lostinthe202

How about cruise control? Does your car have it, does it still work as it should? Thanks! Will-

The rear discs have a small drum inside of the hub that fit around a pair of small shoes, this is the safety brake. Hmm.... well I guess when you lose your brakes and crash into something, that will pop the hood for you. I suppose if you're traveling fast enough the hood might get rumpled enough that you won't have to do any lifting of your own, you can just peek in through the side....

Gary - ah so you know the pain. I was doing 4 10's for awhile which was a bit better, but the 10 hour days were really 14 hour days after lunch and the commute time was added in, and thanks to traffic patterns I was up at 4:30am everyday to make it work. I'm a naturally early riser but 4:30 is pushing it for me. After the other full-time guy in the shop quit I had to go back to a regular schedule since the shop can't be closed any weekday. Sadly, any kind of telecommuting probably won't work. My job involves lots of one on one time with professors, grads, and undergrads, to help design and fabricate/machine stuff so I really need to be there to do it. I've started piecing together a shop at home for my own purposes and I thought about saving up some of the drawings and seeing if I could talk them into letting me machine stuff at home a couple of days a week, but the shop is still looking pretty anemic so unless they're willing to buy me a bunch of machines and upgrade my power I don't see that happening anytime soon. Not to mention they'd still need to hire somebody to watch the shop while I'm not around. I suppose we could move back into another 400 sqft apartment in the city for $1360 a month.... Sorry for the hijack...

Yeah, I don't know how long-haul truckers do it. I love a good road-trip, I've done cross-country trips 9 times in the last 4 years and countless camping jaunts of a few hundred each way, but I couldn't do it week after week after week. Even 100 a day (to and from work) is no fun. I'm looking for a way out, but for right now I'm stuck with it.

Hahahaha, Oops! No, sometimes it feels like 500 miles a day, I meant 500 per week!

So crack open that beer, get on the internet and order yerself a balljoint:banana: Congrates on getting it out, I like that color blue!

tsk tsk Gary, that's 160 kilometers not miles eh? That still comes out to about 33k a year which is still a lot ( I should know, I don't get quite that high with my 500/mile daily commute!) Probably even more unless he bought his car in January.

double word

I park with the safety brake off (old habit from my datsun days) at home in the winter, but I get this light too in my '96 OBW when it drops below 15*. Not every time, but not infrequently. Pulling the cap off the brake reservoir and putting it back on has always done the trick. Seems the "low brake fluid" sensor doesn't like the cold so much. I never investigated much past the light going out since I never noticed any reduced performance. Will-

Go get 'em Gruff!!!

If it's got a neutral safety switch, that means it's a 5spd correct? If it's a 5spd, no fuse, and no FWD mode. Check for torque bind, in an open area like a parking lot turn the wheel all the way one way and see how hard it is to get the car moving. It should pretty much just idle along without any resistance, if it feels like you're breaking or there is a bunch of lurching, then you may have torque bind which would interfere with the AWD.

Just another thought, is there any margin of error for those vss readings? LIke some % that they can be off? Surely they can't be expected to agree exactly...

except break when it freezes:)

I know nothing about the auto trans or it's controls so I won't be offended if you wait for a more knowledgeable response, but I'd say that having the bigger tires on would make no difference assuming you have the same size on all 4 wheels. You're speedo would read a tad slower then you are actually traveling but the rotations relative to each other is what matters (right?) and your vsses shouldn't care. Good Luck!

Sounds like a great deal for only 104k. If the car runs/drives great but has a CEL, then O2 sensor maybe?. How is the CAT? If the CAT is fine then sounds like most other things that need fixing would be pretty low cost. How's the rusty rust?

