gear. Looped around a bit and Forester was starting to run a little hot so we stopped by the trees where the ground is firmer and aired down. Did a little better with 20psi, eventually we wound up at the north end of the beach where there's pilings for an old pier. I decided to try driving up a steep but short hill/bank up to the level road. I asked A and he thought we should go for it. Just as we crested the top at an angle I backed off and we felt the ground fall out from under us. The car rolled on to the driver's side but fortunately stopped there. A said he saw the mirror fold in, shatter, then shatter the driver's window. We'd driven off a ~30” tall wall. First step was securing the car so it didn't roll farther. Took us about an hour and a half to get the car away from the wall and back on the tires. Here we're swinging the rear of the car away from the wall. Pushed on the car by hand and pulled with the Forester to roll it back down. We'd debeaded the LR tire and lost some fuel. We ate some PB&Js to let the fluids drain back where they're supposed to be. Got a little knocking when I first fired it up and shut it off. I remembered I've heard EZ30s make that noise before after major service (head gasket replacement) so I just cranked it for a minute or so and then started it up. No more knocking noises, seemed to run smooth. On the way out of town we fumigated the place but after a mile or so it cleared up, probably some oil drained past the rings into the exhaust and/or intake. Not too many fumes or rain inside the car with all the windows down so we did that and just put a tarp over the car when we parked for any significant duration. Got back to Quincy with about five minutes to spare before the tour started. Tour was great, biggest steam hoist/winch in the world, took about two hours. Tour was a couple hours long and definitely worth it. https://www.flickr.com/photos/photostoartbymike/33489192096 http://www.vintagemachinery.org/photoindex/detail.aspx?id=11161 Headed up 41 and along the north shore of Keweenaw. Drove some trails north of Cliff drive. Drove to the overlook on Brockway Mountain, maybe the best view in the UP. Got some beer and relish in Copper Harbor and continued up the Mandan loop. On the way to the rocket range we saw four Subarus on the trail, and it was a fairly rough dirt road with good sized water holes. Got to rocket range (small launchpad for rockets in the 60s, hasn't been used since 1971). It was getting late so we just camped there. LR seemed to have some positive camber so we adjusted it for max negative camber. Mosquito infested but otherwise a cool place to camp. Did more of the Mandan loop on Sunday wandering around on various side trails. At one point we did a couple narrow/overgrown trails that we eventually turned around and drove back out of, one of them seemed like we probably could have made it through to the end. Hit a sandy stunt area with some cool hill climbs. I looped one big one a couple times and then asked A if he wanted to ride along. First time I got stuck just before the peak and was able to back down. Second time I got stuck just past the peak and couldn't get unstuck. I was barely able to get out the driver's window. Hooked a couple of our longest straps together and Z pulled me down in the Forester. Eventually got back up by Cliff drive and did a bunch more trails there including at least one excellent trail to a clifftop view/campsite. Wound up driving to both ends of a road flooded by a beaver pond. Fairly steep climb with big rocks going up from that. Found some other mine ruins and the snow thermometer (27 feet last winter). Went back to Gay and bombed around some more on the tailings. We drove up and down the bank I'd driven over and one time A thought they were too close to the edge and started having flashbacks of our rollover. Didn't see the stamping presses I thought I'd seen there before but checked out some of the other ruins. Saw a wood(?) turtle crossing the road. Center diff was locked up by the end of the day and we weren't able to easily get it unlocked. Radar showed rain increasing all morning Monday so we packed up fairly early and headed south. Stopped at Ed's on the way and luckily they had a door and it wasn't raining too hard. Took us maybe twenty minutes to swap the doors. Ride home was fairly uneventful, rainy but good to have all the windows back in the Outback. Noisy and drafty without the door card, we hadn't bothered to swap that over. We moved some things around in the cars in Milwaukee and split up from there. About fifty miles from home the RR wheel bearing started to make noises and feel increasingly unstable. Got off the interstate and took back roads to A's mom's house. He had talked to his grandpa about meeting us there with a trailer but it didn't seem too bad at 40-50mph so I told him I'd just limp it home. I did make it home but it was getting increasingly smoky. Tire pressure sensor was beeping, peaked at 196F. Hub and CV temps exceeded 600F by the time I measured them. Overall a good trip, saw a lot of new trails and sights and came home with some stories. Definitely a good thing we had two low range cars although most of what you couldn't do with low range was at the end of a climb to a campsite/overlook and wasn't a long walk. I do have a complete spare RR knuckle, I think I'm going to just swap the whole thing out. Need to do that, do a little more painting on the door, properly patch the floor, and start working on the Impreza.