mikec03

I currently have two 90's subarus with the 2.2 engine and I junked another one. Rear cross-member has rot and needs replaced before road worthy. I could probably weld in patches and reinforce for next to nothing, I also had this problem and it looks like the crossmember can come out rather easily, and I was going to replace it, but a mechanic showed me where the frame was also corroded where the crossmember bolted into it. So check that. I junked this 95' instead of dealing with the frame corrosion. The 95 has hydraulic valve lifters so there is no adjustment required. The sound that you probably is piston slap. Very common. If it goes away on running, then it's definately piston slap. If so, it's not a problem. Ozing of oil out of the rear differential is definately a problem [if that is what you are seeing It's hard to tell from your description]. It's hard to get the bolts out of the rear differential. Search this site for the best proceedure which uses the weight of the car to break loose the bolt.

Chuchi: For your information, Subaru used 3 different head gaskets on the 2.5 sohc engine from 00 to 09. The last one, 11044aa633, commonly referred to as the 633 gasket, is now the standard replacement HG for all those years. It is a single metal sheet with a black coating on both sides. You can look at it you local Subaru dealership, since they have in in stock at all times and use a lot of them. The replacement gaskets referred to by grossgary and myself are both MLS, as is the Felpro HG. They are all three metal sheets with black coatings on the outside surfaces. Are they better then the 633 gasket? A lot of people think so. We will all know for sure in 5-10 years. Welcome to the failed HG club.

On my 02, I replaced the HG last year with the Six Star from AWD. I was at 90K with a oil leak. No problem with the Six Star gasket yet but I only have 6K miles on it. Can you advise how many miles were on the belt when it snapped? My impression is that the idlers will fail before the belt. Just curious.

As all on the forums will tell you, replace the pulleys, the tensioner, the water pump, and the thermastat as well as the timing belt. Maybe someone on this site will recommend someone in your area. Otherwise, use the google search function, angies list, whatever to find an independent place that does subaru work. It's not hard to do a timing belt replacement, heck even I have done two, so even a non subaru shop can do it assuming that they read the manual. Maybe that's assuming too much however. You are overdue basis milage and age so do it right away. It only takes a shop a couple of hours.

First, read the manual. The "front end reseal" is actually the Subaru recommended timing belt replacement based on the age, not milage Is it really required based on age? Probably, but you can do it yourself next spring. Be aware that this is an interference engine and any failure of the timing belt, pulleys, or water pump will cause a complete catastrophic failure, but its a very small risk for 6 months. The front end oil leak at the timing belt cover is probably just a cam seal leaking. You replace the cam seals when you do the timing belt. You should monitor the oil and coolent leaking. It may be that you can wait a couple of years before replacing the head gasket. On my 02, I waited a year after I first saw the head gasket leaking oil, and I could have waited a couple of more years before it really started to pour out. If it's less then a qt/1000 miles of oil and/or 8 oz of coolent/1000 mi, live with it.

You might save the rear wheel panel area by cutting it out. Get a dramil. You have to cut out the metal to where it's not rusted. It looks like an area 18" and 12". The you do the fiberglass [or welded sheet], bondo, precoat, final coat matching color and lacquor. Will it look good? Well, not great but better then rust. Your other alternative is to let it rust. The rocker panel is really bad. I have no idea what you do there since its a structual part.

I can't help you with top mounts, but when I took off the mounting bolts on my 95, some of the nuts took enormous torque to remove. The threads didn't look good on two of them and the bolts wouldn't easily turn on them. But I had a few bolts from the you-pull-it place so I replaced them.

Just tell them that it is obd2 complient. I have a '95, and it's obd2 complient too. It only takes them a few sec to read it, but you may have to point out where the socket for it is [hint, above the drivers left knee].

UPDATE Removing the top bolt from the stabilizer link allowed the removal of the rear strut, although there is barely enough clearance. Jacking up both back wheels probably works too, but it it didn't look like there would be enough clearance so I took out the bolt. It's easy, but you just have to remember to set the car down on the tires before putting the stabilizer bolts back in.

It could be the starter. The starter on 90's subarus have a tendency to fail. When this happened to me, I just went to the junk yard and got a replacemnt. The relay is part of the starter. Another problem with the 90's subarus is that the control voltage to the starter can become too low. This also happened to me. You can check this by bringing current directly from the battery to the control plug, although you would have to go to the hardware to get a female connector.

