johnceggleston

thte dash lights sounds like you have a back feed going on when you press the brake pedal. the power to the brake light element is jumping to the the tail? light element and powering up the dash lights??? is this even possible??

chances are pretty good that your headlight problem is the socket. they get old a crack. the one on my 95 was so bad it i was calling it sparky before i changed it. i had planned on using one from my donor parts car, but ended up fixing while at the beach. 3$ generic part from advance auto and some butt connectors. it's not often you get both cheap and easy on car repair. congrats on the daily driver.

ok, i still don't see how it moved, but what ever. the flex plate matches the TC, 2.5s are larger than 2.2s. either one will bolt on to either engine. so just make sure you get the one you need. the trans in the picture is a 95 2.2L auto trans. what car / trans are you working with?? and in case i haven't already said it, make sure you correctly seat the TC before you bolt up the trans to the engine.

the 4 bolts you show in the torque converter are supposed to bolt it onto the flex plate which you show in the second pic. the flex plate is bolted on to the crank with 8 bolts. there are no bolts holding the TC on to the trans. i find it hard to believe that you can drive an auto trans engine without the flex and TC bolted together. but who knows. tell me again why you are swapping the trans??? maybe if you put in the bolts you don't need a trans???? did i miss read this?? what's going on.????

the speedo gets it's info from the front speed sensor, located as mentioned above. it is referred to in the parts catalogs as "VSS 2". vss1 is on the rear of the trans. there are 2 typical failure modes, asuming it is not the speedo itself. 1. the vss is bad or a wiring connector is bad so the speedo is not getting any info. 2. the speedo / vss2 drive gears in the trans are bad and the vss is not getting in rotational input from the trans. one or both of the following should isolate your problem. jack up the right front wheel, put the car in 'N', remove the VSS2 and gently insert a thin shaft flat screwdriver into the vss hole. you need to find the slot the vss fits into and get the screwdrivwer to mate with it. then turn the wheel by hand and see if the screwdriver turns as well. this will show you if the drive grears are good. or remove the VSS2 and fashion the tab on the end into an electric drill. be gentle you do not want ot booger it. then with the car on or running in "P" run the drill about 700 - 800 rpms or less. (if the drill goes 3400 rpm do about a quarter of that.) this should approximate 60 mph or so, slower is ok too. check to see if the speedo moves. there is chance, i don't really know if there is a ground wire on the vss, there is achance that the vss will not make the speedo move unless it is grounded. in this case you will have to use a multimeter to see if it is makinfg an electrical signal. good luck.

just plug them if you are willing to live with the CEL.

a larger tire will make you go farther / faster than the car / speedo thinks you are. i would check out a tire size calculator and keep trying larger tires until you find the one that matches your speedo error, about 3.3%.

for the most part the info above is also true for the manual trans, the two final drive ratios being 3.9 - lego or 4.11 - outback. the difference in between these (~5.4%) is less than the auto (~8.0%) but still close and the final drive ratio may not make as much as a difference as in the manual since you can hold it in a lower gear longer before you shift. the 215 tires would be about an inch larger (~1%) in circumference than the stock 205s, making you travel farther / faster than the speedo says. have you seen this "trannychart" ??

well, i can't say for sure but the math seems to hold up. the difference between 4.11 and 4.44 vs. the difference between 185-70-14 and 205-70-15, but again, i'm no expert. i do know they never used a tire as large as the outback's until they started using the 2.5L engine and the 4.44 final drive. if there was a huge difference, the fuel mileage wouldn't be as close as it is between the 97 lego and the 97 outback. the early 90s legos had the differnt final drive ratios. the turbos were similar to the late 90s but the non-turbos were swapped. the 5 speed had the 4.11 and the auto had the 3.9, or so i'v read here. this is true, the auto trans in the impreza is exactly the same as the trans in the legacy and the outback and the GT and the LSi, in the late 90s. the only difference is the final drive ratios, and maybe the TCU's shift points. in late 90s subarus you only have 2 choices in a/t final drives, 4.11 or 4.44. why is your engine out, head gaskets? EDIT: what size tires are you running?

it sounds like this is your first subaru and you want some answers. well i can give you some answers but you may not like them. in the late 90s, 2.2L engines came with a 3.9/5spd final drive or a 4.11/auto and they all had 14" wheels . when they introduced the 2.5L engine they changed the final drive ratios to 4.11/5spd and 4.44/auto, AND they increased the wheel size to 15" w/ a larger tire, ~2.5 inches in diameter. the increase in tire size offset the change in the final drive ratio so that the difference between the 2.2L car and the 2.5 L cars was limited to the power difference in the engines. in the 90s you will not find a 2.5L car with the 3.9 final drive EXCEPT for the 96 outback manual trans. and you will not find a 2,2L car with the 4.44L final drive. so you can swap the trans and the rear difff, and yes, the trans are identical, just the differential / ring and pinion are different, so you can swap the trans and the diff, but you will end up using a different part of the power curve and i do not know any one who has done it. some one certainly has, but i'm not familiar with it or how it drives. the one exception to all of the above, is the 97 legacy GT, it has the 2.5L engine and the "outback" finalk drive, but it came stock with smaller, legacy size tires. this makes it "quicker" and a little more powerful and generally more fun to drive, but a little less economical. it would probably be cheaper to buy some top hat "lifts" ($245) for the struts on your car and bigger tires. this would put you in a more economical setup, but i do not know how it would drive. over the years, as the emmissions demands on the engines increases, the power output on these engines decreases unless they tweak the internals, which they have done over the years. so i would trust the engineers to know a little about what they are doing and delivering a car that the american public will enjoy. if you search for 'gutless' (maybe, or something similar) in posts by "grossgary" you will find some posts about his 1.8L engine in a legacy. i hope this helps.

