Fairtax4me

It's grease or oil that is either dripping or being blown onto the heat shield on the cat. Exhuast doesn't just come out of a pipe. There has to be a hole. If there's a hole in the cat big enough for you to see visual smoke, it's going to be so loud you'll think you're in a race car. Plus it will be blowing a massive cloud out the tail pipe. You won't get a little bit of smoke out of a small hole, and then not get smoke out of the big hole at the end of the pipe.

As long as you used the notches, not the arrows, to time the cams you should be set.

You know I've never bothered to see if the exhaust pulls any. When you set the crank did you use the notch on the reluctor tooth for timing? Did you have the cam sprockets off? You made sure the one with the notches on the back is on the drivers side head right? The notches are for the cam position sensor.

I've decided since both heads have to come off I'm going to put a set of Delta cams in. Just can't decide if I want the torque grind or the street grind. It isn't too happy going up the hills around here so I'm thinking it could use a little extra bottom end power. Anybody know which is better suited for an automagic? I'd still like to know exactly which side is leaking so I'm going to try a few more things to see if I can figure it out, but I'm thinking I'll just do both sides anyway.

What he said^. Regardless f what happened to the old one, you need a new one. The sleeves align the head to the block and need to be there.

I hate stupid people. You should have got in the car chased him down and ran him over! Honestly if the roof is all that's messed up, I'd try to fix it. Expensive sure, but You worked in a body shop you have know at least one good body person who's willing to fix it on the side for you.

Compression readings 1: 196 psi 2: 177 3: 193 4: 180 The engine was mostly warm. It ran for about 5 minutes, and it was about 95°F outside temp this afternoon when I did the test. Temp needle was in the middle. Spark plugs 1,3,and 4 have normal greyish white deposits that you would expect from normal combustion. Deposits on number 4 were a bit "whiter" than the other two, possibly running a hair lean. Number 2 plug is fairly clean. Only a small amount of grey deposit on the ground electrode near the very tip, and the ceramic has some minor greyish coloring. The rest of the plug looks a little sooty but otherwise clean. Smoking gun?

I guess that depends on which replacement parts you buy. I've done a few hub assemblies on other cars and just had to knock the old out put the new in. But if the replacement doesn't include the actual hub, yeah I can see that needing a press.

Rear bearing assembly on 01 Legacy comes off with 4 bolts. It might need some persuasion to pop out of the trailing arm, but shouldn't require a press of any sort. The bolts come through the back of the trailing arm, the axle will probably need to be removed before you can get access to them.

Diff carrier bearings will sound like this: A whirling grumbling type sound. You replaced the front wheel bearings? What about the rears?

Might be a ripped axle boot. Passenger side inner boot is right next to the catalytic converter. When it splits it flings grease all over the cat, smokes like woah. A small hole might allow grease to fling out at higher speeds, but keep it contained at low speeds and in town driving.

Have you tried new plugs and wires? 2.5s tend to be kinda picky about those, NGK plugs and OE or NGK wires are recommended by many here.

That's what the wood block is for!

I don't know yet. I need to pull the plugs to see which one isn't firing. NGK plugs and wires are brand new and helped with a damp weather issue, but not this one. This popped up shortly after the timing belt fiasco. Also have a couple of lifters making noise lately on the passenger head, the one I replaced the valve in. I never did do a compression check after replacing the valve. So I guess I'll do that this weekend when I have the plugs out. It runs great after the stumble clears up, no other symptoms besides rough running for a few seconds after starting. I noticed at the beginning of the week the fans seemed to be cycling a bit more than usual even though it was cooler outside than it had been last week. That's when I found out the coolant was low. Thanks for the link about the injectors.

Yeah, I have a love-hate relationship with this thing. It loves making me hate it. Gonna herniate my foot up it's tail-pipe.

Same as for a flywheel. From the 99 FSM 72±3 N-M 7.3±0.3, kg-M 52.8±2.2 ft lbs

Might just be the switch. Not sure where the relay is, might try digging though the FSM here: http://www.main.experiencetherave.com/subaru_manual_scans/ to see what you can find out.

No dice with the "new" injectors in. Still runs rough, smokes a bit at startup. ~98° today and it was blowing steam on startup. Guess the disappearing coolant wasn't just a fluke. I think I'm dealing with... The "H-word". Shh!!! The wagon strikes again!

Yes that's about right. What you have is a rear axle that is trying to spin slower than the front axle. Larger tire circumference means fewer revolutions per mile. Your front tire size is turning about 835 revolutions per mile, the rears only about 810. Now at 15 mph that's not that much of a difference, but when you're moving a mile a minute (60mph) that's an extra 25 revolutions the front wheels are making. The two ends meet at the center transfer unit in the transmission. This causes the clutches in the unit to slip past each other. The ECU detects the difference in speed between front and rear axles and determines the front is slipping so it tells the TCU to lock down the clutches in the transfer unit. Now your front and rear axles are essentially locked together, and you have a tug of war between front and rear. You end up with a major case of torque bind, causing the wheels to skip and drag along if they can. The transfer unit will usually slip if the wheels can't which burns the clutches and wears out the unit. As the clutches slip you have a transition between binding and slipping which relieves the stress in the drivetrain temporarily. The clutches grab again, loads the drivetrain, and the process repeats over and over. You'll feel it as a shimmy, shake, shudder, lurching around. It's your wheels basically wobbling fore and aft in opposite directions under the car. When you put the fuse in the FWD holder, the AWD system is disabled, so the transfer clutches don't lock down. The rear axle just free-wheels and doesn't put any power to the road, so no more binding.

Poor gas mileage, rough cold idle, loss of power, O2 sensor code even though it has been replaced, have you checked the fuel pressure regulator? Check the vacuum line that goes to it for gas. Do you have or have access to a fuel pressure gauge? Have a spare regulator you can swap in?

Doesn't sound like a valve problem to me. Looks to me like it's only running on 2 cylinders. Which could be fuel related, bad coil, igniter module maybe. The O2 sensor does not make a reading until warmed up to about 550-600°F. Cold start issues are almost never O2 sensor related. Exactly what codes are you getting? Any misfire codes? Other than the stumble on the highway, how does it run when warm?

I guess you've tried it then? I didn't bother to even check if you could when I had mine apart. Funny story though I helpd my buddy get a transmission for a Chevy truck out of the junkyard. Got the sucker off and the clutch was brand spanking shiny new. Pulled it off and found out the disc had been put on backwards. The heads of the flywheel bolts were worn shiny and the springs in the hub were worn shiny where they had been rubbing together. I can only imagine the noise it must have been making. Probably didn't want to shift into gear too well either.

Yeah I should have said "big hammer". The ones I've done usually pop off with one hit from the 3lb mini sledge.

Yeah that's normal. After all of the bolts are backed off the first time, you will feel some drag on them when starting to turn them back the second time.

One of my neighbors bought a Highlander because of the "4WD". They got stuck on our hill in the snow. I drove around them in my sedan after trying for about a half hour to dig through the hard packed snow on the road to help them get through to the pavement so they could get some traction. They gave up and just went back home.