WoodsWagon

I wouldn't replace the tank unless it's leaking. they don't fail "just because". Fuel pump is on a tray bolted under the body in the rear, so you can replace that without touching the tank.

Not neccisarily. What does the MAF sensor look like? Is it a flapper door or a hot wire?

http://www.subaruforester.org/vbulletin/f89/center-diffs-how-replace-them-46979/ center diff replacement walkthrough

If the doors still open and shut fine, I'd ignore the dents. But I've taken all my vehicles in the woods, so I've accepted dents as a inevitability. Put the money you would have spent on doors on a new set of struts from a 98 legacy Outback and get new 205/70r15 tires. Then it will have the ground clearance to tempt you to go put more dents in it. Timing belt covers don't really matter unless you go into deep snow. I've had snow walk a belt over enough teeth on the crank pulley to stop the engine.

Just dealt with the P0030 on my mom's 03 Outback. It had been popping up intermittently for the last couple years and we had replaced the sensor with a new denso one. Well, it came on permanently last week. As soon as it was cleared it would pop back up. So I found the old sensor (which I had kept labeled in its box in my parts heap because I suspected it was possibly not faulty) and plugged it in. By cutting the insulation on the spare sensors wires we checked the voltage to the sensor's heater, 12v on both leads, so it wasn't getting a ground. The ECU only grounds it with the engine running by the way, turning the key to run without starting it is not enough. So since the problem was between the sensor and the ECU ground, I pulled the carpet and ECU. I happened to have a spare ECU from a 03 legacy GT in the parts heap, so I plugged that in just to test before bothering to check the pins at the ECU connector. Eh voila, the sensor heated up! I put the Outback ECU back in, no sensor heat. So the switched connection to ground inside the ECU was gone. It's running on the spare GT ECU now and no codes. If the sensor isn't being heated up, then it doesn't read accurately. That would set the P0134 inactivity code. So check the resistance value of the heater at the sensor's plug, make sure it's getting 12v, and then check the corresponding pin at the ECU with the sensor plugged in to make sure that the 12v is making it all the way to the ECU before condemning the ECU.

I've always just chucked them in a tire. Oil pan drops into the hole where the rim went and the tire supports the heads.

Some of the later d/r 5spds on SPFI cars had the neutral switch, but the carbed cars didn't. You could use a cruise control clutch pedal switch to wire in for the neutral switch. That would give the ECU the on and off signal it's looking for. The switch replaces the upper stop that the clutch pedal rests against. Usually they're a 4 pin switch, two pins for normally closed contacts and 2 pins for normally open. Use whichever set of contacts matches the behavior of the neutral switch.

The light squeeling before it locked usually means a bearing seized. Nothing inside the center diff will lock up the transmission, but the bearings it rides on could possibly. I'd think they would spin in the case if they seized though, so I'd be looking at bearings on the input shaft or the front pinion bearings.

Transmission is probably fine, the engine is missfiring under load and by dropping it down a gear you reduce the load on the engine to the point that it can keep running. The flashing check engine light means that it's missfiring bad enough to potentially melt the catalytic converter. If you use a scanner to pull the stored check engine codes, you'll get a few P030x codes. Likely you have an ignition problem, so worn out spark plugs or a failing coil, but it could also be a fuel pressure problem.

Is the engine running while the check engine light is blinking or just when you turn the key on? There are test mode connectors under the dash that are not meant to be plugged together in normal operation, and if they are plugged together they make the check engine light flash.

Most common at this point is to put a 4.44 final drive auto trans and rear differential from a 96-98 Legacy Outback into them. Decent performance and reliability increase and a pretty straightforward install. Hardest part is swapping your rear differential carrier into the replacement diff so that you can keep the rear vLSD and match your existing axles. Beyond that you can do a 5 or 6 spd manual transmission swap. That requires some mild mod work to the firewall for the replacement pedal box so you can fit a clutch pedal. The 5spd's aren't that strong, so if you plan on beating on the car, a 6 spd is better but that's $$.

Power to the pump is only a short couple second pulse when you first turn the key on. So it can be easy to miss. One thing you can do is use a paper clip to jump across the pins in the fuel pump relay plug. See the schematic on the side of the relay? Pin 3 and whichever pin is labeled on the other side of the switch contact symbol are the power connection to the pump. If you remove the relay and jump those two pins together in the connector, then the pump should have power full time. One caution is if you jump the wrong pins which are for the control coil in the relay, you can cook the ECU when it tries to ground a shorted circuit. So be sure you are on the right pins! If it does turn out to be a bad fuel pump, do not replace it with an Airtex brand one. They are junk and you'll be back in there within a year. Use new fluid in the trans. They don't have a paper filter to clog so running fresh fluid in them doesn't loosen up all the goop and clog the filter and kill the trans like you've probably been cautioned about putting fresh fluid in an old transmission before. Multiple fresh fluid changes are often done on cars with a binding AWD clutchpack, and it always helps not hurts. Since you seem eager to dig into the internals of the car, I'd recommend downloading the factory service manual from Subaru. They offer a 1 day subscription where you can download as much as you want and save it on your computer. That way you have the best reference manual available.

