Fairtax4me

That opens several other possibilities. How long after the replacement of the driveshaft did this vibration begin?

You'd think it even more amazing if you actually saw the truck!

SBC 350. Somehow the guy forced a starter into place and it was dragging the flexplate. Said it still started and ran just fine (somehow) the noise started about 2 days after the starter replacement. I stumbled onto this while changing the transmission that died about a month later. Somehow it lasted that long without exploding. I couldn't believe how bad it was shaking.

A broken flex plate will tend to pop or knock when the engine is under load, such as when put into gear. It can cause vibration as well, typically at low- mid range rpm, and it can prevent the engine from reaching higher rpms due to imbalance. A broken flexplate will have no correlation to wheel speed. I would guess a worn/broken trans mount or possibly bad axle. Is the axle aftermarket? Front Wheel Drive fuse keep the trans in FWD only while a fuse is in the holder. It's on the passenger strut tower. Small black holder with a flip cap might say FWD on top if it hasn't faded off. What's the reason for having the brand new driveshaft? Obviously the old one failed in some way.

I wanna say that one from a Legacy will be the right length. The D/R 5 speed trans is something like 2" shorter from what I've read. A legacy driveshaft is longer than the Imprezas, so it may work.

I'm just gonna ride the tire for now. Shakes a little but not too bad really until I get to about 70. I hardly drive this car that fast anyway. Usually I prefer to 55 it on the back roads getting 30+ mpg rather than ~27 on the interstate. Had to take it back to the alignment shop today because it was still pulling to the left some after they worked on it. They rechecked and readjusted it free of charge now it goes about as straight as it can. Still wanders a bit which it did before I did anything to it so it's just like it's ol' seff agin, only about 4" taller. And the guys at the alignment shop got a kick out of seeing a Subaru with a lift kit.

Rod through the block? Classic story for the DOHC 2.5. Happens all too often with that engine so don't blame your son for it. Replace it with a 2.2 and enjoy driving the car to 350k miles. Get one out of a 1995 Legacy and it's a straight drop in.

Didn;t see any mention of replacing the timing belt in the OPs question, so I assume he just wants to replace AC and Alt/PS belts. Take off the belt guards and toss them in the trash. (or don't if you really want to keep them) The pivot bolt for the alternator holds the belt guard on that side so it has to be loosened then the guard has a slip section that allows it to simply slide out of the way without removing the pivot bolt. Loosen the lock bolt on the adjuster and spin the adjuster out about 1.5" - 2". to allow the belt to slip off the alt pulley. The AC belt tensioner has a lock nut that is blocked by the cooling fan assembly, you need a 12mm 0 offset box end to loosen it. Or remove the fan by removing the coolant reservoir (two bolts then lift straight up) and the 4 bolts that hold the fan to the radiator (one top, two right side when viewed from above, one bottom) unplug the harness in the lower right corner, then lift straight out.

John nailed it. You can replace the broken sprocket and any questionable idlers, hang a new belt and just see what it does, but there's a good chance it has bent valves. If the engine has been leaking oil or coolant from the head gaskets (common to leak externally on those) then this is as good a time as any to pull the heads and have them milled and put new gaskets in. Depending on how mechanically savvy you are, you could pull the engine and do the work yourself and only spend $500 - 800 on parts and machine work. Getting a shop to do it will be a couple $$$$. Olnick (i think) is from HI, he might know of a good shop to take it to.

Because of the placement of the thermostat on these, coolant from the radiator doesn't actually go into the engine when it's poured in. The radiator fills but the engine is still empty. Remove the upper radiator hose and fill the engine with coolant first, quickly replace the hose then fill the radiator with the bleeder screw open. Close bleeder, Start the engine, top off as necessary while running once the thermostat opens. Cap radiator turn off engine and allow to cool. Heater on or off has no effect on these systems because coolant is constantly flowing through the core.

