rverdoold

I am planning to have Christmass this year at my Girlfriends family in the wonderful Baltic country of Latvia. There will be some issues driving there in the winter. First problem driving on snowy roads is the lack of AWD in my '91 Legacy, but if you drive normally with snow tires and chains there is no problem. Things which interest me more are: Coolant (night temperatures can go below -22F) Oil, driving during day temps will be from 5 to -10F are there special oils i need for the engine. Battery, think when it gets cold just take it out during the nights, problem this will clear ECU and TCU is this a problem to do it daily? Any other things i should take care of?

Had it once forgot to tighten it. Replace with thick plastic (HD PP) and tirape around the filler nek

When i read the http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/ i wanted the Schaeffer oil but no way to get it here in Europe. I changed oil to 'Kroon Olie' (a proper dutch brand) half synthetic and it stopped the leaking at the filler cap. Engine runs nice and gets to temperature smooth. On http://verifier.rust.biz/oil.htm are also some hints and tips. On the bottom there is this oil chart. stating you should always get at least ( for the sentence) API SH. Think good oil filter is also very important. Problem again is that i dunno those brands like Fram and purolator, never seen them here. If i get the original from the dealer/stealer it costs me 14 euros (about $$22, uhmm well exhange rate is bit bad)

When i replaced the oil i figured out it was overfilled a little bit (really not too much but more than it should be) and i remembered that the clutch pack was never engaged (i check this by driving 80km/h giving little extra throttle if the rpm increases immediately a little bit than its still driven in viscous coupling if it doesnt increase much (lets say 50 rpm more instead of 200 with viscous coupling) its locked up. When i changed oil to the proper volume it worked better. but i guess it has not much to do with the brake bands. I also read that the lock-up works in 2 3 and 4th but until now i have only seen it happening in 4th.

Luckily i don not have the other symptons. I always thought it was in combination with the hard braking. It seems a lot of work, will it be bad continue driving like it is. 99.9% is driven very nicely and calmly in D

sounds interesting can you explain little more procupine. The gearbox was completely rebuild about 80k km ago and oil change about 25k km.

could be driver error. But occasionally during a downshift from 3rd to 2nd with a speed of 70 to 80 km/h it also goes to neutral mode. Putting it back to 3rd or D gives Drive back. Strange thing is that during a flatout i can hit 110 km/h in 2nd so 70 to 80 should not be a problem. In the mountains driving down the mountain it is usually never a problem but sometimes it gets hard on the brakes when it is forced into Neutral.

Found some strange behaviour in my automatic today (91' legacy 2.0 fwd) What happened: Car in front of me blown its rear tire and stopped without to many damage. I had to reverse quick to prevent getting hit by oncomming traffic manouvering onto my lane (i was stopped alread). Then while reversed on the wrong lane i had to be in my lane ASAP so stopped quick and front wheels locked up (meanwhile i put gear in N). Moved shifter to 3rd (just quick pushing it down passing D whas not really interested in looking at the gear shifter). Drove quickly away to my lane and slowed down. Now the moved shifter to D and there was no drive, back to 3rd and drive was engaged. Stopped and checked people in blown tire care, all ok. Put shifter in D and everything was fine (all gears normal shifting, no errors). Any reason why drive was lost in D??? (speeds were low but little abrubt changing them from forward to reverse to forward)

now i get confused. So it means that i should have an ATF light which should come on at the start sequence???

I was thinking the same with my FWD '91 legacy. The 4EAT works fine (after rebuild) but the light doesnt come on at start sequence. I did some searching. FWD automatics do not have the light (also in dutch manual) AWD automatics have. So FWD no light (i checked mine and actually there was not even a bulb present)

Found that the best way to measure on automatic is with warmed up (15 km drive). Remove dipstick and whipe it off (and take it in the car or just dont lose it, but dont put it back). Go in car and go through all gears and in D and R let the car actually move a meter or 2. Put it in park and get out. Leave engine running. Get dipstick and cool it down in windscreen washer container for a minute or so, whipe it. Stick it back in the tube and pull out, And read out. If there is too much take a big 50 or 100 ml syringe with a teflon tube which fits in the dipstick tube. Let it cool down and insert the teflon tube and remove the oil with the syringe. Success

Good not anything really bad happened. Drove an Opel Omega for 4 years those things weigh 1800 kgs (station though which is not sold overseas). Good repear. Just heard dad getting his 05OBW back for 100k km service (1600 euros) on propane now harm at all car runs like new.

What would be the advantage of having a knock sensor. I also do not have one on my EJ20, but never hear any knocking from the engine.