stock impreza tire size, 93 - 99, in the us is 185-70-14, which is very very very close to the 97 legacy GT tire size of 205-50-16. if you google miata tire size calculator you will be able to plug in your size and the stock size and get the difference. short of swapping your speedo drive gears in the trans , or the whole trans, there is no way to adjust your speedo. the only other option is to swap your speedo, but you are limited to stock subaru tire sizes in a very limited year range. the 3 stock tire sizes for the late 90s legacys are 185-70-14, 195-60-15, and 205-50-16. they are all very close in diameter and circumference so they are interchangeable with out too much error on the speedo, (the 16 is the smallest by 3/8 inch in circumference which is about 1/2 of one percent. this equalls 0.3 mph @ 60mph). in the us in the 90s, imprezas used the same size as legacys, usually, i think. if your odo is off more than a few percentage points, your tire size is off. the odo counts wheel rotations to make up a mile, smaller or larger tires will change the actual distance in a given number of rotations.

what happens if you just fake it, open and close the fuel cap without actually adding any fuel?? this may help prove the pressure theory. this is supposed to be a closed system, isn't it? what happens if you drive with the cap loose or off?

his too.

IMO, 2 mph is close enough, especially since you are driving slower than the spedo says. 2 mph at 60 is ~3.3% at 70 it's ~2.8%. i have aged out of driving on the edge, speed wise. i set my cruise control 7 mph over the limit on the hiway and forget it. this allows for a 2mhp variation in the cruise going up hills. any error in the speedo is in my favor and i'm always, hopefully, still less than 9 over the limit, which around here is considered acceptable. gone are the days of driving 10 -20 over.

while you are at it check the trans code number on the ID tag under the hood and see if it matches up with the trans code number on the bell housing at the starter. the speedo gears are matched to the stock tire size. if an outback trans was installed the speedo gears would be different since outbacks have a different tire size. how far off is your speedo???

how far off is it? what size tires are on the car? this makes a difference. what is the stock size tire for the car? almost all speedos are a little off, usually showing faster than you are actually going.

and if you have an auto trans, search "torqueconverter" and read up on re-seating it before you re-install the engine or you could ruin your trans. read the oldest posts first.

100% if you double checked the final drive ratio, then the speedo cable is the only difference. it will bolt right in and connect to the wiring with out problem. hopefully it will run perfectly for years. for the most part you could use any legacy trans 95 - 98 as long as it has a 2.2L engine, maybe 99 as well. 2.5L trans cars will not match. since you have a good trans already you don't need this, but just in case: www.car-part.com

i think you are right on both counts but you need to confirm both. look here, http://opposedforces.com/parts ,for the impreza final drive ratio. select your car, year, engine, model, etc..... when you get to the list, look in the the ''train'' heading for differential, either front or individual, i think. 90 - 94 legacys were a little squirrelly compared to 95 - 99. i don't really know about imprezas. but the above link will tell you true. i think, MAYBE, you can just swap the part that threads onto the trans, remove them both and compare the hardware and the depth relative to each other. i don't know when impreza went to the 'no cable' set up, legacy went in 95, but it is not like subaru to spend money changing the trans, just the signal sending part. the speedo drive gears inside are probably unchanged. good luck, and let us know what you learn and how it turns out. ps: welcome aboard, glad to have you here.

"theimportexperts" on ebay have the kits with the tbelt. they also have a retail store, so if you call them you can buy what ever you want. just know the price of another kit when you are talking to them so you can make a good decision at that time and not have to call back. i did this and i assume i got the "ebay" price but i never did the math to be sure. but i did get the parts i wanted and 25k miles later it's still running great. 97 GT (96 2.2L swap).

do you think the front of the engine inside the timing covers is hotter than 110???

the oli pump it self isn't that big of a job, but you have to pull the crank pulley and timing belt to get to it, so that makes it a job. i don't remember anyone having to replace a bad oil pump before but i don't really know. re-seal them, sure, when they are leaking. and of course if the backing plate screws are loose then you will not have the pressure you need. how can you tell if it's low oil pressure or blocked oil channels???

not the coil. the coil splits the cylinders front and rear, not side to side. i can't imagine 3 bad coils in a row, the odds of that are very, very low, i would think. have you checked the igniter? i don't know about the grounds.

as far as thicker oil, i can see a thicker oil in some cases, but i would never start with a 15 or 20 weight. i would keep it a 5w, maybe a 5w - 40. you want it thin at start up. if i was pretty sure it was the lifters, i might look for a used heads or rocker assembly for replacement parts. there is a good thread detailing how to "clean" these things and re-install them , i think. i can't remember who posted it . not the one i was think about but still helpful. sound like a good cleaning will fix it. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=34929&highlight=hla*+cleaning+lifter* http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=37031&highlight=hla*+cleaning+lifter*

the 2.5L engines / cars of the late 90s, some have been known to have p0420 issues. so much so that new o2 sensors AND new cats did not clear the code. it's just one of those weird things. most folks correct the p0420 by using "subaru" replacement 02s. but having said that there is a work around for those late 90s cars. but my guess is that a new o2 will correct your problem. and since this car has 2 pre-cat o2s and at least one post cat o2, maybe 2, i'm not really familiar with the exhaust layout of the H6, the only thing that would worry me is if the replacements? already on the car made by subaru. if possible i would have them all replaced by the dealer since they all have the same age and wear. 100k is little early for o2 problems, maybe but if subaru replacements will go another 100k then it is well worth it. as far as what is fair and what the dealer should do, what would you have asked for if the CEL had popped up during the test drive? and what would the dealer have done to close the deal? sounds like the dealer wants to do the right thing so until you have something to worry about, i wouldn't worry, very much.