Ever Victorious

Aha! Took a peek under the hood last night after I parked the car in the garage, and found a VERY minute coolant leak. I wasn't noticing it pooling on the floor because it is so minute. It looks like the leak is coming from the driver's side of the radiator. So now I have TWO excuses to drain the coolant. That's enough to satisfy me.

Just out of curiosity, using an ED25 block (I'm assuming the EJ25D is the most commonly used) plus EJ25 gaskets, does that make Frankenmotor susceptible to HG failures? Or has anyone run one long enough to find out?

Either your mileages are all way low, or mine is way too high. 25 in mixed driving, and that's even with a thermostat stuck open.

note to self... never eat meatloaf at GD's house!

Ok, John, that made me roffle just a little... thanks...

No, as indicated earlier in the thread. I absolutely ahbor dealing with coolant, so I was asking about methods that don't require draining the coolant. Which replacing the T-stat does. It now, after adding more coolant today, is acting exactly the same way that my Saturn acted when the thermostat was stuck open. No gunk or bubbles in the overflow tank. None of the other usual symptoms of a head gasket like coolant in the oil, white smoke, overheating, or coolant consumption, as far as I can tell. So we're pretty much down to t-stat, radiator, and water pump now, eh? Looks like I get to drain the coolant. Again. That makes me so freaking happy I could puke.

Well, it's better, I guess. I now have heat at idle. And at highway speed the temp gauge is no longer *AT* "C". It's just a hair above. :/

No clue. I've owned the car a whopping week. So far I've just done an oil and coolant change, which I always do immediately to any car I buy. And now, for another episode of, EV's Stupid Question of the Day! ... Uhm, won't that hose already be full of coolant and spill all over the place if I take it off?

EJ22. Driving around town, has normal temp on the gauge, no heat from the heater while at idle but plenty of heat while at RPM's. Never overheats, even if you just let it idle endlessly. On the highway, temp drops to the C line or just above. It will blow heat until the temp goes cold (obviously). Coolant has just been replaced and the system burped. Does not appear to have lost any coolant from the overflow tank since the system was last serviced. It's acting like the t-stat is stuck open. Any way to confirm that vs. some other cooling system failure that WON'T require me to drain the whole bloody system again?

It's not a manual. Was that the correct "brake switch?" And I guess I will have to go back for the steel line and vac pump.

OK, so I've read the existing cruise refit threads for Gen-1 Legacies, and the parts to grab are supposed to be: Cruise computer (must match the transmission), dash switch, steering wheel switch, brake switch, and cruise motor with cables. Most of these were easy. A little too easy. The donor victim was a '90/'91 Lego wagon that had been attacked for its wiring harness, so the dash was already out and in multiple little pieces... including the cruise computer just sitting right on the back seat floor. The two that confused me a little were the Brake switch... is it this one? And the other one was the "motor with cables". I had seen it described in another thread as being connected to the throttle as a 2nd cable, so I traced the 2 throttle cables to see where they went. One went to the firewall (obviously the one attached to the gas pedal), and the other went to a little black cylinder bolted to the driver's side firewall, that had a vac (?) line attached to the other side of it, which in turn attached to a hard line that went somewhere on the other side of the engine bay and down. Being as brilliant as I am, I forgot to take a picture of it. Is this the correct part? If not, can someone take a picture of the correct part (preferably installed, for reference)?

While many different GM vehicles and motors were filled with Dexcool at the factory in the 90's, it was by no means all GM vehicles that suffered the IM gasket failures due to Dexcool. Actually, the worst offender was the 3.1L (Chevy designed) V6, though most GM V6's had a problem with said gaskets to one degree or another. Yet during the same time period, the 1.9L (Saturn designed) I4's used Dexcool and had almost no IM gasket failures, and very few cooling system failures related to coolant *type*. Most Saturn cooling system failures were due to either people running the water pumps too long without replacement (drawback to timing chain driven vehicles: no mechanic poking around in there reminding you to replace that part), or due to vibration cracking the radiator tanks in a specific place. That said, with an older Subaru motor, give me plain old ethylene glycol any day of the week.

