porcupine73

Welcome to the board! Looks like a nice project you have going on. The turbo soobs are fun. I don't have one with a turbo.....yet. I like the looks of the 80's/early 90's cars too. They had that slight boxiness to them but when they're on the road today they have character compared to the super smooth lines and completely color matched everything on today's vehicles.

Were you able to get her patched up?

Hi. Hm doesn't ring anything off hand. Is there oil leaking out the timing belt covers now? I would change the ATF anyway. It was true on garbage domestic transmissions of that era that often an ATF change on a higher mileage unit (if they made it that far) would cause the transmission to not shift right or not shift at all (because it was relying on the gunk in thereto function). But not so the Subaru trans. Soob AT's of that era did have some potential issues with overheating, and AFAIK it may have been because of the in radiator tank cooler plugging up with shreddings. Actually many domestics had and still have that issue. The torque converter and friction material garbage would exit the trans and plug up the cooler. Then without adequate cooling the unit would overheat and be damaged. But Subaru caught on pretty fast and introduced a retrofit to install a filter in the line before the cooler, and then later introduced the spin on filter right on the side of the trans.

Right on, iirc the metric grade 8.8 is not as strong as the SAE grade 8. Most of the Subaru fasteners we deal with are JIS flange bolts I think I was reading. I stopped by Ace today. I didn't see any left hand threaded metric bolts. But I did notice they increased their selection of metric fasteners since last time I was there. They now had some black oxide finished 10.9 bolts as well. But metric fasteners are a lot more common now than they used to be on things people would be dealing with such as their lawn mowers, garden tractors, etc.

Good point!

Great thanks for the note. Yes 3/32" would go right through the middle of the spring pin hhaha. I have been having a problem with cutting numbers in half today. To make up for it here's a pic of my pin punch: Here's using a ton of socket extensions to make it easier to knock it out from up top:

hahaha that would be a good username. Some vBulletin sites let their members change their username once every 30 days. But it gets confusing because then you never who is who. vfrworld.com lets their members do that.

I can't find the picture I want. Basically it's check all the hoses and lines associated with that pressure sources switching solenoid on the RH / passenger strut tower. There is a little round plastic filter in that line that sometimes gets plugged up but I don't think this is the code it causes. Also the procedure shows the wiring or the solenoid could be bad.

I've got some pics to show you let me find them.

Ok what we have here is "DTC P0106: PRESSURE SENSOR CIRCUIT RANGE/PERFORMANCE PROBLEM (PS-R)" Hm I haven't seen this one in a while. Thinking back I believe this can have something to do with some of the lines/filter being plugged and those pesky metal EGR tubes that run under the throttle. I have some pics let me check.

Yes, how about a P0106! Well I happen to have a '96 Legacy too and I have the alldata subscription for it so let me take a look see at what we have here.

Ah here we go, this must have come up before because I had made up this photo too:

Sorry about that I saw someone mention arrows and I assumed they meant the arrows on the camshaft sprockets. The crank sprocket has a little hash mark that gets lined up with a mark on the oil pump. Here's a pic from my '96. I'm not sure if the crank sprocket has an arrow on it anywhere; I can't remember.

Right, the hash marks are for the timing. Ignore the arrows. Those arrows are for other purposes. The good news is that engine is not interference (if it's the '90 2.2L or 1.8L); engines after 96 would have bent valves now if cranked over timed with the arrows instead of the hash marks. You don't need a timing gun for this job. There is no way for you to adjust the timing anyway; the ECU is in complete control of the timing on that engine. If there is any question about the cam sprockets, compare the backs of the two. See if the reluctor marks are the same - these are the metal bits the cam position sensor reads. Ideally they should be identical.

The part #'s are all different so I'm not sure.

I'm not really sure which ones provide the most lift out of the Outback / Forester / Baja options. My original thoughts were they are all pretty close. But what I will do right now is check the KYB catalog and see what part #'s they list. If the part #'s are the same then they woudl be the same height. If the part #'s are different they might be different heights.

