porcupine73

Yep, pretty sure it's four, the manual (which you can view on my.subaru.com if you don't have one) has the procedure in it.

Well either there's so much crud in the fuel tank that it plugged up the new filter in 100 miles, or maybe it's just a coincidence that the problem went away for that time. Is the check engine light illuminated or are there any pending codes? There's probably a lot of things that could cause this problem; are your spark plugs and wires in good shape and are they OE? How many miles do you have and has the front oxygen sensor ever been replaced and is it OE? PCV valve OE? Air filter clean? Does it do it only when engine hot/cold/warm when it's hot/cold/wet/dry outside? More info please?

erm, did you try a new fuel filter then? Knock sensor in good shape?

Might be a way to put it in 'valet mode' I think that keeps the alarm from going off.

Well you could look at the plug wires and coil in the dark, engine running of course, whilst spritzing water on them to see if there's any sparks then you'd know what has to be replaced if they are 'shorting'. I have a '96 Legacy that would cough and sputter a bit when floored from a standstill and it was the knock sensor causing it, but it never gave a CEL/MIL indication either.

I'd go for the ATF cooler but if there isn't enough time I'd change the fluid after the tow. Yes the thing has a light for too high a temp but I don't know what temp that comes on at, could be 250 deg F up to 300 deg F and both of those are prettttyyy hot.

hm...i remember this happening on a ford contour loaner i had years ago, it didn't shut the cruise off if you shifted to neutral and that caused weird things to happen....

Wow that is cool. Makes me want to start playing need for speed again.

Yah I believe the preferred method per the manual is to check it 'hot' which I can't remember but is like 170-180 deg. F. or something like that. I check pretty much cold 'cause I just can't get a reading hot the fluid is just all over the place even after checking like 4 times. I think the risks in too high fluid are lots of air bubbles in fluid which isn't good for antiwear, or too low a fluid making the pump start sucking air and that is definitely bad as the clutches may slip causing mega wear. Too much diff gear oil could probably cause air getting whipped into the oil again air bubbles not good for antiwear, too low maybe the sun/ring gears can't pick up oil and you've basically got metal on metal rather than that nice hydrodynamic or whatever oil action.

Maybe part of the issue is heat cooking/breaking down the diff gear oils? I think part of the issue may be that one front wheel and one rear wheel on the opposite side are kind of coupled b/c of the center diff and that might be what toasts the diff between the hypoid and ring gear or whatever? That's my impressions but maybe I could research first. FWD cars with transverse mounted engines/transaxles might have a straight or bevel or maybe even herringbone gear type incorporated diff which is not the same as the hypoid type diff's in Subaru's?

Yah true dat about overtightening the belts...just bought new PS pump because of doing that..whoops!

hm....used to have this happen on an old '88 Lincoln but that was because the throttle liked to stick to the floor after gunning it. Yikes emg does sound painful!

Soap? is that like belt dressing? I like nipper's suggestion to remove the belts and see if the noise goes away, that should pretty well tell you if the belts or any driven accessories causing the noise.

Used that exact same Harbor Freight chain wrench on '96 Legacy 2.2 (sohc) with a piece of old belt taped on as suggested and it works fine, that chain wrench is plenty strong and the long handle makes it easy to hold. On the cam sprockets, I'd suggest getting the chain wrench wrapped around the side closest to the spokes. On my '96 Legacy I wrapped it around the side away from the spokes and I can swear the thing looks a little distorted now.

Sure go for it. OE (Subaru) part is recommended for front o2 sensor. You might need some good penetrating oil to loosen the existing front o2 sensor and/or run it maybe 30 seconds or a minute to heat it up a bit before loosening. You'll need to get the vehicle up on jack stands or over a ditch or something to get at it. Make sure to put antisieze on the threads of the new sensor, tho many new ones come with some already on there. Sounds like you might possibly have a vacuum leak too and maybe that's the cause of the remaining problems.

Some number of states now require 'California emissions' so that is probably true. I don't know if the cats for federal and CA emissions are different. Generic cats aren't always the best even if you can find one; cats are expensive because they have platinum or palladium or something in there as the catalyst which is 'spensive. Another option could be a salvage yard. Sometimes emissions components are required to be warranted for 100k miles or something, but I don't know if that would cover the crack.