I had a thought about a "Common stuff" thread, since I spent some time on a Saturn forum and they had an absolute wonderful comprehensive "do this the minute you get the car" sticky thread. I'll post a link to it sometime so we can look at it and get ideas for ourselves. The USMB is very organized and helpful as far as technical stuff, but these guys on the Saturn S-Series forum just blow us away as far as being organized. I think "borrowing" their tactics could do nothing but help.

Amen to that. Pick n Pull has always been my friend, no matter what old beast I drive. Gave it an oil change this morning, and gave it a bit more scrutiny than the test drive would afford yesterday. And it's looking quite good. Other than needing to replace part of the center console due to the hack job with the radio, it just looks like a couple minor things: it will need brake pads soon, I need to rotate the tires this weekend, and I'm going to need to fix the door locks because they're doing that weird sticking/not opening/not closing properly thing that happens on the 1st gens. I can't remember how to fix this, so I guess it's off to the search function I go. Oh yeah, and the donut spare seems to be missing.

In the CL section of the Subaru Marketplace, I posted a local ad for a '76 DL that's for sale that's been garaged. Normally I wouldn't post in a tech forum about this, but the older cars are getting so rare now that I figured extra exposure might be warranted, just in case.

It was a long day of hunting down and looking at Subarus, finding one, buying it, and then arranging the logistics of moving both it and the car I was driving back to my home... phew! But I just snagged a '90 Legacy AWD sedan with 130k on the clock. I can get pictures another day (too exhausted right now). A very nice, although not perfect, specimen. Drives like butter. Exterior looks really good, and unlike most Subarus around here, it actually had 4 matching tires on it. Interior's pretty good, but I'm going to need sections of the center console to undo what the last owner did to the radio area.

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&Page2Disp=%2Finstrument.html These are "twist in" type LED bulbs, so perhaps they can be removed from their bases and put in the Subaru bases. Theoretically it would be a matter of finding one that's got the right length of lead and the right diameter to fit in the base. Of course... there might be a current issue as john40 pointed out. LED's use waaay less juice than incandescents. Not really an issue until you start putting things like relays in the mix. Sooo... wanna be a guinea pig?

If it's manual controls, yes. As I understand that's because of the cables that are attached. However, the '03 XS has automatic controls, so it's just two harness connectors that are easily disconnected. I've heard the hardest part of the job is finding bulbs that fit without being gouged by a Subaru dealership.

I knew it had to fall under one category or another. Anyway, just finding some minor issues that weren't tended to by the previous owner and going to take care of them. I suppose the biggest issue is that the washer fluid nozzles aren't spraying up front. There's plenty of fluid in the tank, just not getting from the tank to the nozzles. That, and I'm going to need to replace a light behind the climate controls. Those are the only two problems I have found.

Huh, I somehow missed that when searching there last night. Thanks!

Sorry for the massive bump, but anyone know how to do this replacement or have a walk-thru or writeup? I've got a blown out bulb in my climate controls.

Who else would you blame? Ed - isn't that some sort of record for you guys?

Ed - sounds good. What forester do you have again? Hahaha.. ok... the kid who I work with who also has an '03 Forester did something horribly nerdy today... On his last break, he moved HIS forester right next to mine and took a couple pics.. (mine, obviously, is the red one)

Yeah, well, a couple Baja's disappeared, the one I was looking at they weren't playing ball on... and you know I was thinking that a Baja might be a hard justification for me for a DD because it's a truck (albeit 4 door)... ... So yeah. Forester. '03 XS Premium (with leather!), nearly fully loaded. As far as I can tell the only option it doesn't have is the upgraded speaker package. Cayenne Red, and low miles for the year (shy of 74k). Pix maybe tomorrow or so once it's light again.

... and another kid at work, too. I'm back in a Subaru again as a daily driver. Between the impending La Nina season here, the fact that I will be required to drive physically to work should weather be bad, and... well... boredom... ... I ended up picking up a used Forester today. More details later, I guess. Darn you Brian and Joshua!