johnceggleston

worst case , it's rod knock. that's pretty much terminal. mid range case, it's piston slap. this usually happens when cold at start up and goes away, or mostly goes away, as the engine warms up. this is a pain but not an indicator of eminent failure. you can live with it, i did for 40k miles and then i sold the car. but it could be the t-belt tensioner. they can make a knocking noise whnen the start to fail. and if it fails you will be looking at a head gasket / valve job. very expensive. i suggest you buy a $4 ''mechanics stethoscope'' from harbor freight and listen for the noise on the timing cover under the alternator. that is the general location of the tensioner. if that's what is making the noise, replace it sooner than later, a failure is expensive. if the noise is not '' rod knock'' i would do a complete timing belt job, belt, water pump, tensioner, and all idlers. and any leaking seals.

it should be a direct swap with no problems as long as both are 2.5L engines and both are non-turbo. the 6 cylinder and or turbo may have a different final drive ratio. so you ought to double check. look under the ''TRAIN'' heading for 'individual differential' (and check the ring and pinion or gear set ratio) once you get that far with the link below: (i'm pretty sure they are both a 4.44 ratio and that would be the only possible difference.) http://opposedforces.com/parts

i'm not completely comfortable with all of the info in this post. first, not all 2.2L engines are non-interference. 90 - 96 are but 97 - 00 are interference. second, holding the crank pulley / harmonic balancer with a chain wrenh does work, i've done it, but it can damage the pulley creating another problem. besides there is an easier way to do it and you don't have to buy a tool. see this: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showpost.php?p=993364&postcount=46 and finally, the old style tensioner is very reliable but the new style has a shorter life span, in my opinion. do not assume it is good.

in case it hasn't been said yet, the stubs on the trans are held in by cir-clips. so they tend to have a little play, in and out.

have you loosened the head bolts yet? i would probably have hung a new belt and done a compression test, looking for bent valves. we had this discussion a while back, a 96 with an interference engine. i read recently that transition years are always questionable. they may start using the ''new'' engine before they actually start producing the ''new'' model year. if you have already loosened the bolts, there may be an indication on the piston. or... dropped a valve? that would be rare.

so this would be a Granny tranny? hopefully not a Tranny Granny.

is this the slide pin bolt or the bracket bolt? usually bracket bolts don't have to be removed for pads. if slide pin bolt, did you use high temp grease on the bolt? i'd probably get the correct bolt from the dealer and install it. (i'm thinking slide pin bolt now. bracket bolt maybe not but it will only be a few $ and then it will be stock, and right.)

that will buff right out.

search ''torqueconverter'' and read the oldest thread. the pics are missing but the write up is good.

good answer.

congratulation and my apologies. i have a 90 nissan pickup 5 speed with 185k miles on the original clutch. so you are right, the lifespan of any machine depnds in part on the operator. good truck good trans. on the other hand, i bought a used 95 lego auto trans with 75 k miles. it was a repo. i drove it 90k miles and NEVER changed the trans fluid. so at 165k miles, the trans started to go. i swapped it and my son still has it at 220k. that one is on me. so both are good trans. it's one of the things subaru got right. and with proper care and maintenance they CAN last the life of the car. but when buying used, the odds are the other guy missed something. i just don't like replacing clutches. and it is hard to steer, shift and hold the phone to your ear at the same time. thankfully i have broken my habit of dialing and driving. the only down side to that is it is that i do it so rarely now it is very foreign to me to talk while driving the car. but less talk and more driving is safer. just my opinion.

if you have a 95 legacy auto trans and swap in an outback96 - 99 manual trans you don't have to change the rear diff. i agree about the auto being more reliable. how many times did you have to pull the trans in your 440k miles? more than once? but every one has an opinion. and that's fine. but to the original poster, what don't you like about you car / engine / trans? have you read the thread about the ''power mode'' switch? is your engine tuned up? the trans has a memory. it learns how you drive and repeats that. disconnect the battery over night and then go out and punch it. hand shift into 3 and wind it out. then see if it drives differently. after you put it back in D. everything about these cars is programmed towards economy and emissions. and unless you figure out how to get around that you are going to get economy results.

well subaru never acknowledged that there was a head gasket problem for the 96 - 99 ej25 but they apparently did with the 00? - 02?. i'm not sure exactly what you are looking for. 96 - 02/3 the head gaskets might fail. in my opinion, the 90s are more of a risk than the 00s, but whose counting?i don't know how many versions of the actual gasket there have been, but is more than subaru wuold like to admit. at some point before 05 they found and eliminated the problem. maybe as early as 03 depending on who you talk to. if you are looking to buy, get a late 90s ej25 with bad gaskets and do an ej22 swap. or get an early 00s and keep the ''magic'' conditioner in the coolant. or buy one from 04 or newer. hope this helps.

