Fairtax4me

The correct fog lamp for your car depends on which bumper you have. If you have the large cut-outs for the round lights you have more options. The smaller rectangular lights are harder to find. Few aftermarket lamps work as well as the factory lamps. Avoid "Driving" and "Off-road" lamps if you really need them for fog. Dedicated "Fog" lamps have a different beam that doesn't reflect off of the fog. The fog lamp beam is intended to be aimed low across the road so it has a better chance at being under the fog and is less likely to reflect the light back towards you, which will decrease your vision.

The level guages never work right. The only way I aim headlamps is drive out to a big flat parking lot at night and park 100 feet from a wall or curb. I aim the low beam lamps so the top edge of the beam just meets the curb or the bottom of the wall. I aim the lamps left/right based on how far they appear to be off center. Low beams should be pointed just a hair to the right to keep the beam away from oncoming vehicles. With single bulb headlamps the high beam will point straight ahead when the low beam is pointed slightly to the right. Try to keep the beams roughly the same distance apart. Aiming the beams at the same point will cause them to cross and will decrease visibility. After initial adjustments I go for a drive on varying roads and make fine adjustments. Slightly up or down and slightly left or right depending on how the beam falls on lane markings and how far out I can see the beam cut-off. If you can see the beam cut-off, adjust up slightly, just until you can't see the cut-off anymore. Then adjust back down 1/4 turn of the adjuster. If you can't see the beam cut-off adjust down until you can see it. Then follow the step above. Adjust the high beams slightly until they point straight ahead. When the high beams are straight ahead the low beam will be properly adjusted just slightly right. This step can take 3-4 stops driving around and making small adjustments each time. The projector type fog lights work the best. Try to find a factory wiring kit to make installation easy. Occasionally a factory fog light kit comes up on eBay for a decent price. If there are any u-pull type junkyards nearby you might get lucky and find the fog lights and the wiring all in one shot.

Froth/foam is a definite sign. Might as well just do them at this point. 2.2s are easy, but if you have the heads machined you'll want to disassemble them (takes 10 minutes per side) so they can be properly cleaned of metal shavings after machining. I don't know of a specific write-up. You have a good list there with the addition by John; be sure to unbolt the exhaust y-pipe. John has links to good timing belt write-ups in his signature. Read up on those and make sure you know the proper marks to line up.

I had the same problem on my old wagon. Waxing the rear window helps with the skipping. I had a problem with the center of the blade not making contact and tried bending the wiper arm. That helped a little so I figured the spring in the arm was worn out, but I never replaced the arm to find out if that was really the case.

Is this the one with only like 50k miles? How much did you pay for it?

There are a few large connectors back in there that power comes through from the fuse box. Power for the fuel pump relay and main relay come through there. Perhaps one of those has corroded and has burned the connector inside and shorted some pins. Those are very difficult to get to with the harness in the car.

Magic smoke doesn't escape without something getting fried. Can you narrow it down to an approximate area? Behind the cluster? Behind the glove box? Left side of the wheel right side of the wheel?

Nothing. It's just a splined shaft. Is there any play up down or side to side? Might just need to pull harder.

These don't typically mix coolant and oil. Black crud in the overflow bottle is usually rubber from failing coolant hoses. There are some stop leak products that have a dark oily appearance as well. Possible someone poured a bottle in attempting to cure a problem before you bought the car. Do a leakdown test to confirm a bad head gasket. A breach in the combustion ring will be very evident.

Idle will be high for the first few minutes after starting. When its cold out it will idle higher until the engine is warm. The main reason is emissions control. A cold engine needs more fuel to stay running. The sooner the engine reaches operating temp the sooner it can run on a lean fuel mixture which reduces emissions during warm-up. This is partly why you see a fuel economy drop in winter. The engine uses more fuel during that warm-up period.

You swapped the whole dash harness and didn't look for the part that was burned up? That was the perfect time to fix it because you could easily see what is damaged.

It should just slide out. I suppose the previous owner could have RTV or glued it on. The carrier bearing on the driveshaft holds the front section in place when the rear section is removed.

