porcupine73

Right on. The main thing you won't see in other similar coolants is potassium hydroxide, which I believe Subaru adds because aluminum prefers a slightly basic pH for minimum corrosion rate. Potassium hydroxide is the ingredient in many drain cleaners. Subaru says to use a 'phosphate, non-amine' coolant. However their own coolant contains no phosphate, but rather uses 'a trick of chemistry' they say (the sodium benzoate). I'm not sure about the amine part but I think it was an alcohol based coolant using amine salts such as corrosion inhibiters.

That is true. That is not necessarily true.

hehe nice image! If your napa rebuild kit doesn't seem to have the right parts, it might be for later model soobs which have different guide/lock pin styles.

haha ditto that! Who is it now that is turning this car for a quick profit? It looks pretty good, calipers don't look new though some rebuild calipers maybe they don't bead blast and paint etc. Tires look good.

OAT coolants work great....provided you have no coolant leaks/air in the system. When a leak/air happens, the aluminum corrodes and then the coolant picks up the corrosion dust, thus resulting in glopping and clogging. Something I didn't think of before is there have been posts in the summer about overheating, etc., which turned out to be the radiator clogging.....not sure what coolant was in use?

Subaru coolant is the safe way to go. If it was a warranty repair at a dealer, genuine SUBARU coolant is required for dealer warranty repairs.

Hello! Yes there is a difference among coolants. The top recommendation is do NOT use OAT type coolants in a Subaru. These include GM dexcool, prestone all makes/all models, and many others. How's about some pics!!!!

http://www.subarupartsforyou.com has some basic diagrams. Here's one I have on file....

You could read the codes from the ABS unit. There is an article on http://www.endwrench.com that tells you how to identify your abs system type, and then how to get it to flash out the codes. Even if the light isn't on currently it will show the historical codes (unless erased by disconnecting fuse/battery). Some '05+ soobs have ECU reflashes available so that might be something to check into too.

Yes Subaru OEM ftw! You may be able to get a Subaru SPT 'low stretch' belt for your engine, though I think the interval on those is 60k miles............

On a new oil pump, I usually clean the area around the screws with some solvent and apply loctite green (wicking type), and it will soak down into the threads. The new screws are in there pretty tite and you risk stripping them if you try to remove with just a screwdriver. Yes Haynes manuals are available for those model years, 90-99. If you bought your haynes before 99 it might say '90-98 or some earlier year? They have some sections where they just give their 'boilerplate' standard instructions which leaves some room to be desired. Valve lash adjustment, timing belt, and many other good articles are available free on http://www.endwrench.com (click archives, then enter search term ie valve timing etc)

Yes, I have bought several oem pad sets and they always include a few layers of shims and new caliper bracket clips. I think a lot of places don't bother with the shims, just using a good antisqueal grease instead of gluing together the two layers of shims.

Hm...maybe I will check out iphoto plus. I have actually just been using microsoft paint to do captions, which works ok. But on .jpg I don't see any option for quality on saves. I think it defaults to quality 70 which makes things blurry. But yours look sharp!

I think that is something they do to differentiate the engines; the difference may just be 'nominal' only.

Yes blower is typically behind the glove box. Sometimes leaves, mouse nests, nuts, seeds, etc etc get in there. Nice pic skip! What software did you use to put the captions on there?

My '96 legacy 4eat has a pretty firm shift on 1-2 most of the time. I think I did see that resistor in the diagram for the '96 and was going to check it but never got to it. I think it's near the RH/passenger strut tower if it has it.

Here's the official Subaru list of the external hg peeping leak engines that qualified for the extended hg warranty if the conditioner was put in under the tsb. Soob doesn't seem to stick necessarily exactly to this list. I forget if the ~'03 fix was model year or build date.

If the '96 happens to be a manual trans, then she'd have the 2.2L which is very solid. But yes at 300k miles lots of things are going to be tired on the vehicle. If it's a second car to have fun with it should be great!

If it's cheap enough and you like it then maybe check it out. Even if it has or gets the hg issue that is fixable with the right parts technique and $. Ok well $$$$.

Hi. Mine is tapped in with those quick splice connectors that like pierce the insulation on the wire. It's not the way I would do it, but that's the way the vehicle came.

I had a similar problem on my '00obw but since yours is impacting the headlamp and fog light maybe it is different. My problem was with the bulb I think it's the H1 style in the headlamp that has that spring wire contraption to hold the bulb in place. If I even touched the spring wire then the bulb would work again. I had to bend it some, sand it, etc to get it working again. It didn't appear to be corroded or anything.

For a tach hookup, on my '96 2.2L brighton (no dash tach!), I pulled the gauge cluster and traced the wire from the circuit board back to the wiring harness. Then I spliced in there, I think it was a green/blue wire. I believe you can also tap in right at the coil pack, like to the RG or L in the diagram. That is how the remote start tach signal is connected on my '00obw.

Hi. Pretty sure '99 would have been the last year for that gen. '00-'04 was a redesigned model year and looks a bit different. '05+ was another redesigned model year.

Yep, she goes in the freeze plug hole nearest the water pump. 14mm hex is the size of the freeze plug. On my '96 legacy it took about 60 seconds of impact beating at maximum power to get the plug out. Ditto on the wear, I don't really need the block heater in Buffalo but I also like that I get heat a little faster with it. I use a timer for two hours before departure time.

Yes Subaru OEM heater kit is good value too. It's maybe $25 and installs with just a 14mm hex male socket (impact works best), and a 1-1/16" socket I think it was to tigten in the heater. I believe it is a 400 watt element. Can give more details if desired. You can also get a soob oem battery heater.