I'm not making myself clear. I actually have no problem getting the bolts out. I should have said that. But the top of rear strut is in a tower like enclosure and doesn't have enough play. The wheel would have to drop 5" more to allow the bottom of the strut to come out towards the outside of the car.

Fairtax4me: Can't I just jack the other side up too? I would rather do that then fuss with the link bolt.

I just tried to remove the rear strut on a 95 subaru but there wasn't enough room to get it out. I only jacked up one wheel. I now notice on a DIY an implication that I need to jack up both back wheels so the sway bar will allow the wheel to drop low enough. Is that right?

UPDATE Problem solved. I finally got to advanced Auto to read the code. The code was MAF failure [P0100]. So I went to u-pull-it and got a replacement MAF [$25]. Since then I have driven 70 miles without a problem so I'm relatively sure that the problem is solved. Credit where credit is due: Ivans suggestion that the frame ground at the battery should be checked was a good one. The ground didn't look good at all. It might have been part of the problem. Heartless suggestion to look at the General Diagnostics Table was a good one. The table only has 6 reasons why a car would stall, one of which is a MAF failure. Finally, under lessons learned, it is always dangerous to take the car to a shop if you arn't relatively sure of the problem. The shop's diagnosis is often wrong especially when there is no code and, not only is the fix expensive, it leads one down the wrong path to correct the problem. This is the second time I got fooled by a shop diagnosis. What I should have done, is flatbed the car to my home and worked on it for a few days to figure out the problem even though the tow cost would have been $250.

Car stalled again. This time it only went 1 mile. I have no other choice but to guess and I'm only using u-pull-it parts. Grosegary: The diagnosis of a fuel problem was made by a shop 75 mi from home. I felt like I had no choice but to try it. It's apparent that the shop didn't consider/rule out a simultaneous electrical failure. So they saw the fuel pressure drop and concluded it to be a fuel pressure problem without considering that the voltage to the pump was cut off. But, since the pump, filter, and relay are new, and I can see the voltage to the pump is OK in real time, then I now conclude that there is and was no fuel problem. I spent $500 for nothing. Actually it's worse the nothing, it was for inferior parts. So, on the electrical, I've replaced the igniter, coil, wires and plugs. It still stalls. Most of the time there has been no codes. However, after the shop replaced the fuel pump, the car almost immediately showed a MAF failure code after we drove off. I figured that the shop had forgot to plug in in the MAF and the code reflected that. The car ran fine for 30 miles. But maybe that was sign. I can't get to Advanced Auto to read the current code! I was just on the way there when it stalled. I'm going to follow up on Ivan's suggestion on the connections and grounds especially under the fuse/relay box. I may get another MAF and plug it in [for $10]. If it can get to run for 2 miles, I'll have the code read. Thanks for the ideas. This is an odd problem.

It just stalled again! At least the interval between stalling are getting shorter. I only drove it 10 miles since the last stall. This time I was ready and set up a voltage indicator on the wire to the fuel pump. I could clearly see that the engine was starting to miss before the voltage to the pump droped to zero! They are close to simultanious so it's easy to make a mistake. This is the mistake the shop made, I think. So first I changed the coil, no improvement, still stalling. Then I changed the igniter, and the car started to run OK. At least I could drive it back 3 miles to my home! This time it did set a check engine light but I'm too afraid to get on the highway to get to a place to check it. I will update later.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will definitely be prepared to do more diagnostic tests when/if it stalls again. I did change the fuel pump relay. It was, by the way, was very difficult to reach. In one case, the car stalled about 30 min after starting. It had run OK for 100 mi over 7 days. It stalled at 70 mph. Another time, it stalled about 5 min after starting. It had run OK for a couple of days. It stalled at 45 mph. Since I swapped the alternator and since there is no dashborard electrical indication before stalling, it would seem unlikely that it is an alternator issue. It doesn't set a check engine light. I forgot to mention, that the fuel filter was changed at the same time as the fuel pump. It's a difficult problem. I keep making changes after it stalls and I've been fooled into thinking that the change solved the problem. I will certainly update in a weeks time or sooner if it stalls.