I think you just entirely missed the point of what everyone said. An AWD EJ trans with a viscous limited slip center diff delivers power evenly to all 4 wheels, if one front wheel starts to slip the center diff still delivers power to the rear wheels, so at least one rear wheel will have power. You don't need to switch between 2wd and 4wd to drive it on road. With the AWD trans, it's always driving all 4 wheels, but the center diff allows enough slip for it to be driven safely on dry pavement. Bottom line with AWD is at least 2 wheels will have some amount of power going to them all the time. Any 4wd transmission is going to be Fwd until you put it in 4wd. When it's in Fwd if one wheel slips you lose all your traction through that wheel. 4wd transmission with center lock diff will be undriveable on dry pavement, you will have to shift back into 2wd, at which point you only get traction on one wheel. Even with the center diff locked, you still only have power to two wheels, this will do you no better in the rain than an awd trans, but you still have to shift between 2wd and 4wd. 4wd transmission with an open center diff, you might as well have 2wd. If one wheels slips you're just SOL, because all the power will escape through that one spinning wheel.

Honestly, that sounds like a typical symptom of a failed head gasket on these. Radiator cap new? OE Subaru thermostat new? When you're filling the coolant, do you open the bleeder valve on the passenger side top of the radiator? It's just a plastic screw with a + on it. What I do is remove the upper hose from the radiator, fill the engine with coolant first, reattach the hose and then fill the radiator. Fill until it comes out of the bleed valve, close that then start the engine and let it warm up. Top off coolant as it gets low until the thermostat opens. Put the radiator cap on, fill the reservoir a little above the MAX line. Shut the engine off just after it reaches normal operating temp. Let it cool, top off the coolant before starting. I do that every time, practically every car I've ever drained the coolant from, and have never had trouble with overheating after. If that method doesn't stop the overheating you have bigger problems, such as a bad head gasket. Leakdown test or a block test (combustion gas test of the coolant) can confirm bad HG.

It might even be the cause. It could be plugged up or something.

Check the PCV valve. Bet it's plugged.

It's called the Pressure Sources Switching Solenoid. It opens and closes a vale that allows either engine intake vacuum or outside barometric pressure to be read by the MAP.

I have several. I could sell you one for a whole lot less than Checkers. These don't fail often. just grab one from a junkyard. You might also try unplugging the sensor and make sure the pins are clean. Also check the wiring make sure it's not split/frayed/ corroded anywhere.

Interesting to see one of those bearings go bad. That's supposed to be the tough one. Not sure why that 5th drive gear shredded and the driven gear seemed to survive relatively untouched. Hard to say, but I would have to guess some piece of that bearing got wedged between it and the case and knocked all the teeth off in one fell swoop.

Pacemark Snowtrakker. I think they sold them under the Kelly SnowTrakker name as well. http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_09585823000P I see them on CL pretty often actually, just have to get lucky enough to find some in the same size. Sears carries them, and appears the 205/70/15 size I would need is about $100 per. There are quite a few used tire places on the other side of the mountain (30 minute drive) that I think I'm likely to find something at. Otherwise i Might be shopping CL for a while looking for a pair this size.

I need to get out and do some more photography. Haven't done anything really creative in the last 6 months or so. Here's a few more pics of the LS. I know some people like to play with photoshop and camera settings to get certain effects, but i'll move the car around and try to use natural lighting for the most part to get the reflections and lighting effects that I want without playing around with camera settings too much. http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r236/CadiLLacPimPin97/clean%20LS%20pics/3220910.jpg http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r236/CadiLLacPimPin97/clean%20LS%20pics/hiding2.jpg http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r236/CadiLLacPimPin97/clean%20LS%20pics/freshwax2.jpg http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r236/CadiLLacPimPin97/clean%20LS%20pics/lensbg.jpg And the large version of the sunset pic. http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r236/CadiLLacPimPin97/clean%20LS%20pics/Untitled-8-1.jpg Found out my wobble and shake at 70 is probably a broken belt in one of the tires. Close inspection shows the tread depth in one section of the tire is much lower than the rest. It was either driven while WAY out of balance for a long time or a belt popped loose and it was driven on for a long time and wore the tread out in that area. Hoping I can find a used one to match, although the tread depth is close to new spec, so if worst comes to worst I think I can buy 2 new ones, mount them, ditch the cruddy one and keep the oddball used one as a spare. Don't really want to spend the money on that though.

