Rooster2

Not the first time that I have heard of mice chewing on wiring, and causing a lot of damage. Guess none of are smart enough to suggst the mixed electrical gremlins were of mice origins. Now your car sounds fixed. Sorry to read about the high cost. Send the bill to Disney World in Florida, maybe Mickey will pickup the tab.

I would add bad thermostat and bad water pump to the list! Prolly, more emphasis o bad thermostat.

I have replaced starters on 2.2 and 2.5 motors without giving it much thought. I seem to remember two bolt connections, maybe one of which is a tapped hole. You say starter housing, is that really an "ear" that sticks out that is tapped for the bolt? Has the ear broken off completely? Is there anything remaining to thread a bolt into? I have had success using JB Weld to reattach parts like an ear, or to use some JB weld in the hole where you want threads. Let the JB weld set up a bit, then apply vasoline to the threads of the bolt. Gently thread the bolt through the JB to create threads, then unthread and remove. Let the JB fully cure, and the newly created thread can hold quite well, when the bolt is replaced. Just don't super tighten down. It does require a warm environment of prolly 70 degrees to get JB to work, but it will do a good job with some time and patience.

Sounds like you are caught between a rock and a hard place. Your mother sounds "hard headed," and won't listen to you, frustrates you, but you hate to see her waste her money with shops that charge big bucks and don't fix the problem. That is a difficult tight rope to walk. I don't envy your situation. I was a VW man for many years before migrating to Subaru. I have wrenched my own cars for many years now. I always liked the way VWs ride and handle. Their motors are "bullet proof" strong, but poor quality electrical and mechanical parts turned me off. I was always running to a wrecking yard for some part. In my opinion, Subaru has much better quality. Things don't break very often. Ez to work on the motor. I still own an 87 Audi 5000, which is simply a large VW. Love the way it drives, but dislike the repairs. Check out the Subaru engine conversion to Vanagan buses. Do a "search" on this forum to see how it is done, and the results. Good reading for a VW man. Hope your get your Mom's car running. Keep us posted on results.

I bet new wires and plugs will help solve this problem. Let us know if trouble continues. We will be glad to come up with other solutions.

Good that you located the electrical problem. Something that hot, could have caused a fire, and the total loss of your car. I bet fixing the wiring will solve your problem.

Yea, ditto, on that thought. Subaru OEM factory wiring is well made, and won't short out unless someone has been messing with it.

What year and model Subie do you have under purchase consideration? Forum members here will be able to tell you which motor is in the car without knowing the VIN. As far as 2.5 motors with HG problems, it is the phase 1 with the most serious HG problems requiring HG replacement. The phase 2 motors have some HG trouble, but it is more of a trace leakage of coolant to the outside of the engine. Phase 2 motors often receive a Subaru additive nicknamed "oatmeal" to stop the leakage without requiring HG replacement.

Glad the Trans-X fixed your problem. I added the product to my '99 about 10 months ago, and the trany continues to work well. I am not surprised that SoA publically denies any knowledge of this. They don't want to accept responsibility for anything outside of warranty, so acting dumb is their course of action. Keep us posted on how your trany continues to work using Trans-X. This particular Subaru problem seems to affect only '99 and '00 models with automatic transmissons.

A massive electrical short in the dash of any 13 year old car with 175K on the odo is a guaranteed trip to the Pick a Part store. With cost of labor these days, there is just no way to economically repair that car. It is best that it is a donor car.

nice looking after market steering wheel. That shift knob is strange. I see why you want to replace it. By the looks of it, I would say that it was owned by a kid. The ricer muffler really adds to the thought that it was owned by a kid.

Or maybe for a wiper if you have one on the rear tail gate.

how about getting them powder coated?

In this situation, I would recommend a Jeep Wrangler. They have heavy frames, and designed to drive on any road or non road surface without breaking. As said in an earlier post, Subies are still cars. Their 4 wheel drive system is really designed for added traction on real roads with ice and snow slippery conditions.

For a 2.5 phase 2 motor that you have, HG leaks are usually colant leaking to the outside of the engine. Subaru dealerships offers a coolant additive to your model car to specifically stop that type of leakage. Lucky for you it is not a serious problem like what is found on the earlier phase 1 motor.