If you think its the front, it's probably the right front. These bearings have atypical failure symptoms. Often what sounds like a left side is actually the right. Any deformation of the hub wil not be visible to the eye. "Looks fine" doesn't mean it is fine. But more than likely the left side isn't the problem.

Getting into an area with much more complicated electronics on that one. The ECU has to keep track of gears because of the electronic throttle body and the VVT system. I don't see any easy way to make a swap work because of the complexity of the relationship between TCU and ECU on the newer cars. They also started using the CAN network stuff which further complicates thins. If you had a whole donor car, you could probably make it work but I think it would involve swapping the whole wiring harness. Including the dash harness.

Aftermarket oil pans tend to be thinner metal and have cheaper paint. If you live in an area where rust is a problem you may end up replacing it again soon. My only experiences with aftermarket pans are for Ford and GM V8s and V6s, and they re always poor quality and suffer from frequent leaks. Subaru pans are easier to get a good seal since the seal flange is totally flat, so you shouldnt have issues with that as long as you use good RTV.

All weather mats from the dealer aren't all that expensive and fit better than the weathertech mats. Coverking.com makes custom seat covers for many different cars. They are a bit pricey, but have probably the best fit and quality you can find.

Coolant level is good? Thermostat would be next on my list. Subaru OE or an OE equivalent type only. The cheapo stats don't work right.

Already answered that question a few posts up. You need to fix the code first, or the monitors can not run.

Goes away when turning sounds like a wheel bearing. Could be either front or rear. Have you checked all 4 wheels for play?

Which monitor and which code? The monitor is basically the diagnostic check for a particular emissions system. The ECU runs down a checklist of conditions that must be met before each monitor can run. In the case of the Catalyst, evap, and EGR monitors, the O2 sensors must be in working order before the monitors can run. Once the monitor begins there is another checklist of items that must be met. If the monitor fails due to incorrect readings, the ECU will set a code for the sensor or system that failed, and that monitor will remain in a "not ready" status. The monitor will try to run again after the CEL is turned off either by ignition cycle or by scanner or battery reset. Some are easy to run; the misfire monitor for example. Takes maybe 30 seconds. No misfires happen the monitor sets "ready" and stays ready. It runs again over and over and over, and stays ready as long as there are no misfires detected. That's basically the only condition for the misfire monitor. Evap monitor is much more complicated. The engine has to be at a certain temperature, the car has to be moving at a certain speed, the throttle angle can't change more than a certain amount for a certain amount of time. The fuel tank has to be between 1/4 and 3/4 full. There are about a half dozen valves and sensors associated wih the evap system that have to work properly. The ECU looks for a pressure rise in the fuel tank, it looks for a signal change from the O2 sensors when the purge solenoid is commanded open, and the pressure in the tank has to fall a certain amount in X amount of time to confirm the system is working properly and there are no leaks. If anything goes wrong in the checklist of the dozens of things that need to happen for that monitor to run, it sets "not ready", and it will set a code for whatever part it thinks has failed based on several criteria. Because of the difficulty in achieving all of the criteria to even run the Evap monitor in the first place, it is almost always the last to set "Ready".

Broken belt will almost certainly result in bent valves on that engine, and you will have a much faster cranking speed with low or no compression on multiple cylinders. Don't doubt the torque of your starter. By far it has the advantage in that fight. Bending valves won't even slow it down.

The purge control solenoid is under the intake manifold. The two at the back that you're seeing I'm not sure of the names, but one of them could be the vent valve. The solenoids are not typical causes for this code. If you can see that the vent line is rusted, that's probably the cause.

None of those monitors will run until you fix the O2sensor heater code. The ECU has to use inputs from the O2 sensor in order to run all 4 of those monitors. Right now it knows there is a problem with the O2 sensor, so it can not trust the readings it is getting from the sensor, thus it will not run those monitors.

This is ONLY applicable to 1995 and 1996 model years.

Next time you hear it open the gas cap and see if it goes away.