wondercow2

What's the part # for the oil seperator? I can't find it in the online catalogs. Also, is a throwout bearing a "release" bearing? I think the pilot bearing usually comes with the clutch kits, but I'm having issues finding a throwout bearing part #.

I'm starting to plan for a clutch replacement this December in my 98 Legacy. I figure the easiest thing to do is just pull the engine and do everything that way. I know about the rear oil seals, but are there other must-do things that I should with the engine out? The timing belt is less than 5k old, though I didn't replace the water pump or reseal the oil pump at the time. I do have some oil (maybe power steering?) leakage around the top of the motor, but it's not clear where it's coming from, and it's minor enough that there's no noticable oil loss, and no oil coming down from the timing cover area. I know I should do the crank seal, but I really don't want to mess with taking the timing belt off and whatnot if it's not necessary. The car and motor have about 130k miles on them at the moment.

I bought my '98 2.2 leggy with 120k on it, and the owner insisted it had never had a timing belt replaced. His mechanic apparently never got the memo that 97-98 2.2s were interference!!! When I took the belt off, it looked practically new- the Subaru lettering was in excellent condition on the back of the belt and not a single tooth looked worn. I still have it rolling around my truck as an emergency "spare" (though not a useful one if my pistons have a meet 'n greet with my valves :-\ )

Way OT at this point, but antibiotics will do absolutely nothing against a spider bite, since the spider is injecting a venom (a cocktail of nasty proteins). Antibiotics only work against living cells-ie, bacteria.

Thanks for the input. I went ahead and ordered what may well be the most absurdly named tires ever (the iPike????). http://www.discounttiredirect.com/direct/findTireDetail.do?cf=false&sw=true&cs=185&pc=11206&rd=14&ar=70 I'll report back once they're installed. My current all-seasons are a wreck, so I'll have a good month of light dry weather and rain driving to test them out before the slush hits.

I only started looking because I got quoted $90/wheel for the Magna Grips installed! Guess I need to find some better tire shops...

I'm shopping around for winter tires (Rochester NY, hooray) and I came across the Hankook w409. It looks like a directional tire with a great tread pattern for water drainage. And it's CHEAP right now- 48.99 with free shipping. But it's studdable, which worries me since I have no intention of studding the tires, and I hear generally that studdable tires need studs to get the best performance. http://www.discounttiredirect.com/direct/findTireDetail.do?cf=false&sw=true&cs=185&pc=11206&rd=14&ar=70 I drive like a granny, so performance isn't as much of a concern as snow and ice traction and road noise. Anyone used these, or any other "budget" snow tires? I know tires aren't something to be cheap on, but I drive to the grocery store once a week and take an occasional road trip to Vermont or DC, so how the tire handles over long stretches of heavily salted and wet road is more important to me than serious snow traction,though that certainly comes in handy when I finally get to Vermont... On a related note, is dropping 5% in sidewall size a major problem? Tirerack has Pirellis in 185/65/14 which I'd jump on in a heartbeat ( I love my current Pirelli allseasons), but I'm worried about other problems beyond a slightly off speedo and a slightly lower ride height.

Mounts are pretty durable, and your main culprit may be elsewhere (a bad sensor or combination of sensors resulting in a poor idle when the car is in drive?), but replacing the mounts can still be a good idea. Rubber gets very hard as it ages and dries out. The mounts are expensive enough that you probably don't want to replace them on a whim though.

I won't swear to it, but I'm pretty sure Outback springs have a different part # then legacy springs. This would make sense to me, because a shorter/weaker spring would wear a taller strut out. Outbacks are heavier than normal legacies anyway, so I imagine the spring should be beefier too to keep the car from riding all the way at the bottom of those extra-tall struts.

No, it's a big hunk of plastic. Take off the bumper cover and you'll see that the actual bumper is a layer of styrofoam and a rigid plastic (ABS? PVC?) bumper bar. It does the job, and drills/taps with no problems. I just installed some smaller Hella fogs on the underside of the bumper, almost opposite where that photo has the driving lights. No problems, yet....

Anyone know what the part # or official name of this mount is? I couldn't find it browsing around online. I think this is the same problem I'm having... http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=58619

That's exactly what they'd do. Brake fluid is cheap, so just keep topping it off as you go around the car and bleed all 4 wheels. When it comes out clean on all sides, you've replaced all the fluid. (well, okay, there may be some old fluid in the ABS controller- anyone know if that's in-line from the fluid tank to the calipers, or if it's off to the side and won't get bled normally?)

"Tuneup" seems like a meaningless concept on a modern car. I changed filters (except fuel) a week ago, and changed the plugs after a thorough top end and crankcase seafoaming, although the old plugs were hardly worn and were still properly gapped. I didn't change the wires because they looked good, and I have no reason to think the coilpacks are bad either. The problem happened before and after the maintence with no changes.