Here's one of the little factoids I didn't know until I owned an AWD car. The tires have to be within a 1/4 inch of each other on the circumference. This generally means buying 4 tires. If the rest of yours are pretty new, some (most? all?) tire shops can shave a tire down to match the others. If the previous owner wasn't careful about this, TB may indeed be the more likely explanation. Good Luck! Will-

To give you an idea for parts, I spent $349 including on dealer parts for everything Gary mentioned plus a clutch fork and minus the flywheel which I was able to turn at work but would've been $250 by itself:eek: I also bought my parts from 1stsubaruparts.com which is usually a bit cheaper then what the dealers offer in-house. I think subarugenuineparts.com has even better prices. You can try seeing if your local dealer will do a price match, I've never had any luck, but I've read about other people having success with that. I also wasn't having service done at the dealer so that might have played a role in their decision not to give me a deal. I had my eye on an Excedy clutch kit on feebay for around $120 that included all those parts except the fork and flywheel, but I chickened out at the last moment. I figured if my first clutch went 190k then if I went OE parts I have a good chance of the second clutch outlasting the rest of the car. They're probably OK since it's a 2001, but this might be a good time to inspect your cv boots for rips or cracks and have them replaced at the same time. If they pull the trans, they pull the axles (correct?) and the boots them selves are reasonably priced I think. Good luck!

I meant the harness portion that would goes through the firewall. I can't imagine trying to inspect all of those aside from maybe the points where they go through sheet metal like maybe a grommet ripped or something. yikes!

So if all the objects that could cause this code have been replaced (which it sounds as if they have) then that leaves only the wires running to these right? Too bad you can't swap harnesses easily! I'm sure you did this, but in case you didn't, when you were changing the different sensors, ecu, etc. did you inspect each plug to make sure each connector was firmly seated? That's too bad this hasn't gotten resolved with extraordinary amount of work that you have put into finding the problem. I guess it's a good thing you don't live in an area that requires no CEL to pass inspection! Good Luck! Will-

So when I left work I was waiting to turn left at a traffic light. An opening came along and I gunned it in first to get through. I wasn't planning on shifting to second 'cause traffic was stopped on the road I was turning onto. I'm not exactly sure what happened because it happened so quickly, but I had accelerated to about 3k-3.5k, pushed in the clutch and pulled on the shifter wanting to go into neutral, the rpms dropped as I pushed in the clutch but then surged back up again, I felt a jerk, and the rpms dropped down to idle and I was in neutral. Either I let the clutch out before I pulled out of neutral, or maybe the disc caught for a sec (??). Either way, after that the car shifted normally all the way home with not a single stiff shift in the 2 hours of traffic (Holy squirrel turds I love DC) I sat through to get home. So maybe there was a booger on the input shaft that I missed that the disc was hung up on and the jerk knocked it off? I hate it when problems like this just vanish with no apparent reason because you never know when it's going to show up again. I'll be tearing the motor and trans out in a month or two anyway so when I do I'll split them and see what there is to see. Thanks much for those that offered advice. Hopefully you won't hear anything more from me on this matter. At least until I open the bell housing and punish the little gnome who's been messing with my head:) Will-

Bratman - Yes, both the PP and Flywheel were cleaned with acetone before installation and I had clean hands when I handled the disc. Frag - good to know, that makes sense as I think about it. Also, meant to say in that post that if I slip it into first while I'm rolling it will go in easily. Also if I double clutch it will go in easily. Hmm... only as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, if I am at a stand still with my foot OFF the brake with the car in first and clutch in, I can feel the clutch dragging a bit. When I rev the engine a hair it goes away. Say if the disc were slightly warped, and wanted to grab a tad wouldn't goosing the gas cause that tad bit of grab to be overcome allowing the fiction in the input shaft to slow it so the gear change can happen? So each gear has a synchro, is there something that would come into play with each gear change (bent fork?) that could be worn out/broken that would cause something like this, or have all my synchros been wearing evenly and it's just "that time". I would say that I use all the synchros pretty evenly as I live out in the sticks so if I'm going anywhere I'm in 5th gear. Also I don't know if this is important or not but I'll mention it. My wife drove the car a couple of days after the clutch job. I love her dearly but she has a... rough style of driving. She pretty much doesn't use the friction point at all she'll just dump the clutch while romping on the gas and the car jerks with each change. I think it sounds worse then it is, I have friends who drive the same way (as she does with our other car) and their clutches go for years. But since I'm grasping at straws here... Thanks!