Mine has just 245k km on it and it wants much more, engine feels just fine (gearbox has been fixed once). And now its rusting somewhere in the wheel arches near shocks in the rear but i will have it fixed. The mighty subaru is not going down

Here overseas we dont have the baja (officially, very few imports) neither the outback sport. How should i see the baja? An legacy outback station with the last part removed converted into a pick-up (el camino style). Or are there very different things besides its the previous model legacy based car. To me it looks like the overhang on the rear is bit larger, what about the wheelbase. Its such a cool car.

For the difference in circumference its not so much 205/55/16 = 78.2 inch (811 rev per mile) 195/60/16 = 79.2 inch (800 rev per mile) this is a 1.3% difference which can be tolerated Better would be to take 185/60/16 because they are little smaller (77.7 inch) so they will definitly fit. Or you can play yourself at http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html But they both will fit (195 and the 185) actually winter is comming so smaller tire is more weight per ground area = more grip on slippery surface.

Those are the ones that usually wear out first, whats the milage?

If the speedo cable is mounted in the gearbox it should always run the inner cable in the dash which then should indeed turn around. It could also be that the connection piece is worn this is the piece connected with the inner cable in the gearbox which is held by a bigger piece of metal with a bolt/nut (never know which one is which )

For the interest of the thread i will make some images of the Koltec LPI installation the 05 OBW.

Everybodies says 'Reneable Energy' and i can not disagree with them but. The way it should be donei not that easy. Here the just opened an Off-shore windgenerator plant. Since we have lots of Natural Gas recourse our energy is made from that which is not the most polluting from the choices. The previous government said that by 2012 all our nuclear power plants would have been shut down but new one says at least untill 2025 they are open. At my university they designed a tidal energy station and the trails look very promising. But you are right it took 100 years to get here and it needs also time to go further.

Yes you are right, but here in holland LPG is usually just flamed at the refinery. So the product is waste of making gasoline. So in fact its cleaner to run on waste than on gasoline . I completely agree on the fact that we should change to an other source of energy. Biodiesel is an option (and really hoping the new boxer diesel will run on biodiesel). Than is the E85 (ethanol85) a real option but yet no information from subaru europe about both of these topics. The question if the diesel could run 50/50 on diesel/biodiesel was a very euuuhmm we are not sure yet answer. If subaru wants to sell the diesel in germany (most diesel country in EU) it has to be able to run biodiesel. Of course biodiesel and E85 are steps in between to Hydrogen or pure electric but that will take at least an other 50 years. Sorry about the dollar euro exhange ratio. But its nice for me to import things from there. (15 years ago it was the other way around)

Well the thing here is a litre of gasoline E95 = 1.50 euro and propane is 0.50 euro (dont convert dollar euro ratio is not to good for americans). On average an installation + installing + MOT costs 2000 to 2500 euros, fuel consumption is 8.8 l/100 km for gasoline and 11.1 l/100 km for propane. Here we say we have to drive at least 7500 km a year to be cheaper of with propane. There is more than only a price difference in tanking. Propane cars pay (for 2.5 05 OBW) 800 euros road tax while without propane its 500 euros. This is only because the propane is a modern G3 labeled system otherwise road tax would be 1500 euros which is not good for the switch KM (ratio when propane becomes cheaper). With such a small difference in price you will only be doing it because its better for the environment. Plus on an fuel injected engine you need a propane injected system. Its much easier for carbarated cars then.

Car is washed often and also waxed. Especially i rinse the wheel arches cause i know its a bad area for moist. I still have to check how bad it acutally is.

I wont agree that propane doesnt work at temperatures below 15 degrees. Thats because the tank is in the car. The G3 or Euro4 LPI (liquid propane injection) looks like gasoline injection. And when you start the car it will always run on gasoline for a minute or 2 and then switches to propane. The system is built by vialle en Holland and UK.

Picked up my '91 legacy station, a daily driver with 250k km on her (2.0 AT FWD), from the MOT (or governmental roadworthy check). The car runs fine and transmission was rebuild at 160k km, for now compression in all cylinders is fine as well. Problem during the MOT the mechanic said that they have removed a heat-shield which was ratling and that there is rust in the rear wheel arches near the point where the shock is mounted. I know the mechanic good enought that he doesnt fool me and said officially it just barely passed the MOT on that point. For the rest its a fine car to drive. My question is, how hard is it to fix this thing. Guess it would mean: remove shock, cut out bad part and weld in good part, put shock back (but it will be more complex than that)? Is it a common problem for subies of that age?