CNY_Dave

Well that's easy- seperate the engine cases, or smash the bellhousing with a big hammer and make some holes you can use to access the bolts. Dave

How did the hub become damaged? These bearings have an inner and an outer race, so it wouldn't have been from running with bad wheel bearings, correct? Dave

I know, it's like asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin (answer- none, they don't dance). I have a noisy front (pretty sure) wheel bearing on the right side, its slowly getting louder, I can hear it while going straight and its a little worse going left, quiets completely during a right-hand turn, and I'm starting to be able to feel a little thrumming through the steering wheel and the floor. The wheel bearing does not yet have any detectable play, and the wheel turns with no noises/notchiness/grinding. Anyone have a noisy bearing stay in this condition for a long time? How much warning before it really goes all to hell? Dave

If it's an auto, is it possible to just go ahead and pull the converter out with the engine? If the converter just pulls straight out of the trans this should technically be possible, but I don't know how fragile the trans is, or if there's enough room to slide the engine forwards enough to do this. Is it possible to pull the trans with the engine, then deal with it? Dave

Stuck in new rear pads and rotors. Could hardly pry the old pads out of the holder, gee, maybe that's why the inner pad is almost new and the outer pad is toast? Cleaned everything up and the new pads (from napa) were the same way- what the heck? You could see where the metal of the pad backer had 'smeared' a little bit during the stamping and shearing process, leaving the pad oversize. Little work with the grinder fixed that right up, but this isn't the 1st time I've had to do post-work on new brake parts. Had to take a grinder to some minivan drums last year to remove some material they didn't turn off with the lathe. The pads I took out had been put in by the dealer, so I assume they were OEM. I had removed the stainless pieces and cleaned them, and made sure the areas where they set were clean and not all rusty, so I'm fairly sure this was all about the pad backer being oversize. The caliper sliders had good boots and moved freely, at least. Dave

Would a CV joint failure not make much noise or bind while coasting, where a VC problem would show up coasting or under power? Dave

Another item to check is to see if the static is dependent on the fan blower speed. If the anti-noise capacitor across the motor is bad, it will create a lot of static that will change with the fan speed setting. Dave

Driving lights are legal as long as they are covered and not used while on the road... that said, I have no qualms about using driving lights that turn off automatically when I hit the low-beams. Just have to figure out what I want, and find the time. The headlights are adequate for interstate driving, but in the hinterlands (where I live) the extra seeing distance will help keep my car undented and the local fauna alive. Dave

No, the '03 OBW headlights just have a coupla fatal flaws. One of which is that the low beam stays on when the high-beams come on, a big no-no, since the 'nearby bright light' washes out the faint returning light from far away. Another is that the high beams have a very sharp cutoff not that far above the road, so if you are going downhill and coming up to an uphill, the uphill is dark. This also compromises using trees, etc. as cues as to where the road is. The forester lights properly cut the lowbeam filament off when turning on the highbeams, and has a nice vertical pattern. Along with real fog lights (that can come on anytime, not just with low headlights), at least cutting off the low beams when on high beam is on my 'mods list'. Dave

We just ditched my wife's 99 chrysler minivan for an '05 Forester 2.5x, just over 30kmiles. After driving it, I have to say- - it's very tight and handles nicely - glad I have a 3.0 in my OBW - why can't my OBW have headlights as good as the forester? Dave

The pics are from an outfit that built up an H6, think it was a later 3.0R (but the pics are pretty much the same). The waterpump is supposed to be good for the life of the car as well, so coolant maintenance is important. Old coolant = crappy seals = leaky waterpump The waterpump job is almost exactly the same as the chain/tensioner job, so I'd figure going in to touch anything and you'd do all 3. In those pics the crank is the gear on top in the middle, the waterpump is the round thing with the 4 bolts, on the bottom a little to the right. Dave

Yes, bathed in oil, supposed to last the life of the car. The water pump is driven by the timing chain as well. Dave

The H6 has a timing chain (as said) that should be good for 'the life of the car', the plugs are def. worse to get to (but do not have to be done often) ans things are tighter than on a 4 cylinder, but most of what you have to touch is up on top. Dave

Really heavy key ring? Maybe turning the key to 'run' from 'start' you overshot a bit and it was almost set to 'off', and a bump nudged it? Dave

