Fairtax4me

Head gaskets blown. Leakdown test is the best way to confirm it. But the boiling in the reservoir is the biggest giveaway.

Torx bolts? That hold the rear plate on the flywheel? That shouldnt come off, the whole thing is supposed to be replaced as a unit. If you buy a replacement flywheel that doesn't have the rear plate, you have to have the whole thing rebalanced after installing the old plate on the new flywheel. Its cheaper to just have the original flywheel resurfaced.

Normally the G sensor is under the center console next to/behind the brake handle. It can get stuff spilled on it if you have a large drink fall over in the console, and that's about the only way they ever go bad. Pull the console trim off and you should find it bolted down to the floor pan. Check the connector for corrosion.

What do you mean by "tweak the throttle"? Have you adjusted the throttle stop screw on the throttle body? That's a big no-no. If its a 95 are you running OBD1 or OBD2?

Ok, on the auto trans it is possible for the stub shaft to pull out of the trans. If it has done this you should be able to see that the inner axle joint on the affected side is pulled away from the transmission about 3/4" or maybe more. Usually you can swing the knuckle out an inch or so, then shove it back in toward the trans to basically hammer the stub back into place. Done right, it will pop back in and you can reassemble. If that doesn't work, you may need to remove the axle from the car, remove the stub shaft from the axle and pop the stub back in with a hammer like Lmdew said. If the stub hasn't pulled out, the inner axle joint may just be jammed slightly and is not sliding the way it's supposed to. If it's jammed, rotating the axle by hand while pushing inwards on it will usually get it to pop back into place.

Then probably just coincidence that it happened at the same time you were doing something in the car. Its possible that if someone replaced the clockspring before that it wasn't installed correctly. Poke under the steering column and find a black connector with either 3 or 4 wires. One white, one green with a red stripe, and one black with a white stripe. If it has a 4th wire will probably be a plain black. The green with red stripe is the 12v supply for the horn switch and the cruise button. There should be 12v present at that wire under the column. Remove the airbag center from the steering wheel and you'll find the same green-red wire. Check for 12v on that wire inside the wheel. If you have 12v under the wheel, but none inside it, that's shows that the ribbon cable inside the clockspring is bad. Check with online dealers for a good price on a new one. Used ones are often fine if you prefer to go that route. If you've never done any work involving airbags before, the airbag system needs to be disabled before removing the airbag from the wheel. Simply unhook the battery for about 10 minutes before doing the work. Depress the brake pedal and hold it for about a minute to fully discharge the capacitors in the airbag control module. Once the airbag is removed and placed aside, you can reconnect the battery to do the testing. Before reconnecting the airbag, you'll need to disconnect the battery just as before. The yellow connector for the airbag is tricky to disconnect. There is a yellow push tab and a green slider tab. Push the yellow tab down, slide the green tab over and hold it, then release the yellow tab and pull the connector apart.

Clockspring behind the steering wheel. You didn't jerk any wires under the steering column did you?

The biggest difference between an impreza in 95, and a legacy in 95 was the impreza was OBD1, and the legacy was OBD2. A while ago someone had posted a write-up for how to trigger sport mode shifting in 95 Legacy TCUs. Sport mode was a left-over from the 90-94 era legacy, that was done away with in 95. But the pin to activate it was still in the TCU, and was still the same pin as far as I remember. I would bet they're the same, as long as the connector is the same shape. You could try finding FSMs for both cars and check the pinouts for the TCU to make sure they're the same.

Not the shop, but the mechanic doing the work. The shop could be run by an ASE certified and Subaru trained master tech. That person will almost certainly know how to properly repair the head gaskets. But if he has the new shop apprentice replace the gaskets... Head gaskets on those tend to leak oil and/or coolant externally and very slowly. That's an entirely manageable situation. You can easily get another couple years out of it and then decide if its worth spending the money to have the head gaskets done when its time for the timing belt to be done at 105k. You're already at the time limit of ten years for the belt. You may consider just having that done now, and wait until the head gaskets become a more serious issue.

