Rooster2

My testimonial on using "store" brand motor oil. My daughter owned an 87 Jeep Wrangler with the 4.2 American Motors motor. During 10 years of ownership, I religiously changed the oil and filter four times per year regardless of milage between changes. My oil change schedule was March, June, September, November. For the first five years I used Autozone house brand, then switched to Walmart house brand the last five years. I never had any trouble with the motor. Finally sold the Jeep with about 175K miles on the odo. The new owner had a compression test done before buying. I don't think he ever told me the compression test numbers per cylinder, but he did tell me that compression report was excellent on all cylinders. I told him how often I changed oil during ownership, and that info along with the excellent compression test numbers convinced him to buy the high milage Jeep. That's my testimonial that "store" brands are excellent. Frequent oil and filter changes are the best way to get any engine to last a lot of miles

I, too, have a 99 OBW. As Nipper said, rust has gotten to the rear handle assembly. On my car, the handle spring won't fully pull the handle back to the resting position. I have to pull it back to the resting position. Failure to do so, results in the handle being squeazed, but tail gate latch not releasing. A good shot of penetrating oil or PB Blaster helps free up the handle for a while, but the rust will return to haunt you wants again.

Add a can of 134 to see if you can get the compressor to start. Don't remove shrader valves, or do anything else to "open up" the system. You don't want to let atmosphere air into the system. Add another can if the compressor cycles on and off quickly, and the air output from the vent is just cool, not cold. Check your can guage, don't over charge.

I bought a Subie 99 OBW a little over a year ago. It had almost 150K miles on the odo. I am certain the car had the original plug wires and plugs in it since new. It actually still ran pretty well, but I still changed the plugs and wires. The original plugs had their electrodes worn way down, so they were giant gapped with no hint of oiling. Just shows you Subie makes good motors, if we don't talk about HG issues.

Gee that looked like fun, bet you can"t wait for the "next day. Nice group photo too for a memory maker.

Thanks grossgary for your post. I will focus special attention on the caliper pins. I will clean them up and regrease. I hope that solves the noise problem.

update.............I took my car in for the wheel bearing replacement. The mechanic called me back later this morning to say that he couldn't loosen up the nut on the long bolt with spray penetrating oil. Since their shop is located in a strip shopping mall, they are prohibited from using a torch to heat up the bolt to "break it loose." Bottom line, he couldn't replace the bearing. However..........the mechanic didn't think that the rear wheel bearing may not be a problem. All the suspension links were tight (no looseness), and no "play" when moving the road wheel. I now can barely hear the original scrapping noise. The brake pads are plenty good from what I could see when I took off the road wheel. I guess my next step is to pull the caliper off the rotor to really get a good look if anything is scraping. Again, thanks for everyone's help..................Rooster2 (Larry)

It has been a few years since I talked with Crutchfield Customer Service. The guy I talked with had an amazing knowledge of what he recommended and why, and what unit would fit what car with what speakers. Sure, Crutchfield is in the biz to sell car stereo, but I felt the advise I received was very helpful. I took his advise and bought equipment that I thought was great, at a reasonable price. His advise was really straight advise, not hard sell. Good guys at Crutchfield.

Any chance that this hesitation started after buying a tank of gas? I have had this happen, and it turned out to be some water in the gas. Add a can of "dry gas" product to your fuel tank. Maybe that will solve the problem.

The best suggestion that I can give you is to go to a wrecking yard, and try to find a car with the same engine that you have. Take a pad of paper and pen with you, and write down what color wires go where on the donor car. Then take the connector home, and splice in the connector. Hopefully, all color wires should match up, and all works well again. Also, before you go to the wrecking yard, write down the number and color codes of wires on your car, and take this written info with you to the yard. That should also help you find a correct matching car in a yard.

Screwbaru offers great advise. I agree with everything he says. I would also suggest checking the radiator coolant level and over flow container when the car motor is "stone" cold, such as in the morning after the car has sat over night. That way there is no heat expansion of the coolant in the cooling system.

Thanks for the reply and advise. I forgot about the needed seals. I ordered, and will pick them up later today. I guess if the labor charge comes to $204, that it is a heck of a deal. Thanks again!

I have a 98 Leggy OBW that needs a rear wheel bearing replacement. A local repair shop that I have done biz with many times before, that will let me bring in a replacement bearing for installation. The shop owner looked up the labor rate in his book. The book quoted 3 hours of labor ($204), if the car has rear disk brakes, which it does have. Both the shop owner and I think 3 hours is a high quote time rate. The shop owner said he would charge me less, if the job required less time. The shop owner has always been honest with me, and his work excellent. Does anyone have experience doing this job to tell me if it takes 3 hours to do the work, or have a receipt handy showing labor rate that you paid a shop for bearing replacement? Thanks for the help and advise!