Hi Patrick. Well if your front diff gear oil is real low, that obviously is not optimal b/c it will result in excessive wear on the gears and stuff in there. I'm pretty sure it has a vent of some sort, almost anything like that does to keep the pressure inside equalized with the pressure outside. I don't know if you've had this vehicle since new, but maybe it was loose or something or somebody RTV'd it glued it in there for some reason; would be kind of weird but hey sometimes people do odd things. If you really have torque bind that's usually b/c of the center diff/clutches in the AT rather than the diff's, but changing the gear oils is easy to do and not that expensive. Are all your tires the same brand/circumference, ATF level good and not dark/burnt/etc?

Hi jct61765. Yikes that does sound like an expensive code! But seriously, maybe you just have an exhaust leak or something? I don't know but would maybe just replacing the rear o2 sensor would fix it, I mean how does autozone know the rear cat is bad without inspecting it?

Yep that's the front diff gear oil dipstick. That's weird that it's stuck in there, both my Sub's it's so loose I sometimes wonder why it doesn't dislodge over bumps. Maybe you could try twisting it clockwise and counter clockwise a little bit to free it up before pulling it out.

Hm, well I haven't done my 2.2L yet, but I had sort of a similar problem on my 2.5L sohc, it was a little tricky to get the belt on toothed up where I wanted it, so I installed it with the geared idler pulley off, then bolted the geared idler back in after I had everything lined up and before pulling the pin holding the tensioner rod in. To get maximum looseness you can pull the idler all the way up by hand (if it doesn't do that by itself when you pull on the belt).

Sounds good craig! My new one didn't come with a new sealing washer so I reused the old one fortunately it's not leaking. I think the biggest problem I had was getting the connector off the existing sensor 'cause it was hard to reach, so I used needle nose pliers to squeeze the connector clip and pull it off; fortunately it didn't break. Maybe I could have removed something else to make it easier to get to but I don't remember now. Then it's pretty simple from there; you can get a deep well socket over the thing and take it out and put the new one in and push the connector back on and button everything back up and it should be good to go. Yep as far as I know teflon tape is for sealing taper thread connections and this sensor has straight threads.

Some other things might if any of the brakes are hanging up that would reduce mileage. If you lift the wheels off the ground do they turn smoothly and freely or do you feel any binding, or if you drive for a few minutes and then kind of coast down and stop using the brakes as little as possible, do any seem excessively hot? overeager knock sensor could maybe knock it down a bit, as well as front o2 sensor. Tires circumference must be almost exactly the same or it can cause lots of heat in the AT center clutch thing and that heat doesn't come free - it costs gasoline.

Hi TurboTbird, plugs are probably BKR6E-11 or check out ngksparkplugs.com Wires you could go OE or aftermarket are available, depends on what price you want to pay and what you're looking for. If you like Mobil1 engine oil, you could try Mobil1 synthetic ATF, it worked well for me. Diff gear oils there's some threads that say not to use Mobil1 synthetic gear oil in Subaru diff's due to some potential incompatibility in the metals. amsoil makes a nice synthetic atf and gear oils too.

Yep, I'm planning to do the same retrofit on '96 Legacy Wagon, planning to use KYB struts for '96 Outback and probably '96 OE springs unless I can find a reasonable aftermarket alternative; love them King Springs but have to order from Australia.... oh yah, you probably need an alignment after doing this project.

Dude I just replaced mine on '96 legacy 2.2 last year. It was kind of a pain to get to. I needed various universal socket joints and a deep well socket to get to it. I took off the PCV valve hose and that IAC hose and some other hoses to get at it. And the Haynes manual is just plain wrong on this item. It doesn't use teflon tape to seal; it uses a sealing washer. The ECT is the engine coolant temperature sensor, it is not the same sensor as for the temp gauge, at least not on this model year. It's an input to the ECU so it can select the correct fuel map for the given coolant temp I guess, at least in open loop. Can cause warm/hot start problems I think if it's getting wacky. Basically, if you look underneath the IAC (idle air control) it's a couple inches below there. Here's a pic I had of the IAC from another post: