mnwolftrack

I couldn't find any 2" receiver hitches for a different vehicle of mine, that is, until I looked on Ebay. I didn't see one immediately on there, but I found one for a different vintage of the car I owned and asked the seller if they carried one for my year too. They did and set up a private auction for me. Got it new to my house for $130 shipped. Worth a look anyway.

It sounds like you've covered your bases, and there isn't much left that you can do. A few more things might be to remove all unnecessary items cluttering up the inside of the car (some people carry a lot of stuff!) that adds weight. Drive the speed limit or slower (55mph). Wind resistance increases exponentially with speed. Don't use an aftermarket ski rack. If you have a factory roof rack, see if you can take the cross members off easily to further reduce wind resistance. I'm not sure how the forester roof rack attaches (I've only owned outbacks) but they might come off easily. If you have a tow hitch but don't ever tow anything, take the whole thing off.

The EJ25 is the easiest engine I've ever pulled. The last one took me about 1 hour 50 minutes to yank out. Way easier to work on outside the car. Subi sure screwed up the headgaskets on this engine, but they must of put some thought into making it easy to remove the engine. If I was doing this frequently, I bet I could get the engine out in an hour. P.S. I also have a cherry picker hoist which helps a lot (available typically for about $129-169 from tool houses like Northern Tool).

I've seen plenty of '99's with dual roofs. I think I've even seen some '98's, but the memory is foggy. It's only with the limiteds, but not with every limited. A limited badge does not guarantee sunroofs. I'm not even sure what it guarantees these days on any vehicle. A limited badge I guess. Most every limited I've seen has leather heated seats and authentic simulated woodgrain dash.

In my opinion, pricing simply comes down to location (demand vs. availability). A 1998 around here is typically priced around 4-6k private party while dealers are 5-7k. Even the cars with blown headgaskets that don't run have prices at 2-3k. I don't know where people find these cheap subies because it's nowhere around here. KBB can be high, but not always. What only matters to the bank is NADA because that's how much they'll loan you. Dealers won't give you squat for a trade, not even the reported trade in value of any book (I've tried several times). The bigger concern to me is not the price, but the lack of it being driven. NOT driving a car enough can cause as much harm as one with high miles. Seals get try and crack, things rust and sieze up, etc....

based on the photos, those are some scary looking rotors. Drive cautiously and see if they clean up. Perhaps it is just surface flash rusting, but if it's thicker and scaley, it's been sitting a while. If the rust is thick enough and you "drive it off" it can still require new rotors and pads. The pads get full of rust, and the rotors get funny spots in them resulting in pedal pulsing because the rust is usually less where the brake pad is (creating a thick spot).

instead of holding the new belt on with C-clamps, I recommend using those small plastic spring clamps. They are usually found in the $1 bin at tool stores. I've had a bunch of them and never used them before but finally found a great use for them! Their jaws are very forgiving and they don't clamp too strongly. These are the kind of clamps that do not have any locking mechanism on them. I used one spring clamp on each cam sprocket and used 2 more to hold the cams together with respect to themselves. I did not use special tools either. There's a spot on the cams that an adjustable wrench fits nicely on. Works great. If I'm remembering my sides correctly, the passenger side cams will spin into alignment with great ease. If you try hand-spinning either cam too far, you will feel the points at which you need to stop spinning because it gets too tough to do by hand. The driver's side cams will likely pop out of position once the old belt is removed. In order to get them back into position, you will only be able to free-spin each sprocket *almost* all the way into position. Each sprocket will get pretty close to proper alignment, but you'll likely need a tool to get it in it's final spot. you will likely see that if you rotate freely in one direction (the wrong direction), you will have to rotate with a tool much further than if you spun freely in the other direction. I forget which is which, but one of the driver's side sprockets gets spun counter clockwise into position, and the other gets spun clockwise. It's really not that hard. Oh, I also recommend changing the tensioner, water pump, t-stat as long as you are in there. You may also have to replace an idler pulley or two. You won't know on those until you get in there and spin them by hand. If any of your seals are leaking, it would be a good time to do those too (cam seals, front main seal, valve covers). You can get nickle-and-dime'd to death as well, so take into consideration how much you really need to do.

