davebugs

Thanks. I'll get me some hopefully this week. I'm having trouble visualizing why 2 are needed for the O2 sensor fix. If I do get my HG's tomorrow I will attempt to post a pic. Is it true that most folks don't get new head bolts? The dealer quotes me that I'd probably need some kind of washers. Perhaps for the valve covers? This will be my first significant teardown of a Sub engine. I'm most likely to get the new style HG's and intake gaskets until I get it torn apart and see what else my be needed. GD - thanks for the link. Dave

I'd be interested in a pic of the new gaskets as well. I'll be doing the job soon myself. If no-one has posted them by then I'll post a pic of mine. I may possibly get them tomorrow - weather depending. What are spark plug non-foulers and where can I get me some? Sounds like a good thing to keep around. On Sub's with those type issues Seafoam has been my friend in the past. But I like to keep gizmo's around that could get a fella out of a jamb. I can't believe that I've never heard of them. Dave

I have yet to see a metal one. So far a white one and 2 black plastic ones. I think the white was on a 94 2.2, a 2.2 from a 97 Impreza OB is black, and the 97 Legacy OB 2.5 that I need to re-pull the motor on is black. Only the white one was leaking. Original at 66k - motor had never been pulled. Was leaking a lot. The 97 2.2 I have setting here - don't know if it was ever pulled and sealed but didn't seem to be leaking. The 97 2.5 had already been resealed when motor was pulled at 183k and was not leaking. Dave

Bought a 97 OBW 5 speed at auction that appears to need HG at 183k. No idea of prior history.

Latest update. 68,111 miles - 1k since he got the car. No more 'weirdnesses' when driving have occured since we were driving to transfer the title 1k ago. 2 issues currently. First is the odometer is off by 10mph at 60 he says. Has correct size tires on it and no reason to think the rims were ever changed. Second - PS is low. I think I know what this is. There was a patch on a line - it's the only thing I didn't touch. Everything else Skip and I touched turned into a major ordeal. There is a short metal(24"?) line coming from the drivers side and ending up basically in the middle of the rack. Someone put a rubber hose on it and 4 small hose clamps. By looking at it I don't think the nut at either end will ever come undone. Simply not enough surface on the nuts. Since it has tubing coming out of it there is no way to pound a socket on. The drivers side if I recall is a bugger to get to. It may not be so bad if the car were new - but not old and rusty. Anyone have some rusty line patch solutions? I don't know how high pressure this line is. If I remember correctly the line itself doesn't look all that bad - but it must have had a hole in it for someone to patch it. I did put Lucas PS in it and that's fixed every Subby true rack issue that I've ever had (4 Sub's). On this car I expect the issue to be this line that I have discussed. Dave

I bought a 97 0r 98 Legacy outback one time with a tranny leak. Ended up being the external filter had a pinhole in it. 38 bucks it seems to me for a dealer filter. I just priced a Wix ATF filter for my girlfriends 2006 Impreza. Dealer is like 39, Wix is like 8 bucks. Check that filter - not just the seating area - my leak was coming from the opposite end. Dave

I know this has been posted before - I have posted it myself. I've had terrific luck with Lucas Power steering fluid. The dealer my girlfriend uses (close to her home) suggested a used rack instead of rebuilt. They said the rebuilts that they had installed had no better odds than the used. And you can't afford a Subaru rack. Hers was leaking from where the boots used to be - at like 160-180k. A 96 Impreza. I dumped a bottle of Lucas in. Never needed to add anymore fluid until the car was totalled at 240k. Lucas PS is my favorite product of theirs. Though I do like the tranny stuff and fuel injection cleaner. I also use the oil additive in some of my cars. I see bobtheoilguy doesn't care for it so much. Anyway for probably less than 10 bucks its' worth a shot - it's worked for me particularly well with Sub's. Dave

I love my Mintex pads on my VW. On a VW the original rears lasted 60k, the fronts 100k. At that time I changed them all to Mintex pads and new Brembo rotors. How many cars get 100k out of original front brakes on an auto? Gotta be that german engineering. It looks like the Mintex are wearing even better and perform better. I've installed the Wagners on VW's and one Subaru - they seemed pretty decent. I sold both of those cars so I don't know about the wear. Anyone still use Bendix? I think Advance stocks Bendix rotors so I imagine they have Bendix pads. I stopped running them when they wanted to only replace them one time. Dave