Uh, ok, I know you guys mean well, but I'm not a mechanical idiot here- the motor is nowhere redline or the rev limiter, there are no codes, and the problem is NOT related to acceleration in general-as I've said several times now. It happens when going downhill or gently downhill, only, and only when either myself or the cruise control are attempting to keep the speed constant. Letting off the gas altogether produces smooth engine braking down to undesirably slow speeds, while pressing the gas gives the car a minor "kick" as (what I presume to be something in the tranny) transitions from coasting to accellerating and then runs smoothly as the car picks up speed. The problem is that this "kick" will usually happen several times on a long downhill, which gets pretty annoying to passengers (and probably looks pretty odd to other cars). The car is indeed a 2.2. But what's so funny about going up a hill in 5th? When I hit a 1 mile/2%-ish grade at 75mph, I'm usually only down to 60 by the top of it. I do downshift when I notice the engine bogging or the RPMs shooting up past where they should be for the given speed and gear. Maybe I'm just a low-RPM wimp with a gas frugality complex, but I don't think anyone should be running at 4-5k RPM for normal driving, except when merging on the highway!

My RPMs stay pretty constant. The problem was happening before I did maintenence, but I just seafoamed the car and changed the plugs (which looked fine anyway). The wires are still pretty new, there are no codes. The fuel filter is probably a bit old, but this is not a fuel problem, trust me- it ONLY happens when the car is in that twilight zone between engine braking and normal cruising. And no, the AC is off. I'd try downshifting, but, uh, I really don't think 4th gear was made for going 75mph downhill...

Hmm, hadn't thought about mounts, mostly because the car is so smooth at idle (my last car, a 2.8l beretta, would shake like mad at stoplights from a crappy idle + bad motor mounts).

Or bad driver... my 98 Legacy L is the first manual car I've owned, and I've put about 3000 miles on it in the 5 months I've owned it. I've noticed that when going downhill, or even on some flat ground, the car will lurch back and forward- as if it's engine braking and slowing down, and then suddenly deciding to accellerate, even though I'm holding the accellerator steady. This mostly happens in 5th gear, although I get all sorts of interesting shudders in 3rd when doing similar not-quite-coasting type things. If I let the car speed up the whole way down it's perfectly smooth, and braking the whole way seems equally acceptable although the braking may be dampening any shuddering that is happening. So is this normal, sign of a bad driver (should I be letting the clutch slip or something?), or a sign of a weary clutch? The clutch is original and the car has 130k on it. It passes all the clutch-wear tests (kills the engine goes uphill in 5th, though the RPMs do sometimes go up 50-200 from where they should be for a given speed on bigger hills).

So while we're on this topic, is that OB->Legacy bumper swap a bolt-on or does some it need custom fabrication to make it all fit? Fogs for OB's are a lot easier to find than fogs for regular Legacies...

Sounds like it's in the wrong hole. From the front of the car, the backup switch should be the first sensor (ie, closest to the bumper). The other one is a neutral safety switch, which does, uh, something? I'm not really sure what it does or if having the wrong switch in would have the sensor triggered all the time.

Do you have any real sense of how well the JDM projectors work compared to other fogs? Are they effective, or just cool looking?

My understanding is that fog and driving lights are just spots, and don't have the specific pattern that normal headlights have. They should be OK to use- I just don't know if it's worth dropping $200 on them.

The headlamps are, for one thing, illegal to drive with in a US car. They're built for left-side driving, so your beam pattern will be all wrong for right-side. The fogs might be ok, and i've been watching the fog/driving light combos on ebay recently (they seem to go around 70-100+$80 in shipping).

I just got back from the dealer and struck out trying to get the little nylon hex-head/phillips knobs that go on the ends of the headlight adjusters. They say the part isn't in their catalog, and the shop mechanics told the parts guy that they just turn the screws with vice grips when the knobs break. This seems pretty absurd to me- what's the point of making a clever replaceable tip for the adjuster screw if nobody sells replacement tips? Are these available anywhere online? I wouldn't mind paying a few bucks in shipping to get these. If there isn't an exact replacement anywhere, has anyone tried using a different knob? I'd imagine any nylon bit would fit nicely over the splines on the adjuster screw. A hand-turnable knob would be pretty rad :cool:

When I bought my 98 legacy/2.2, the tensioner had already been shot for who knows how long, and I ran it for several days after I bought it. The timing was perfect when I changed the belt and the tensioner. As the car warms up, the noise may get quieter or stop, because the engine's heat really helps whatever hydraulic fluid is left in the tensioner exert the proper pressure.

The tensioner will NOT seize with this problem. The hydraulic cylinder in the tensioner is either worn out, or has leaked out all of its oil, so it's not exterting enough force to keep the tensioner pulley taught against the timing belt. The result is a slapping noise that is pretty comical/horrifying to watch when you take the timing cover off and run the engine. The tensioner really bounces up and down like mad. The part itself should theoretically have at least a one-year warranty on it, and since you've already had them do it once under warranty you may be able to pressure/guilt them into doing it again. As cool as the new-style tensioner is in concept, it just doesn't work as well as the old-style horizontal-pressing cylinder right now.