UPDATE The car is still stalling and I'm $500 poorer. To reiterate, the car is stalling randomly about every 2 weeks. The car runs OK for a number of days, but then after starting and running for 5-20 min it loses power and then eventially stalls completely. Contrary to what I first reported the battery is OK. No doubt the original alternator was OK too. Apparently, after sitting for a while, the car will run normally, again for a number of days. This fooled me thinking that I solved the problem when I replaced the alternator. When the car was 75 mi away from home last week, it stalled again. The battery still had 12.6 volt on it. Diagnosis by a shop said it was a failing fuel pump. This wasn't a really bad diagnosis, but the car stalled again yesterday after they replaced the fuel pump. This time I had it flat bedded back to my house. I think the shop was half right, but the problem is the electrical to the fuel pump, not the fuel pump. Now that it has sat overnight in my driveway, it runs fine. I looked at the wiring to the fuel pump. It looks OK, including the plug under the back seat. I'm thinking the problem might be the pump relay, which I have located. The only other possibilities is the wiring from the relay to the pump or the plug at the pump. I have to have to start guessing and replacing parts. Any other ideas?

I'm sorry to say that I didn't clean the battery terminals. The battery was dead after I limped into a parking lot. When I swapped the alternator, and then jumped the battery for 30 sec, the car started and ran fine for a week. I thought Problem Solved! Obviously, I didn't need to swap the alternator. Maybe something I did when I swapped it temporately fixed the problem or maybe it just randomly fixed itself when the engine cooled down? Strange. Unfortunately, the car is now 70 miles away and I have a logistic problem getting it back here to work on. I suppose that the alternaor needs to ground itself though the bolt that it pivits on and that might be the answer. Why does the power wire from the alternator to the battery go through the fuse box? Is there a fuse on it?

I guess I have to remove bundle cover on the wiring connecting to the alternator and inspect the wiring. It could be a brittle connection. I gather form searching that there is no independent voltage regulator. But does the wire from the altenator go directly to the battery? It doesn't look like it but that could be the way the wires are bundled.

I have a 95 subaru 2.2. Three times in the last month, the car has died while running at 30-60 mph. It happens relatively fast but I can baby it for a mile or so at low speeds. At this point, the battery is dead. The last time, I pulled the alternator and had it tested by Advanced Auto and Napa. Advanced auto said it was bad and Napa said it was good. Go figure. Hopeing that AA was right, I swapped alternators from a U-pull-it. After swapping the alternator, I jumped it, it started fine, and it ran OK for a week. But the problem has reaccured. I'm thinking that there must be a intermittent short either between the alternator and battery or on the discharge of the battery. Is there a regulator between the alternator and the battery that could be a problem? Any ideas?

+1 to imdew. Check the easy stuff first. I don't get the comment that it looks like the "camshft sprockets" [aka pulleys] look like they are OK. There's great instructions and DIY's on timing belts. The camshaft and crankshaft pulleys are either spot on or they are not! Congratulation on getting the crankshaft pulley and timing belt covers off, but now you should be able to see clearly if the timing it f..ked up or not. No idea what the loose bolt is! Damage to the timing belt cover is no concern, at least compared to your other problems. Some people even run their subarus without the covers.

There's no need to PM the head gasket. When it starts to leak, it will be slow and you will have plenty of time to fix it. It will start to spot your driveway. This would be a good time, however, to develop a relationship to a non dealership subaru expert. Other things that will need fixing. I've lost a few starters and alternators after 150K and you could PM them because these these failures will stop you. Another common failure is the 6 boots on the front axils and steering. Keep checking them and replace immediately after tearing. The muffler/resonator flanges will corrode out eventially. Just keep checking them and find an independent muffler place that will weld them solid or weld on new flanges. One more thing. Drain and refill your transmission every 30K in order to prevent failure of the transfer clutch [torque bind]. If you haven't done it at all, do three drain and fills now.

UPDATE FINAL well, the problem is solved, sort of. The squeak was apparently occuring because the harmonic balancer [ak crank pulley] wasn't doing it's job. The rubber ring in the pulley was failing so that the pulley was acting as a solid pulley. Hence the squeak on start up. It finally failed completely. At 65 mph, all of a sudden, the power steering and alternator failed when the outer ring of the pulley completely detached from the inter ring. The car stopped relatively quickly. So I went to the junk yard and got a used crank pulley. It works fine now and there is no squeak on start up.

You might find this DIY interesting. This shows a trans where the transfer hub is broken off. This is probably an example of what happens when you drive a subaru with a defective duty C solinoid and torque bind. http://www.subaruoutback.org/forums/99-do-yourself-illustrated-guides/27878-4eat-tail-section-rebuild-without-removing-transmission.html