It was probably standard old Lucas tranny stuff in a 24 oz bottle. It's one of the most popular Lucas products I think. They do actually make things like a hydraulic leak fix additive but I think it's meant for heavy equipment hydraulics. I use the Lucas tranny stuff in all my high mileage vehicles and towing vehicles. Sometimes when you buy an old car/truck/van you have no idea of whether the tranny has ever been serviced. Sometimes it seems servicing a tranny that has been neglected makes things worse. I bought a Pella and suck out whatever I feel like (usually 2 quarts per summer in my Astro van), dump a bottle of Lucas tranny in it and top off with regular fluid. Seems to be working well for me. I like their fuel injector/upper cylinder lube product as well. I serviced my girlfriends 96 Impreza about every 30k with the suck and fill method from probably 160k until 240k when it was totalled. Tranny ran fine. I have no idea of it's history before that (and she certainly didn't) other than to know that it had never been replaced. Dave

I've installed these in VW's, Honda's, Toyota's, Saturns, and today one is going into a 97 OB. I've never had an issue with them in the other cars. I don't expect to have an issue with the Sub. FYI I buy a kit called Rhino Pak (I'll have to check that spelling) that is a flywheel, clutch plate, TO bearing, pilot bearing, etc. For usual jap stuff and Saturns they cost me around 100 bucks, for a Sub closer to 250. Why are the Sub's so special? Dave

On the pics, etc. I actually forgot to take a pic of the side of the LCA that the shop welded prior to Skip and I doing the damage beating on it trying to remove it. But as you can see it was pretty wimpy. The car has lived it's life in the Pittsburgh area. I doubt it's actually set around in salt water. I can invision it setting in a driveway or two, along a wall on the right side, perhaps under a tree. I found no tree remnants on it in the cowl, paint stains, etc. So far so good. He says the odometer is off about 8 MPH at 60 MPH(he's really doing more like 50 MPH). It had 14" 185/70/14's on it with factory steel wheels and hubcaps, and I put the same size aluminum wheels with winter tires back on it. It's a L model so I would expect 14's. I know most cars overstate MPH a little. Other than different tires (probably 15") I don't know of another way to remedy this. I think he's just gonna have to live with it. I don't have a vacuum gauge (just a compression gauge) but perhaps I can borrow one if he has any more troubles when it comes back for an oil change or another issue. Dave

I have some Kumho KH16's (H rated) on a non-Subaru. My first cheap tires ever. Problem is rotating them isn't enough. I've had to have them rebalanced every 5-10k. Alignment is fine(checked). I've never had near this much of an issue with other tires. I was considering Kumho's for the girlfriends car (96 Impreza 205/55/16 I believe) but am now leary. My tire wear is o.k. - it's the constant re-balancing that bothers me. I bought these tires based on tirerack ratings I'm not looking for the cheapest but the Nokian's are pretty pricey. Dave

Some minor corrections and an update. The timing belt was a Dayco - I use them a lot and have not had any issues on Sub's, VW's, and Honda's - but there's always a first time. The fuel filter is a new wix. The update is that I called the kid. He's put 200 miles on it with no re-occurance. Due to his work schedule he won't be running it much until the weekend (fri,sat,sun). Besides - it's been warm. Do you really think this thing would break down when it's warm? I signed him up for AAA premium that starts in about 7 days (10 days until the 100 mile towing kicks in from signup date). My guess is when it breaks it will be a very cold day, the car far away, and just shy of AAA kicking in. I didn't have a way to record the car when it was making the noise. I would love to read any codes (even though no CEL is on) but don't know how. Perhaps I've recieved an early c-mas present and this puppy will just keep running merrily along.... I did take a pic of the LCA and oil pan this evening. Perhaps tomorrow evening I'll post the pics if I can figure out how. Thanks for the suggestions. I asked the kid to pay attention to what he was doing if/when it happens again. So far for me it had mostly been random and infrequent. Dave

