Rooster2

Prolly worth a trip to an Autozone or Advance Auto Parts store, or similar place, and have them check out the charging system. They don't charge for this, and they will tell you if there is a problem with the alternator or battery.

If you want lifted, start with an Outback model wagon. Pretty hard to tell how much weight the roof with a rack could carry. Pretty sure aluminum ladders would be okay. Any hood from a 95-99 will fit. I doubt that anything else would fit.

Nope

Years back, I had a Pontiac wagon with the woody grain vinyl sides. The vinyl began to deteriorate badly with peeling and color fading. I repaired using vinyl shelf sheets, the kind made for kitchen cabinet shelving. I cut the sheets with scissors, pulled off the paper backing, and the adhesive on the back of the vinyl stuck well to the side of the car. It was pretty easy to push out bubbles of air under the vinyl to make a good looking appearance. The kitchen vinyl is rather thin, so it doesn't last more then 3 years, but it was no big deal to add more vinyl right over the previously applied vinyl that was applied years earlier. I remember the vinyl sheets were available in a variety of colors, and wood grains, and the nice thing is that the sheets are inexpensive. I would suggest looking into this approach/

I had a mechanic, who is a buddy of mine, check out the squeaky, creaky, rear end corner. Using a mechanics stethoscope, he was able to figure out the noise is coming from the parking brake inside the rotor. There is no looseness found when pulling the road wheel left/right, or up/down, so the wheel bearing is still good. The parking brake seems to work okay, but something must be rubbing, or lightly grinding, within the parking brake mechanism to create the noise. I will take the rotor off the next nice day, when I have time off to see what is going on. Anyone ever have trouble with the parking brake like this?

Thanks, I was thinking that. I would still like to see a u-tube video on hub replacement, if anyone knows a link to one.

Is replacing a rear wheel bearing hub pretty much like replacing a front wheel bearing hub? Any advise, or u-tube link available that shows how? Thanks, Rooster2

I had the same resonator problem on both my 98 and 99 OBWs. I went to a "torch cut out, new pipe bend, weld in," family owned muffler shop. I had them simply weld in a short piece of straight pipe to replace the resonator. Surprisingly, the exhaust system is as quiet, as when the resonator was in place. It cost me about $35-40 to have the straight pipe installed. This work was done about 3 years ago, and the repair has held up great.

I started hearing a squeaky, creaky sound, that is now sounding like a mild grinding sound. My first thought was bad brake pads creating noise from metal on metal. But no, I pulled the road wheel, inspected the pads, regreased the pins, and reinstalled. The noise is still there, when I spin the road wheel, when up in the air. It has a creaky, creaky sound. I now suspect a bad wheel bearing. I did a search on rear wheel bearing replacement. Most of what I read talked about front wheel bearing replacement. So, I came away from the sight confused. From what I could read, the rear bearing needs a puller to remove it from the hub. Did I read and understand that correctly? If I search for a replacement from a wrecking yard, what Subie models and year range would have a rear hub that would fit my 99 Leggie Outback? Thanks for any advise.

+1.........I have used Walmart's own brand for the past 10 years with no complaints. I change it about every 3,000 miles. Using fresh clean oil is the best insurance that your engine will run a good long time.

Well, it is only my single experience.......I had a 91 Legacy, that I dropped the AT pan on. The pan wasn't leaking, I just wanted to change the filter, because I thought it must need changing, as the car prolly had 150K on the odo. Upon dropping the pan, the filter turned out to be only a fine wire mesh unit. It had almost nothing trapped on the screen, so it didn't need changing. The nasty part was cleaning off the super hardened backed on pan gasket. Even up on ramps, there was minimal space between the pan and the pavement, to be able to work at cleaning off the gasket. From that experience, I deduced that it wasn't worth changing the screen filter, and if anything, I could have easily cleaned off the existing filter and reinstalled. After reassembly, my pan gasket leaked. I prolly did not do a great job cleaning off the old gasket, under less then desirable work conditions. Just snug tight, don't super tight the pan bolts, or you will warp the pan, and that will cause leaks. This is just my single experience, but thought I would post it, as you seem to be looking for testimonials.

If you do a Google search for discount codes for Advance Auto Parts, you will find about 6 different codes available, for ordering on line. Pick the one that suits you best. That is what I like to do.

Makes you wonder why Subaru would have different seat belt buckles, when from the outside they look the same. I wonder if maybe they are from different suppliers to Subaru??

Coil pack maybe gone bad??

Reconnect the battery.........see if that corrects the problem.

Tried pushing the release button, while putting the tongue inside the buckle side. That didn't help. I will just swap out the buckles from the old seats. Thanks for the idea.

I will give it a try.

Thanks for the advise............... After I wrote this thread, I looked at my old seats to see that one large nut affixes the buckle unit to the seat frame. I will just swap them out. I am still surprised that the buckle units look the same on old vs new seats, but internally something is different to prevent the buckle from working correctly.

I just swapped leather seats from a 97 OBW, into my 99 OBW. I am surprised to find out that the buckle on the leather seats won't latch to the belt tongue. The tongue simply slides in and out of the buckle without latching. This is happening on both seats, with WD-40 failing to fix the situation, in case something was sticking or binding inside the buckle. Only conclusion I can make, is that the buckle must be different internally, though both look the same from the outside. Anyone else ever have this problem? My solution is to swap the buckles onto the new seats from the old seats. It appears to be just one bolt holding the buckle to the seat frame. I hope I don't run into any snags completing the switch over.

Prolly a good place to start, is to remove a door panel, and look for unused wiring with a terminal with nothing plugged into it. I remember that is how my 99 OBW wiring is set up, when I replaced a broken door mirror. This will tell you if your car is wired for heated mirrors or not. Also, I remember that the mirror is held on with screws. They can be extremely difficult to remove, as they are often super tight. It is very easy to round off the screw head, so be careful.

Good idea, I should have thought of that. Thanks!!

Update....................such a nice day, with lousy weather forcasted for tomorrow, so I decided to install the leather seats today. Swapping in is the easy part, I knew that. The wiring for the heated seats turned out to be impossible. I could not find any tucked away connectors/terminals that were made for the heated seats. Just nothing available under the carpet, or under around the removed console. So, I gave up, but did tap into the hot lead from the cig lighter, ran a wire back and taped it off, just in case someone is able to tell me a clean and simple way to rewire for the seats. Thanks for any further advise. BTW, the leather seats from an Outback Limited, are nice. Not as comfortable as I had hoped for, but a mile better then the standard cloth OEMs. It was worth the time and bucks to do the swap in.

O........what a messy wiring harness is correct. I have a large hunk of it from the donor car. I think I will follow the advise about tapping into the hot lead to the cig lighter for power, and hopefully find existing hidden wiring terminals to hook wiring into. If I get the seats to heat that is fine, if not, I am okay without it. Just going to be so nice to sit in a seat with some spring/give padding. The current OEM cloth seat is bad. This will be my upcoming Saturday project.......weather permitting.

Over the years, I keep reading that it is better to replace with a used tranny vs. trying to rebuild your old one. Lots of used trannys available at wrecking yards at a reasonable price. Usually come with a 30 day guarantee.

Thanks guys for the great advise. It will help a lot, when I pull out the existing seats to do the wiring. Rooster 2 (Larry)