that will swap, good luck. check the trans code on the bell housing at the strater hole. if it starts with TZ102Z2xxx it is a perfact match. read up on re-seating the troque converter before you start. there is a good write up even though the pics are gone. search ''torqueconverter'' and look for the oldest one. i have a 96 lego sitting right now with the engine out. if i remember i'll take some pics to add back to the thread. basically you want the ''ears'' on the TC flush with the trans bell housing. they may stick out 1/8'', not not much more.

if the sus has the phase 2 trans, (99 outbacks generally did, but not ALL) then there may be more bolts. the bell housing bolt pattern changed with the phase 2 trans. read the trans code on the bell housing at the starter. if it starts with TZ102Z then it is a phase 1 trans. if it starts with TZ1A............ then it is a phase 2 trans. but they are not hidden.

the easiest way to disconnect at the top is to leave the cable attached to the arm and remove the arm from the control unit. on the rump roast end there is a pivot point. spread the clips and the arm will come out. leave the arm and the cable in the dash and remove the unit. (the knob on the front of the arm will pop off but that's no biggie.) removing the arm is way easier than the small c-clip at the top or the cable attachment at the bottom. plus, you don't run the risk of re-installing the cable wrong and not getting full motion out of the heat control arm. off topic side story. my son is driving my 95 lego L i gave it to him with 165k miles after i swapped in a used trans. i bought it used and drove it for 90k miles and never serviced the trans. yeah, i was dumb. anyway, he came home from school needing brakes. so brakes we did. but in the process i made him clean out the inside of his car. there were several layers of trash in his car. and guess what we found. the knob for the heat control. he had lost it 6 months earlier. i didn't even bother to ask how it got lost. i've been driving subarus since 1994 and i've never lost a control knob. kids today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

none!! you will have to use the flexplate / flywheel for the original trans and use the 2.5L ac bracket but that's it. really easy. you just have to weigh all the cost of the 2.2L engine against all the repairs of the 2.5L engine.

the starter for a manual trans engine is different from the starter for an auto trans engine. one is longer than the other. i'm an auto trans guy only, so i don't know which is which. but someone will and then it is a piece of cake, plus shipping.

AND, perhaps 10k in property damage is not enough. i'm not an insurance guru, but this thread did make me wonder what my property coverage is. of course if you are 23 years old and paying ALL of your own bills and own absolutely nothing of value, maybe 10k is enough. when they sue you, what can they take away, your music collection? any way, don't let them take advantage of you. it would not surprise me to learn that they claimed more than 10k because they learned that your coverage is 10k. kind of like a negotiation, start high and then settle lower. they will never get 10k out of the insurance company if the ask for 9k. and if these things routinely settle??? for less than first asking, then of course they are asking for more than 10k. bottom line, you don't care about the amount as long as it does not cost you any money.

i'm glad it worked out for you. the first time i did it i removed the whole mechanism and reinstalled with new security bolts. but while i had it off i learned the trick about the release pin. sure does make it easy. did you take it to a locksmith or did you just replace it.?

first guess is a bad bulb. remove each bulb, one at a time and then replace, and test the system, starting in the rear, to see if it still has the same problem. when you remove the bulb that eliminates the problem, replace it with new. dual element bulbs can cause screwy things to happen if one bad element touches the other element in the bulb.

i would add, the lug nuts are the same thread as the castle nuts, swap in one to prevent booggering the nut or the threads. this also works for the tie rod end castle nut. if you are swapping out the ball joint then you do not car about the threads, but once they are damaged you are at the point of no return. protecting the threads allows you to put it back together any time you choose, if you need to. as long as the sway bar is attached to the control arm, the arm is going to be spring loaded. this will make it more difficult to remove. disconnect the sway bar end link first. more and more, when working with brakes, struts, ball joints, ....i find disconnecting the sway bar end link simplifies the process. re-attaching the end links is pretty easy if you wait until you are lowering the car to the ground. as you put weight on the wheel, (maybe when the jack is removed) the control arm will line up with the end link. insert bolt and tighten. hope this helps.

no, the phase 2 has more wires in the harness and more ''speed'' sensors on the trans. typically, the phase 1 / phase 2 line is not crossable. having said that, if you want to track down the pinout of the 97 trans connector and the matching wires / pins on the 99 trans and splice in a connector, (discarding the ''new sensor'' wires), you may be able to do it. the 99 will bolt in and line up just fine. just the wiring is different, a few extra sensors.

don't mess with them if you do not know what you are doing. if you adjust them wrong you will ruin your front diff. unless someone has already messed with them , they are right. the process is fairly complicated and how the ring and pinion meet needs to be checked during the process. so leave them alone. what is going on with yours, are they leaking oil?

sell the 1990 legacy whole, fix it enough to make it a daily driver for someone and sell it outright for $500. use the money to buy a 95 - 98 2.2L engine. do the swap. the risk on re-sealing the 2.5L engine is that you don't know how severely it was over heated. it is not unheard of for a resealed ej25 to end up with rod knock.