Previously, yes, I would get some shake, would be better or worse after pulling and re-installing a wheel depending on how things happened to line up. Much better now, no shake as far as I can tell. One telltale is if you have the wheel loose and all the lugnuts loose, and you tighten one lugnut snug and the wheel pulls to the hub, then you tighten the next and it pulls a little tighter, and the next it pulls a little closer, that's a sign you have crud. After cleaning things up once the 1st nut was snugged, the wheel was tight to the hub. Now, since the part of the rim the centering ring bears on is a bit deteriorated, I have to be careful to tighten the lug nuts very slightly in sequence, using about 3 stages to make sure it's centered. Dave

That problem I don't seem to have, yet anyway. Things cleaned up OK, the areas I thought were the 'good' areas turned out to be a super-hard, almost ceramic amalgam of aluminum corrosion, rust, and who knows what. I placed an old screwdriver (no handle) perpendicular to the surface and hit it with a hammer, and the crud broke like it was glass. The areas that were 'low' and I thought were areas of severe corrosion were the 'normal' areas. Dave

Typically, any reputable shop will have on the written estimate that you must approve an upward deviation of the estimate if the increase is more than 10%. Dave

I scraped a little and there was a little uphill from near the edge towards the center. The portion that engages the centering rim on the hub is degraded enough you have to tighten the lug nuts gingerly to get it properly centered- I don't regard that as a severe problem, though. The centering ring doesn't hold the wheel centered, it just holds it centered while you tighten the lugs. I discovered that after the car shook whenever a shop put the wheels oin, but never when I did, and it didn't seem to be a torquing issue. Yeah, I'm hoping I'm just over-worrying it. Dave

Yeah, that was my thread, back when I thought just a little clean-up would do it. Maybe it's not bad as I fear (yeah right) Dave

Poked at one of my wheels last night- the corrosion where the wheel mounts to the hub is worse than I recall, going to clean them up and see if a) they mount straight (afraid when I'm done the surface won't be flat, or true) they stay tight If they are sufficiently true and stay tight I'll run 'em for the life of the current tires that I just bought, if not I'll have to pick between new cast rims, steelies (yech) or used ones from a boneyard or someone who has upgraded. If I didn't have tires on 'em I'd put the rims on my mill and hit 'em with the face milling cutter, of course I'd have to get the mill put back together first... Anyone else ever deal with this? I think it's because this car saw salt, winter, and little use for its first 4 years, I'll bet the wheels were off only to rotate the tires a few times, and all kinds of galvanic goodness occurred. Dave

Same OP, but were you aiming for this thread? http://ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=98019 Dave

It seems it would be possible to have the rack slider off to one side with the wheels straight and the steering wheel straight, if one tie rod end is adjusted in far enough, and the other out far enough. That is, the rack slider could be off to the 'left' with the wheels pointing straight ahead, you'd have too little steering in one direction, and too much in the other. I would suggest an easy check to put your mind at ease- Turn the steering wheel to the far left lock position, count turns to the far right position, turn the wheel back half that amount, mark the steering wheel with a piece of tape and then verify it's the exact amount of turns from center to left-lock and center to right-lock. Adjust the tape as necessary until the tape is at the 12-oclock position and it's the exact same number of turns (and fractions of a turn) to left-lock and to right-lock from center. That tells you where the steering wheel should be set to put the rack in it's center of travel. Put the steering wheel in that rack-center position, and now go look at the wheels- they should be pretty much straight. If they're off by a little, the tie-rod ends can probably be adjusted to make up the difference (alignment guys'll do it), off by more than a little and the steering shaft position may have to be tweaked to set wheels-straight-ahead with the rack in its center of travel. Dave

Mine are far enough gone that if you just whack on the lug nuts with an air gun it's not quite centered, ease them on one at a time in sequence and it's just fine. Hopefully now that I have winter steelies, the corrosion rate (over a year) will be much less. Dave

Zinc is the recc. base for a steel-aluminum interface, I have found out today. There is a 25 buck pound bucket on the web: http://www.restockit.com/1-lb-Zinc-Anti-seize-(442-39901).html?source=froogle&Bvar5=100F1&Bvar6=100F1&Bvar7=100F1 but I don't know what else the zinc-based stuff is good for. Copper based is supposedly bad for AL. Dave

Anyone out there know of a zinc-based anti-seize available at napa, autozone, etc? Dave