About the car. I called the previous owner. They had it setting in their driveway for years hardly ever driving it so they decided to donate it. The fellow that I talked to was the original owners nephew. The original owner is now 83. The fella I talked to didn't think his Uncle was capable of remembering much about the car. He did know that it had been tuned up one time but doubted that the Timing Belt (big job) had been done.. He said that he had done the fancy exhaust work. It had Carquest accessory belts on it and red plug wires that I though I had read here were good. They do look good - the wires and boots. They donated it since they didn't use it much for the past few years. Said the engine/tranny were super. The rust underneath, PS line, exhaust, front axle boots dry-rotted, etc. was the reason for donating it. This car is probably now approaching 1k miles since purchased. ABout 350-400 before we took it apart. About 300 after we took it apart. And the kid has had the car a few days at 100 mi round trip to work. I'm awaiting any word that he's had it act up again. Yesterday apparently he had no issues. If the carbon theory is correct I would expect to see something in the oil at some time. This thing has literally had the oil changed about 5 times. It was super clean the last time - as you would expect - infact the last several times. Then again perhaps they are more like chunks - which makes me glad that I've been changing the oil filter everytime but 1. Dave

Thanks for the fresh idea's. We did check the flex plate bolts and look at what we could see of the flexplate when we got back from the Subaru mechanic. I actually have an extra knock and camshaft positioning sensor in my van form another motor that only ran on 3 cylinders and was junked by a friend. I also have them on the 97 2.2 sitting in my garage. I was gonna pull plug wires the last time this happened - but didn't get around to it before it started ruinning well. It ran crappy for less than a minute. We got off the road, popped the hood, and I was trying to diagnose where the noise was coming from, from time to time I'd reach back and give it a little gas to see what happened. I forgot to mention that I had been running a lot of 5-10-15 dollar batches of gas thru it lately (since the 350 mile trip before we worked on it)- I don't think it ever got below 1/4 tank. I did add my only bottle of dry gas (I'm not a big dry gas fan)and about 10 bucks when I went to pick up my girlfriend. We filled up the car on the way back before we ate lunch on our way back to do the title work. I'm guessing that we made it 10-15 miles from the last fillup when we had the problem. On the flexplate - wouldn't it make noise more than a few minutes avery hour or so? Also I have tried it in forward, reverse, neutral, and park - and when this is happenning it makes no differnece. I might expect a noticable difference if it was the flexplate? Heat appears to have no bearing on this issue either. Neither does moisture. FYI I saw nothing with the naked eye wrong with the coil pack that I took off of this motor. So far the only progress has been that subsuquent occurances since the initial one when my dad was with me - haven't been nearly as noisy or seemingly all engine encompassing as that first time. I do need some ideas to do when I get the car back - assuming that it runs that long. Perhaps we should try to prioritize them. I don't know how long I'll have to perform whatever we come up with. So far probably the toughest would be adding a real oil pressure gauge, and then having him remember to look at it if this happens again. Thanks again. Dave