My first Subie was a '91 that I did pad and rotors on. Now, I have 98 and 99 Subie OBWs. Both have ABS, however, I don't notice any difference working on the brakes. I can't imagine that an '01 model is any different then working on your old '90. Buy your brake supplies at any parts store, like you likely did before.

Thanks guys for all the thoughts and advise. I did a search on this forum, but could not find what others have used as a "cocktail" to solve my trany delayed forward engagement. I did not see any response that it is a simple matter of dropping the pan to replace a low clutch timing solenoid, or shrunken or worn low clutch outer piston seal. So, it is my assumption that the trany has to be removed from the car, and bench torn down to replace those items. I guess that leaves me with either replacing the trany with one from a wrecking yard, or the "bandaid" approach of changing ATF fluid and filter, and adding fresh ATF and cocktail additives in hopes of helping the problem. Since it is now just a PIA problem, as the trany performs perfectly once moving. I will do the bandaid approach for now. I know I have to do something. More than once, I have wondered if the car was going to get me home, when I have had to wait 20 or 30 seconds to get the car to engage in "D" when stopped.

Thanks, I will do that.

when i was searching for info for the friend i mentioned above i ran across a thread of a guy who did the "concoction fix" a few years ago. i contacted him and he said the car did noticeably better for 3 years up until he got rid of it and he never had to get it fixed. so that seems like a reasonable try. Does your friend remember the ingredients and ratio amounts of the "concoctuin fix?" Maybe, I will give that a try! I added some Lucas trany fix last Fall. That maybe helped a little for a while, but not anymore.

I have a 99 AT OBW with delayed forward engagement. It sometimes/often won't go into drive quickly after shifting from reverse. The problem has gotten really bad the last couple of weeks. Sometimes, I have to rev the motor slightly several times to get the trany to engage. I added a little ATF to slightly over fill status, that hasn't helped. Otherwise the trany performs well. I changed the trany fluid several times last summer. The car has 160K on the odo. The 99s have been written up repeatedly with this problem. One writer posted a tech bulletin from ATRA saying two common causes for this problem is a faulty low clutch timing solenoid, or shrunken or worn low clutch outer piston seal. I have never worked on a trany other than to change fluid. Are the above two causes something that I can work on with my car in my driveway with the car lifted on drive up ramps, and the tranny pan pulled? If not, I would appreciate any advise on how best to address this problem. Thanks!

Amazing timing of your post. I just got off the telephone talking with a friend of a friend who was a Subie tech guy at a dealership. He now sells Amsoil products here in Indiana. Just started having bad trouble with my 99 OBW trany with delayed forward engagement of the AT. The tech suggested replacing the low clutch timing solenoid, AT filter, and adding 5 quarts of Amsoil synthetic ATF. Give me a few months, and I will give you a testimonial on Amsoil. Yes, I know that 5 quarts is just half of the fluid capacity, but that is the amount that he recommended.

The dealer's asking price sounds rather high for a car with 180K miles on the ODO. Prices vary around the country, but just to give you some info, I purchased a 99 automatic Legy OBW in Dec 07 with 150K miles. Cost was about $4200. Since the dealer has had this car you are looking at for about a year, my guess he would prolly sell it for $4K or less. You prolly won't get any service records, so figure on a timing belt, and possibly brakes, maybe a tune up as well. Use this info in your discussion to deal for a lower price, if you are truly interested in buying the car. Good luck!

Looks like a nice clean care. I hope the owner/dearler guy was able to provide service records to you. That would be a big plus in knowing when the timing belt was replaced, and HG possibly replaced.

I have also heard that if you have to wait in line for emissions testing, keep your car idling, don't turn off the motor. You want to keep the motor at normal operating temperature for best emissions rating.

Sorry to hear that you got it confirmed that the HG is your source of trouble. I heard with HG trouble that some of the combustion gasses escape into the coolant, thus pressurizing the coolant with hot gasses. The gas can then be seen as bubbles in the over flow tank. When my 91 2.2 blew the HG, it pressurized and heated the cooing system to the point of causing the radiator to leak. So, keep an eye out for any dripping antifreeze on your driveway even after replacing the HGs.

I have gone the universal 02 sensor replacement on an Audi and a Jeep only to regret it. The sensor part prolly worked okay, but for the life of me, I could never get a good solder job and shrink tubing over the solder joints to last very long. I would wrap electrical tape over the shrink tubing, but within a year, the CEL would come on. Then it is a guess as to which wire at the solder joint is shorting out. I vowed at my last screw up replacement (on the Jeep) to never use a universal 02 again. It wasn't worth the aggravation of trying to save $20 to $25.

I have done well buying batteries at Wal-Mart. Just be sure to pull the caps to make sure that the battery water level is full. I did buy 2 batteries there, that were low on water.