A blown headgasket will force air into the cooling system, and air bubbles get trapped here and there and are also responsible for the loss in heat through the heater because an empty heater core does not stay hot. The coolant has to go somewhere, and it mainly gets pushed into the overflow tank on this engine. On other makes/models, it can get blown out the exhaust in the white billowie clouds (but this is not what happens on the subi's). Another key sign of a headgasket let is 2 fold in the overflow bottle. 1) make a mark with a magic marker when the engine is cold and mark the location of coolant over time. Always check it when it's cold (checking it hot when you marked it cold would be expected to show a change) if you marked it cold. In addition, combustion gases getting blown into the cooling system inevitably will bring along some oil with it. If the headgaskets are blown, you will likely see black nasties floating in the overflow and clinging to the walls. The combination of oil in the overflow bottle, overheating after getting into town after a drive on the interstate, loss of heat, and the temp gauge going up and down real fast were enough for me. The gauge going up and down real fast is from it getting hit by bubbles, then coolant, then bubbles, etc.... I would doubt you have a cracked block considering the car sounds quite drivable. You will likely be able to get away with new gaskets (dealer updated multi-layer steel only), resurfaced heads, and a possible valve job (may not be needed). Worst case scenario, the block might have to be resurfaced if it is found to be warped or pitted.

OEM gasket sets, at least for the year I worked on ('98) do not automatically come with the valve cover gaskets or spark plug gaskets. Make sure you have those too. I'm not sure why a gasket set doesn't come with them, but a dealer speculated it was because there were like 3 different kinds of valve cover gaskets and they are not interchangable. If it hasn't been mentioned yet, don't radiator hoses and have some spare clamps handy just in case the originals don't hold tight anymore. It also wouldn't hurt to do the transmission front input shaft seal, and if it's an automatic, to do the goofy graphite c-clip shaped torque converter shaft seal.

It sounds like one of those south-of-the-equator things, like the myth of toilets flushing in the opposite direction than here in the U.S.

I would love to see that outboard run--just not up close and personal if you know what I mean. For some reason, I suspect more than just the propeller will be spinning around.

This is exactly what happened in our '98 and it was the headgaskets. It typically tends to happen (in the early stages) after the car has just run at freeway speeds for a bit and you take it back down to city driving. We had just ran about 5 miles on the freeway, and about a mile into town is when the heat cut out, the temp gauge pegged (air bubble), and I pulled over and the fun began. The key in determining my repair was the blackened goo (oil) coating the inside of the radiator overflow reservior. If you are considering buying this car, stay away unless the mechanic fixes it first. Even then, I'd be hesitant because if it isn't done right, you will be asking for future troubles. It's amazing how many 2.5's Subi's for sale that say right in the ad that the car "overheats once and while but just needs a thermostat." yeah right.... There's one on our local craigslist right now that says this.

When the head gaskets go, they really go!

It's probably similar to what I use--assembly lube. It's basically light weight grease in a squeeze bottle. It literally looks and feels like lotion (doesn't smell as nice though!). It's great for assembly. Just wipe it on, and you don't have to worry about oil running out and contaminating other things before you can finish assembly.

I found a picture of my '98 during dissassembly (forgot I even took photos), and it shows the same thing, orange pulley on the bottom, black on top. Regarding the original member's questions about the tensioner, it has to come off anyway for timing belt re installation, so there is zero extra labor for putting in a new one. You might decide you don't need the pulleys in advance, but once work begins, you may find out that yours are actually worn and you have to replace them anyway. If you didn't order the idlers and work began, your vehicle will probably be down for a few more days while the extra parts are ordered (unless someone local has them in stock). You really ought to do the water pump while you are in there too. It's way too much work to have to do over again if your existing pump fails. This pump is not dangling off the front of the motor for easy access like so many other vehicles have it. And on that note, I'd be hesitant to recommend an aftermarket water pump, just because I've had too many problems with them (on non subi's though).