So on the drive to work I paid very close attention and it seems that anytime I'm at a total stand still and the rpms have dropped all the way to idle, I can't get it in first without goosing the gas a hair, if the idle is up at all, like even just a few rpm it will slip into first with ease. Shifts will either be smooth or have a little chunk to them going into any gear be it 1st or 5th. hopefully I'll have a GL wagon soon to tool around in so I can take this off the road and figure out what's going on. Will-

Bratman and Frag - Yes, sorry I forgot to mention, I did go for a test drive after the adjustment with no change other then the engagement point being a bit lower in the stroke. Gbrand and 91loyale - I sure hope it's not the clutch fork. The fork splitting at the pivot is what caused me to rip into the clutch in the first place. I replaced the fork with a brand new one from the dealer and took the pivot with me to work and polised the abrasions out of it left by the split fork. I didn't get it back to perfect surface or anything, but I did make sure there weren't any sharp edges. The pedal motion is really smooth, better then any clutch I've ever had and I put a good amount of grease in the cup before putting back on so I can't imagine it has split again after a measly three thousand miles?? 91Loyale- Thanks for the lessons in trans failure. I've done some motorcycle gear boxes and played second wrench on a transfercase, but I'm pretty new to the world of the insides of transmissions. To address some of your points, the trans went back in very smoothly so I don't think the pilot bearing got messed up and it is quiet. I turned my own centering tool so I know the tip was concentric to the clutch centering portion. The clutch disc came out of it's box and onto the engine with no free-falls to earth. I can't say what it went through before I brought it home, but it didn't look damaged in any way. I also did not check it for run-out. I did check the input shaft for burrs and rust/corrosion. I didn't take a dental pick to the splines or anything, but I did clean it off and put a light coat of grease on the splines and tip. I did not grease the clutch disc too as I didn't want to get too much grease in there to get thrown where it shouldn't. I test drove the car again this morning doing several back and forth's in my driveway. It shifted perfectly each time except once. The one time it didn't want to go into first, I tried to put in reverse instead (think of 91loyale here) and it went in perfectly. I should mention that I've not had any problems with reverse, ie no grinding and usually no resistance though sometimes a bit (nothing out of the ordinary from other cars) I thought that because the idle is up that I was getting false results so I drove it around the 'hood until it was up to operating temp and the idle was down to normal. I got more rough shifts, but again it's like 1 out of 3 will be stiff with the others being perfect. So two things come to mind. First, I don't believe I've mentioned that to get it into gear when it doesn't want to go I goose the gas a tad which eases the way into first. second, I didn't check the dimensions of the pivot stud before and after polishing it up, nor can I now say with certainty that it had any kind of washer when I put it back on. Say I forgot the washer and the pivot was thus something like .05 further back then normal, could this mess with how far the fork pushes the TO bearing? It seems to me it wouldn't since any extra distance would be taken up in the adjustment of the cable, but maybe I'm missing something there? Thanks again!

I'd bribe the diesel engine through customs and shoe-horn it into a fully restored 70's wagon

OK, so I just checked the fork travel and freeplay. I had about 1.875- 1.250 of fork travel, no fork free play and no pedal freeplay. I adjusted for 1" of travel and about 1/8th of fork freeplay but the pedal has a spring keeping it up so I'm not sure how I'm supposed to measure the freeplay there. These are not encouraging results. Even though my values are not correct, they are off in the wrong direction for clutch disengagement issues right? By that I mean, if I had less then 1" of travel I would be experiencing the issues that I am experiencing. But having too much travel means over extending the PP or stretching the cable but nothing to do with shifting problems right? Guess I'll read up more on manual trans issues, maybe my trans is just tired. It did have bearing noise when I bought it at 120k, but it always shifted well right up until the clutch fork broke. I did have some tight shifting issues a few months back, but they went away with a fluid change so I didn't think much of it. All the silence I'm getting on this post is eerie, like everyone is reading this thinking, "that poor soul did x,y, and z and now his tranny is shot" but nobody wants to say anything. Or maybe they're just being silent out of respect for the dead Thanks again for your help! Will-