Low voltage from a bad battery could still cause the turn signals to do strange things. Low voltage can cause relays not to work properly. Try this.......with the motor turned off, turn the head lights on. If the head lights are dim, I would continue to suspect a bad battery.

I have used Seafoam, and found it to be a good product. However, multiple write ups on another car forum say that Seafoam is hard on engine seals. As a result, I never leave Seafoam in my engine for long.

I once had something similiar happen in my car, the dash guages went nuts, and drive ability was poor. The car continued to start okay, but then the wierdness. Turned out to be a dying cell in the battery. There was still enough power in the battery to start the car, but with voltage down the guages and accessories performed poorly and strangely. Suggest testing all the battery cells with a hydrometer to see if all cells are good. In my case, once I found a bad cell, I replaced the battery, and all was well again.

They look good in your car. Hard to tell how well the color matches the rest of the interior or the exterior in your picture post. Big thing is that they look comfortable. Take comfort over looks any time. I have a 99 OBW with an uncomfortable driver's seat. Don't know if it was designed uncomfortable, or if the padding has crushed down over time. My butt aches if I sit in the seat for any lengthy drive. Wouldn't mine having a pair of seats like yours.

In my opinion, repairing a motor with 285K miles on the clock is throwing good money after bad. Suggest replacing motor with a good used one with a guarantee makes better economic sense. I bet cost and labor for repair vs replacement comes about to be about the same.

It is possible that it is a bad water pump, but I doubt it. With the 2.5 phase 1 motor, which you have, the head gaskets go bad by allowing exhaust gas to enter the cooling system. It is not a problem with coolant getting into the oil. The exhaust gas can cause the car heater to work poorly because of poor coolant circulation, while the added exhaust heat causes the temperature guage to spike quickly to "hot." This also causes such poor coolant circulation (because the cooling system contains some gas, not liquid, that the top hose will be hot, while the bottom hose is just warm. Air "exhaust bubbles' are sometimes seen in the overflow tank that sits off to the side of the radiator. It is common to have a bad head gasket, but it only presents itself when the engine is being driven. It will idle all day without over heating, but just drive it, and put a minor "load" on the motor, and it will over heat. Hopefully, you have not driven the car long with the engine being over heated. If not, replacing the HG will solve your problem. Also, it is not uncommon for the bad head gasket problem to cause such heat and pressure problems, that the radiator springs a leak. Replacement head gaskets from Subaru have been improved. The revised design seems to permanently solve the problem. Since you just bought this car, I suspect that the previous owner may have known about the HG problem. Perhaps that person will pay for some of the cost of a HG repair. Can't hurt to ask, or maybe return the car and get your money back.

Recently my wife broke the passanger door mirror on our 98 Leggie OBW. It is the Limited edition with heated door mirrors. I had no luck finding a used heated one in a wrecking yard, so had to settle for a non heated model. It is just one wire in the factory wiring system that heats the mirror. I don't know if all Leggies are prewired or not. Prolly best to pull off the door panel to look at the wiring. See if a single wire inside the door panel is not wired. That should be the one that you need to hook up. I can't remember where the switch is on the dash, or how exactly the heated mirrors are switched on. That may be an issue as to find the switch.

regarding the sun roof........I had a VW some time back. The sun roof began leaking on that, or the tract drain hose/tubing got clogged with gunk. I don't know which. I could never get it to stop leaking, so I gave up on using it. I used clear cellophane wide packaging tape to seal the entire sun roof edging to the car roof. That worked great to keep the rain out. Recommend going this route permanently, or until you can fully repair. Have fun with your $100 project car. I had a 91 Leggie L Wagon. It was a great running car. The 2.2 motor runs forever!

When my wipers freeze to the windshield, I pour cold water on the windshield and wipers to melt the ice. Cold water has enough heat in it to melt ice, but not warm enough to cause the windshield to crack. Just my 2 cents worth!

I have had a gasoline engine described as an air pump. It pulls air in from the atmosphere (intake) and pumps the same air out the tail pipe (exhaust). The result is horse power. So, horsepower is increased when more air is pushed out the tail pipe faster. Super chargers, turbo chargers, and four valves per cylinder are all designed to increase air flow for more hp. In addition to working on increasing exhaust air flow, suggest thought and work be put into the air intake system. There is a fresh post by someone working with the air intake box for hp increase. Suggest reading that post for some ideas.