Man that 5th drive gear is polished smooth! Someobody was tryin hard to keep it goin on the highway. I'd have to save that one. I don't even know how the bearings fell out of the rear pinion shaft roller. That one sets pinion depth, so if it fell apart the differential would soon follow because the pinion gear would be walking back and forth. You sure they didn't come from the front mainshaft bearing, or one of the center diff bearings?

You must know a few things about the 3 series to pick out that one as an M. It's an 86 325 ES which, as I understand it, was the first year 3 to have an M package. A couple badges here and there are the only differences that I'm aware of. Belongs to a friend of mine. He got it from an old professor of his for free a few years ago. Drove it for a year or so, gave it to his sister who drove it for a year or so until it would no longer pass VA safety inspection. Now decided to fix it some and try to sell it. Its a sweet car. If I had the money to put into it I would buy it, but I would have no room to park it at the moment. The LS was mine for ~4 years and I sold it last summer. Making payments on that thing was killing me. Sold it to Carmax to get out from under the loan. Loved that car though. Took a few great pictures of that car against a few back/foregrounds that I use for desktop wallpapers every now and then. Small version of this one:

97 and later Legacy Outback (have to make that distinction, Impreza has an Outback trim as well, which is an entirely different car) always had the 2.5. Because it's a wagon, does not mean it's an Outback. There were several wagon trim levels for the Legacy; Base, L, LS, LSi, GT, and Outback. A Legacy L, LS, or Base model, would have the 2.2. A GT or LSi would have the 2.5. Outback would have the 2.5. (MY 96 was the only exception to this where the Outback w/MT came with a 2.2.) However, by this point in time, enough of those 2.5s have put rods through themselves, and people quite often replace them with the more reliable 2.2. From the factory, the 98 Outback had a 2.5, but if the seller says it has a 2.2, it's either a swap OR it's not an Outback.

Lets fix that... The way the crank works, you wanna fire 1&2 at the same time, 3&4 at the same time, with a big pause in between fires for the engine to exhaust/intake. Gonna sound like a big lawn mower. (as if Sube engines didn't already) This can easily be done with the stock wasted spark coil pack. Cams are the basically the same, IIRC, except for the snout on the passenger cam sticks out of the end of the head, so you can just flip the drivers side cam to make it open/close valves together rather than in the normal sequence. Turn it 180. 360 degrees, (thats 1 whole turn) just puts it right back where it was in the first place. Prollem is, I think you'd end up with BANG BANG nothing nothing, when what you need is BANG nothing BANG nothing. Custom cams are gonna be a definite yes. Talk to Delta? Need someone who has the know how to either modify the existing cams, or design a custom set. Ignition timing is done by the crank, injector timing is driven off the drivers cam sprocket. Some creative placement of weld beads on the back of the sprocket could possibly be used to trick the ECU into spraying when you need it to. I think this could be set up with a decent EM system. Just set it up to run a 2 cylinder engine, but use the "spray 2 injectors at the same time" idea.

An old joke about tires just popped into my head. :-P I won't post it. Tires that size when out of balance will tend to start wobbling around that speed and after about 50 will go away until you get to about 80, then it will come back. U joints also act kinda like that. Wheel bearing sounds kinda likely too. Does it change any if you wheel it hard around a curve?

Nothing, there's three! :-p Agree with Ivan that a 2.5 maybe isn't the best choice for an airplane engine. Do you have any way to hook up a diagnostic scanner to this setup? Have you checked all of the vacuum hoses and breather hoses? I'm not sure how much of the factory setup you carried over, but it seems like most of it should still be there in order for the crankcase to vent properly.