porcupine73

Hello and welcome to the board! Can you give a few more details, such as what kinds of mods you are looking for? Such as a 6" lift and super swampers, we can probably hook you up with that. Or in general for mods one can do a lot with a chop saw and steel tube and channel.

Ah ok so maybe you don't need the fancy procedure, that might have been for earlier vehicles. I had these images in the library but I thought these were for the 4eat phase II:

Ok. I'm not real familiar with that engine. But there are a lot of experienced members who are that will probably have ideas of other things to check. I'm assuming she also has cam position and crank position sensors, are those good and hooked up? Unless it had a distributor in that engine.....

I picked up a 3/8" and 7/16" grade 8 bolt from Ace to try in this application. I'm a little nervous as to how long it's been this way, I'm thinking probably 60,000 miles or so. I was reading in a thread on dirtyimpreza that the a weak dogbone puts extra stress and wear on the engine mounts.

Hello and welcome to the board. The Vanagons are cool. How's the timing belt? Did it fail or any idlers fail etc?

It seems like it was a post maybe a year ago by GeneralDisorder if I remember correctly.

I'm pretty sure '98 outback had dual piston front calipers. Both pistons should come out. But if you are pressing the pedal without the pistons touching the rotor, only the piston with the least resistance may start coming out. If you put a piece of 2x4 or some other wood in there so that it blocks the piston that is coming out, then the other piston should start coming out when the first is blocked. CAUTION - don't let the pistons come out very far. Without wood or something there if you press the pedal enough times the piston will come out of the caliper body. But it is possible that the other piston is siezed. If any water gets behind that boot it starts rusting and then eventually the piston gets stuck in the seal with its rust and won't move anymore, or will come out but won't go back in. All contact points between the brake pads and the caliper brackets., clips, etc., except the brake pad friction material itself of course, is supposed to have brake grease on it.

Well, I"m pretty sure the '96 2.2L did not have platinum plugs as original equipment. In the owners manual it lists an NGK and a Champion option iirc. Genuine Subaru wires are the way to go, they work and don't cause misfires and such like many aftermarket wires for soobs do. Sure some poeple are able to use aftermarket wires but at the same time there are cases where they misfire and such and when replaced with genuine wires then the problem goes away.

Getting the code flashes on that era can be tricky. I don't think it means you have to start it in that one step. I know somewhere on here someone had a good thread about how to get it to flash out the codes. Almost like there was a mistake in that manual or there was a slightly easier way to get it to flash them out. The 16 flashes means it found some kind of fault; often it is a solenoid it is detecting problems with, and that can certainly cause some bad shifting.

Hello and welcome to the board. That first item with the flashing parking lights sounds like the security system. it will do that if the battery gets replaced or goes dead, etc. If you have the remote just use the door unlock button. Otherwise I think you can cycle the key from off to run three times quickly to reset it but that might have been only on later years. See if you can get more details about what module the mechanic replaced. There could be lots of reasons for it running poorly. Does it have a check engine light on at all and if so what are the codes?

It's a big lump that forms on a person's neck. I think it's if they have some sort of thyroid problem and it gets really huge. If you were a Seinfeld fan, that's what that old lady had when Elaine was visiting elderly people in that one episode.

Here's the article I was looking for: http://www.endwrench.com/pdf/engine/FtEngineOverhaulSp98.pdf In there somewhere it talks about misfire, something about it being a plugged oil passage that could make an HLA collapse and then cause misfire? It's at the top of page 9 (PDF page 6).

Good point, it could be cylinder #2 is really picky for some reason. Gamerboi, the genuine Subaru plug wires and good plugs say NGK v-power plugs can be required for these engines to be happy.

Hello and welcome to the board. I'm sure members will have some ideas to try. I know I was just reading something about intermittent misfires on endwrench.com but I can't remember the details. Maybe I'll see if I can find the article again. I see you didn't try the ignitor, but that really shouldn't be it since it also drives the opposite cylinder at the same time.

Is the check engine light coming on at all anytime?

You might be noticing more power with a leaky exhaust, I had noticed that too on '00obw when the donut was gone out. Because then there is less restriction on the exhaust gases which means the engine spends less power pumping out the exhaust, which leaves that power for driving the transmission vroom. You could put in those side exhaust cutouts like the muscle cars. Then when they want to do a fast take off the open the cutouts, then once you're cruising they close them again so it's quiet.

I got this one exhaust patch goop somewhere, I think it was at napa, that seems to work pretty good on smaller leaks. It has sodium silicate and a bunch of warnings all over it. But for a bigger leak some kind of wrap would be needed as well. Fortunately the exhaust isn't going to be quite as hot way back that way as it would be further upstream in the exhaust system. So in the way back I have had good luck with JB Weld or the similar epoxy products bridging even 1/2" holes or so if you wait for it to harden a little bit before smoping it on. Or you can get some wire mesh mixed in there like hardware cloth or something to help support it while it hardens.

It's too bad about the whole headgasket debacle, because really, aside from that on the 2.5's from that era, the rest of the vehilces were pretty solid. It's like seeing a really beautiful woman but then she has this big goiter on here neck.

Wow that's great and it sounds like a job done properly. She should be ready to run for a good long time now. Does she have the AT or MT?

I think the gearing for the 4 cyls is selected pretty ideally. So yes ok maybe when you get up to 80 mph the revs seem kind of high but at that point you're in top gear and moving at a pretty good clip. These 4 cyls have ok power but they're not some torque monster V8 that has the power at low revs to turn like 2000 rpm at 80 mph either. I switched my '96 Legacy 2.2L to Outback struts and tires and I do not at all like the gearing now. It shifts too early and for any amount of get up and go or encountering a hill I have to downshift to 3 or 2 manually or it feels like the engine is lugging. I don't mind shifting it like that, I like doing it, but to have the gearing be 'taller' in these things in my mind just wouldn't work out for a production passenger car.

Hey welcome to the board! Nice soob. I like that color too. She looks to be in good shape. She will serve you well.

Well one additional thing to say, is if after a proper ATF change the transmission has issues, the fact of the matter is the transmission had problems before the fluid was changed too, they were just being masked by all the crap built up in the trans. Now I did have this happen too on a '91 Escort with a garbage transmission. So there is going to be people who have experiences both ways. Ultimately you'll have to make the decision as to whether to change it or not. The common failures modes are described above. If your fluid is burnt, you may want to flush the radiator ATF cooler at the minimum, since if that's plugged or restricted, even if you change the oil the trans is still going to be running hot. Otherwise someone could say, yah I've seen this one guy who changed his engine oil and then his engine threw a rod two days later, so I'm never going to change my engine oil again.

I don't think an engine oil leak would necessarily cause those symptoms, unless perhaps you ran it low enough that the oil pump sucked air for a period of time. Is your front diff gear oil level correct? Maybe there is an issue there or somewhere else in the drive line. Chances are it is the oil access cover, and not the rear main seal that is leaking. They are close to each other so often people assume it is the RMS. Members who work on soobs regularly have reported that the RMS doesn't usually leak. The oil separator on many engines in that era was plastic. To fix the leak, an upgrade to a metal separator with new screws is required.

You could try punching in the VIN at whatever site is now my.subaru.com They won't tell you too many details unless you can prove you are the owner of the vehicle but it is another possible source.

I don't know for sure but it seems from the ones I've messed with that on some models the switch is normally open and on some it is normally closed. If you leave the wire unhooked, does the oil light stay on. And when you ground the wire does it go off? Or the other way around?