Hello folks. This is somewhat lengthy as well and it fills in some gaps and perhaps answers some of the questions those of you trying to assist us have had. I can’t thank Skip enough for his assistance. I’m not a Suby expert – but learning more every day it seems – definitely when working with Skip. I’m a VW guy at heart and restore the old air-cooled stuff. The kids in the neighborhood try and say Dave with the bugs and it comes out “davebugs” so that’s my universal MB name. First off I’ll list some of the other parts that were put into this car. Partly so that you can understand the effort and partly incase it helps at some of the guesses at what’s currently going on. Joseph has his first car – we transferred the title on Saturday. When driving it to get the title transferred he did experience the problem while I was riding with him. The rod knocking sound on the passenger side, wouldn’t speed up, etc. This may be developing a pattern – mostly when getting back on the gas around 40-45. Although the other day it was fine when I shut it off, but it acted up immediately upon starting. It lasted less than a minute – we pulled over and let the car idle and it resolved itself. Before much was done on this car (just brake pads and exhaust, oil and filter 5w30) we took it for a weekend and put 350 or so miles on it – uneventful other than rotor or axle and dust shield noise. After this maiden voyage she wanted the timing belt done, the tranny shifter and brake rotors needed fixed, and things kept going down hill the more we worked on it. My list of parts: Lucas PS fluid (2 bottles) – we never fixed anything to do with this. Brake pads (all 4 corners) New rotors (all 4 corners) New front axles(old boots were dry rotted) Caliper Rubber boot kit on RF Oil pan replaced (external rust) bolt heads almost non-existent RF Lower Control Arm (used) due to rust. NGK plugs Fuel filter (wix) Air filter (Purolator) About 5 oil/filter(Purolator) changes total New coolant New radiator hoses Used Diamond coil pack (Red plug wires seem fine) Wipers Lucas tranny and 6 qts tranny fluid Rear caliper brackets (bolts broke off originals) Exhaust gaskets The tranny linkage was screwed up. Had to use a screw driver to get it out of Park and into neutral to be able to start it. The backup lights were on in Park. The tow truck driver who brought the car to the auction just ripped it out of Park. Skip fixed this (while I was working on the timing belt). The ‘fingers’ for lack of a better work on the side of the tranny were bent – really widened. Skip bent them back. Good thing – it’s all way too rusty to adjust the cable, change the mechanism on the side of the tranny, or anything like that. There are literally no threads on any of the bolts. The exhaust on this was a thing of beauty. There were 8 places where they had used 2 hose clamps, metal wrapped around the pipe, and muffler cement. While replacing the axles (I had a shop do the exhaust and axles, and actually the pads the first time) they beat on the LCA. They actually knocked a whole or two in it. They welded a patch on and warned me about it. Skip and I decided to replace it since it was for the kid. We took a severe beating to it but the ball joint wouldn’t pop out. We were causing it to get more and larger holes though. I ran to Advance and borrowed the tool to remove the balljoint. Never did a CEL or oil light come on. Heat has never gone above half way – and the electric fans do work Original oil when this happened the first time was 5w30 with 1 pint MMO The car now has 4 qts 20w50 and 1 pint MMO The coil pack was replaced before the last time it happened on our way to transfer the title. The idler pulley was the splined one – I had a scrap motor that the splined pully made a little less noise when spun. Luckily I have a 2.2 from a 97 OB that needs a head gasket. It also donated the oil pan and coil pack. I also have a 92 Legacy wagon on the car hauler that has been a money pit that I’m gonna scrap. The motor has high miles but sounds great, had the tranny replaced, and now a bearing in the front transfer case is bad – and whines like crazy. The fuel pump is just laying in the tank so that I can move it around to scrap it. The lower front fenders are shot, I had to add a starter switch, I stole the fuel pump with a good sending unit for another car, etc. But I do have this car to swap parts from. I also plan on scrapping the 92 this week. But until it is scrapped I can pull parts off of it. I’m not looking to swap things just for something to do but I do have a running but wimpy Legacy wagon here. The kid has the 94 now but I know it will be coming back – if nothing else for the next oil change in 3k. Since he drives 100 mi/day for work and has his first car I don’t expect it will take long to hit 3k When I called skip the first time this happened the whole motor was thrashing – top, bottom, and middle were making noise. So much noise that I couldn’t pinpoint it. Sounded like all the connecting rods and lifters wanted to come out of the motor. The last several times it won’t speed up, seems to usually be in 2nd or going to 3rd gear, and most noise is from passenger side bottom – like the connecting rods. It idles real, real rough but doesn’t die. Revving it a little really does nothing unless you get the RPM’s up a bit that it’s harder to notice that it’s missing. I have never noticed any strange exhaust. The rough running/metallic sounding issue has happened when Skip was here in the garage and we didn’t look – but didn’t notice any nasty exhaust. Same thing as when this has happened on the road – never looked but would have noticed a big cloud of smoke. I got the kid AAA premium just in case. The 100 mile thing doesn’t lick in for 10 days. He lives 50 miles from me. Worst case when this thing does I can unload the 92 wagon from the car hauler if need ba and go get it. A perverted part of me can’t wait to see what fails. Thanks for the suggestions - keep them coming. Dave