On a roof rack, go for it. Just make sure its not gonna rain that day!

You gonna strap it to the roof rack or just to the top of the car? If its on a roof rack and strapped down well it wont be a problem. I've driven further with more weight than that on a roof rack. But just strapping something to the top of the car would worry me.

So you have a manual trans Subaru, (or any other MT car for this matter) and your cruise control stopped working one day. And you found this funny white plastic wafer sitting on the floor? (Sometimes its blue) It's what the pedal position switch for the cruise pushes against when the pedal is up. Not something most people keep around, and you pretty much have to go to a dealer to get another one. Not quite. Reach in your goodie bin and find one of these "christmas tree" push-in trim clips. Pretty much anybody with some extra car parts laying around probably has one of these. If you don't have any, scavenge around in your trunk, bet youll find one holding the side trim on! Pop that bad boy into the hole in the pedal bracket, and enjoy your cruise again! I've done this a few times on my car and customers cars and these seem to hold up well enough. And if you have a handful of old ones around you can't beat the price!

Erase them. See if any come back.

Yup, I was kinda disappointed first time I did one like that. They did redesign the bearing adjuster cups though, so the axle seals are on the outside and much easier to change.

These pumps are hard to hear, and rarely fail. Pull the fuel line off of the filter under the hood and stick it in a bottle, see if any fuel squirts out when you turn the key On. I would also check the connector for the fuel pump on top of the sender unit before trying to get to the relay. If there is any corrosion there, its common for the terminals to burn and cause a bad connection.

What year is it? Auto or manual?

They pop out with a pry bar. On the older cars the axles have a pin that holds them to a stub shaft that sticks out of the trans. Knock the pin out and the axle cup slides off the stub. Around 05 they changed the axles and did away with the stub shaft. Now the axle has a 4" long spline shaft on the end that sticks into the trans. There isn't enough room to get the axles out of the trans without puling the front suspension apart.

When the cel comes on the ECM stores a code. Even if the light goes out the code is still stored for a certain time frame. Take the cat to an auto parts store and ask them to scan it for codes. There are also plenty of inexpensive code readers on the market you can buy so you can check the codes yourself anytime the light comes on. Post the code numbers here and we can help diagnose what's going on. It's an intermittent problem at this point, but it will only get worse. You should take certain steps now to try to determine what's actually going on, rather than waiting until its stuck in limp mode and you're 100 miles from home.

Get your buddy to prime it to his house. https://www.amazon.com/Lisle-58430-Shaft-Type-Puller/dp/B000FPYW4K

Your return line may be pinched or may be too small. Remove the fuel return line from the regulator, stick a longer section on and stick that section in a gas can. Run it with the stock supply line and see where you pressure is with vacuum applied and removed from the regulator. If the pressure is still high, try another regulator if you have a spare.

That's where I was heading. Good find. Cruise uses the brake lamp switch to disable the system if you press the pedal. A poor ground for a shared brake and parking lamp bulb can cause a backfeed that disables the cruise.

Year model and engine? Does it also happen of you turn on only the parking lights?

You should be able to access it from behind the plastic panel inside the cargo area. Don't know specifics for that on that year, but usually there's an access panel of some kind that pops off.

Not really any different than any other car. It's actually easier in many respects. The only difficult part really will be that you have to pull the front axles out, which means taking the front wheels off and separating the lower ball joint so you can pull the knuckle out. The rest is just like a RWD vehicle. Remove Bellhousing bolts, starter, upper dogbone mount, drop the exhaust, remove rear driveshaft, lower the trans out the bottom. I would recommend new axle seals, and a new tailshaft seal. Also you will need some exhaust gaskets, depending on where you decide to unbolt it.

Its a head gasket. Do a leakdown test to confirm. Combustion tests almost always come up negative on these.