Ah yes cutting the notches, that does make it a lot easier. I was working on that on my '94 too. Then I use stainless steel safety wire to secure the brake lines back onto the strut. You could keep the original Outback struts on hand if you want to swap them out from time to time to get more height for playing off road. I would consider only really if you had the entire strut assembly kept together. It's already going to be some amount of work to swap out four strut assemblies. But if you're disassembling the strut assemblies to get the top hats and other bits I think that would be way too much hassle. All this talk is making me so excited that it's Friday and I'll be able to work on this project over the weekend!

The MWE's I've gotten did not include a new axle nut or spring pin. I think on his site it says he has plenty of axle nuts so if you need them to let him know before they ship and he'll include them. The spring pin it seems like a 1/4" of adequate length would work. I keep a few extra Subaru spring pins on hand since they are only $1. The new axle nuts are more like $4.

It will probably retract on its own, but just from the weight of the strut rod pushing down on itself. My '94s did this when I removed the strut to mount nut, they just under their own weight slowly collapsed into themselves. Hey on the new struts make sure to do the air purging procedure before assembling it, and then do not lie it down on its side after you purge it. I've had a few new GR-2's that you could feel the looseness that purging then fixed.

That's a good idea, especially for the more critical fasteners. I use Ace's metric fasteners for 'non critical' things such as holding the air intake in place, and low load things like that. I'm not sure I'd want to use it in a critical application. Good quality fasteners of good materials are not cheap especially as the size of the fastener increases, so getting a nice assortment from a salvage yard soob would be a nice little collection to have. Of course around this rust belt area just getting any fastener off the poor old soobs is a major victory.

Some axles come with a new nut and some don't. In a pinch I would reuse it, since once it is staked over good into the slot on the axle it isn't going to loosen up anyway. The spring/roll pin however I always use new.

Aside from the dealer, Ace Hardware has a pretty good selection of metric flange bolts in most of their stores. Otherwise maybe a Fastenal or a place like that if you have one around. Carquest locations usually have a pretty good selection. Also tractor supply is usually pretty good. Or I have noticed tractor / farm equipment places usually have good hardware.

Axles are fairly easy. The hardest part is usually getting the axle out of the hub if there is any rust in there. Even a little rust makes it very difficult to get it out. But even on my rust belt soobs I haven't had any issues with that and I've replaced probably five axles on them. Basically you break the axle nut loose with a 32mm socket, 3/4" breaker bar, and a long piece of pipe. The long piece of pipe is the secret, and I've had no issues once I lay on that pipe. I spray it with Kroil a week in advance though. You can use an impact wrench but Subaru doesn't because it can be rough potentially on the wheel bearing. People have broken 1/2" drive stuff on this nut. Just break the axle nut loose then jack up the front end. Do not do more than break the nut loose with the vehicle weight on the tire because it can damage the wheel bearing. Then you have to unmount the strut or unbolt some other parts; people vary on what they like to unbolt to get enough clearance to get the axle out. I like to do the strut to bearing housing bolts but some people do it other ways. Also there's a spring pin holding the axle to the differential stub that has to be driven out. A 3/16" (not 3/32") pin punch is required. Do not use a 1/4" pin punch because you'll get it stuck in there. And it is supposed to be driven out from the non fluted side. The MWE axles do not include a new spring pin or axle nut, at least none I've ever gotten. The Subaru axles include both. I've got some various axle pics here: http://www.porcupine73.com/pics/axle/

Maybe the bulb finally burned out!

Generally MWE axles have no problems. Genuine Subaru remanufactured seem to work ok too but are about double the price of MWE. The Subaru ones are reman'd by Cardone for Subaru to Subaru specs, (but that doesn't mean they're the same as what Cardone sells to parts stores). There might be some other options out there that are working for people.