Thanks for the response. I wonder why on the interchange 97 is listed as it's own year? I've also always wondered why in the same interchange Impreza and Legacy 2.2's weren't interchangable. I have a 97 2.2 from an Impreza that needed a HG - I just swapped the motor. Smoked bad but the oil is clean. You're saying that would work if I got the Impreza Y pipe? I could imagine other exhaust issues and perhaps O2 sensor issues but I'd think they wouldn't be too busy. Would a Legacy OB seem underpowered with a 2.2 in it? I'll have to see tomorrow how much it goes for. Depending on miles and condition usually between 1000-2,500. Dave

From time to time I get the chance to buy Sub's that typically need an expensive fix. Currently there is a 97 OB that probably needs that expensive one year motor - at the least probably head gasket(s). Anyone had success putting a different year motor or even a 2.2 in one of these? Also on a 99 SUS with the expensive tranny TZ1A2ZJEBA. Will the cheaper tranny work - -what other parts/computers would also need swapped? I'm hoping this is the correct forum. Thanks, Dave

FWIW My girlfriends 95 or 96 Impreza started leaking badly, the boots had been ripped off, it had 200 k on it. A local dealer's service manager had said that the rebuilt ones weren't any better and suggested used. I stuck a bottle of Lucas in it. Never needed to add fluid again. It went 240k before she was hit from behind and the car was a total loss. For less than 10 bucks I'd try Lucas - or some other miracle cure if you haven't already. You don't have much to loose. Dave

I think everyone has their signs. My Ex used to laugh - if either the blower motor started to make noise or the high beam switch goes - more often than not I usually get rid of the vehicle shortly. Mind you - by this time they have well over 100k and usually closer to 150k or so. GM, Jap, German, doesn't matter. Sometimes a blower motor goes bad early. Sometimes you just get tired of a vehicle - even if it isn't constantly breaking. It may be like any other relationship - if you find yourself wondering - it's already over. Dave

I know the assemblies are different. At first glace the sending unit part looks the same. Tomorrow I hope to get the 2 of them together and perhaps try a swap of the sending units since they are both out to see what happens. If I get them to work ( or not work) I'll post the results here. Dave

I have a 94 Legacy wagon AWD who's sending unit does not work - the pump seems fine. I have a 90 FWD wagon that I pulled the pump/sending unit combo out of - 2 hoses. Is there anyway to just swap sending units that may actually work? The 90 only has a unit on the right side. The 94 has 2 units (one on the left - 1 hose, and one on the right - 3 hoses). I read here that on the AWD's the right pumps fuel over to the left side of the tank. Is the sending unit the same? I confess that I haven't removed the right side unit in the 94 AWD yet - I hate to make a mess that I can't tidy up and fix correctly. Thanks, Dave

I had a '98 Leagcy OB 2.5 that had the spin on tanny filter. Also had pin holes in the filter. Expensive tranny. I took a chance and purchased the car and it ended up being a rusted filter was the problem after lots and lots of looking. Sometimes you luck out. I have sense sold the car so I don't know what the build date was - but it was a '98 model year on the title. Dave

I buy it at a local parts store for under 5.00/can but Advance Auto has it for 7-8 bucks a can. I ran mine thru the brake boost vacuum line (although they recommend something that dispenses it to all cylinders) and it made serious white smoke. It was dark and cold and I was lazy - but it worked well. If you try it let me know how it works for you. It certainly won't fix a truely bad sensor but for the price and effort it is probably worth a try. Dave

You might try a search on seafoam here. It cleared up the O2 underperformance issues on a 99 Outback that was having issues. I just did the vacuum line bit. Smokes like crazy. I put almost 1k miles on the car - light never came back on. I also had it emissions tested (no plugs, air filter, oil change or anything) and it passed. Can't beat trying it for the price. I really hate removing O2 sensors. I'm starting to use it more and more. If you read the can - it really thinks it's a cure for everything. If you're gonna put it in the fuel tank take along a funnel or an old empty bottle of something else to have it go into the filler neck far enough. My first post here. I've had mixed success in finding solutions to my Subaru problems here. I do service several Sub's(to varying degrees), and sell a few. Dave