It should run fine, but detonation is what kills higher compression ratio forced induction engines, and the rod bearings going is probably a result of the pounding of detonation. You can control detonation by retarding the timing or running rich, but both of those reduce power. Intercooling to lower intake temps can help to some extent, but what works the best is water injection. Look up cooling mist/snow performance ect. or build your own setup. I ran a 9.6:1 engine on more than 12psi of non-intercooled boost from an overspun roots supercharger, and with enough winter grade windshield washer fluid (30% methanol, 70% water and a bit of blue dye) sprayed in, it ran great and is still running today.

There's nothing in the transmission that will stop the engine from running, so stop ripping parts off it! Fluid level is checked with the engine running with the trans in neutral, so the transmission oil pump is circulating fluid. When the car is not running, fluid drains back to the pan making the level on the dipstick read high. Get the engine started first. Take a video for us of you cranking the engine over. Does it have spark? Take the plugs out of the heads, rest them on metal next to the plug holes with the wires connected, and have an assistant crank the engine over. You should see bright spark and hear the snap. Don't stick your head down to look at it, fuel/air mix getting blown out of the sparkplug holes could potentially ignite and the woof of flame can take your eyebrows. Since it's a 95, and assuming it's the original engine, if the timing belt went there's no valve damage done. Easy enough to take off the two outer timing belt covers and turn the crank with a ratchet to line up the notches on the cam pulleys with the slots in the rear covers. If the pulleys aren't in sync, then you know that's your culprit. A compression test will also tell you if the cam timing is way off. Fuel pumps do occasionally die or the plug at the top of the sending unit develops a poor connection. So putting a high pressure fuel gauge T'd into the hose going to the fuel filter is a good thing to check. It should read 40 something psi. It sounds like the fuel pump is doing a prime cycle when you turn the ignition back on in your video, but hard to hear.

Without trailer brakes, it's a really bad idea. The potential for a bad wreck, and the massive medical bills that come with it far outweigh the savings of using your car vs renting the right equipment to do the job.

Power window wiring would likely not be there on a crank window car. You'd need to swap the entire dash harness and the floor harness at the least, giant PITA. Much simpler to put your crank window regulators inside the new power window doors. See if the body side connector for the door wiring behind the kick panel only has 2 wires going to the door for speakers. If you were ambitious and wanted a wiring project you could wire your own power windows, I did a hyundai once that we couldn't find a replacement crank regulator for, so it ended up with one power window.

He's saying grind the threads off the new sensor so it's a slip fit down into the hole in the transmission, then epoxying the new sensor into place. Crude, but effective. Good last resort measure though.

It's the stripper base model. Wiring and hose are there for the rear wiper if you choose to install it. Wiring for cruise control is there if you put in the switches, module, pump, and actuator. Wiring for rear door speakers is there as are front tweeters if you want to install them. You will have to cut the door card to fit the rear door speakers grilles into your interior. Tach can be put in your cluster pretty easily, it's 3 screws from the back once you have the cluster out and apart. Wiring isn't there for fog lights, power mirrors, power windows or locks. Or heated seats. Or map lights. The last two I wired in myself on my dad's 95. I bought him home a 96 Brighton, so I've started de-brightonizing that one too.

Rear diff cover may have 3.9 on the sticker but the gears inside may not be. You'll have to turn the driveshaft with a wheel jacked up and count the turns. Does the dual range trans have a FWD position? Or is it just high and low? A full time 4x4 dual range could have a 3.7 front diff in it, but then it should have a vacuum can on it to run the center diff lock.

There's also mid-half shaft axle disconnects sold for people towing cars behind RV's. You could mod just the axle and leave the hub alone. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/127505-quick-disconnect-cv-axles/ The RWD is fun, but expensive. I've got some stripped smooth rear transfer gears from inside one transmission and a couple busted R160's and sheared stub shafts kicking around from my adventures in RWD. I will say the front handbrake makes loooooooong burnouts down the road easy. One of the R160's fragged so bad the sheared crosspin cracked the carrier on the way out.

I don't understand the appeal of locking hubs on something you're not running a spool or lincoln locked diff in? I can see it being easier than pulling an axle shaft every time you road drive it in that case, but otherwise you're just adding a bunch of extra parts to cause trouble. The next big development in offroad subaru's needs to be a married transfer case. With the AWD transmissions it's possible because you can run the front pinion shaft faster than the transmission output. A planetary reduction could fit where the center diff was, and then have selectable rear drive like the older 4x4 transmissions. It could be made as a bolt on replacement housing for the rear transfer housing on the 5spd's, and would give better reduction than the EA. Most planetary transfer cases are in the 2.7:1 range. It would also make the transmission stronger because the reduction is after the 1-5 gearing. And it would make the EJ transmission desirable, so you wouldn't need to use adapters to run EA 4x4 transmissions behind EJ engines. The same could be done with a 4eat, the VTD transmissions have a center differential and the front pinion speed can overrun the trans output shaft speed. The hardest part would be casting a housing with bosses for the shift rails to control the reduction and rear outputs.

Another option is to drill all the way though and out the other side into the inside of the body with a long 1/8" bit, then come from the topside with a hole saw and drop a nut and washer in from the top. It depends on where the captured nut is. I've also welded a nut to a big fender washer, drilled a clearance hole in the body for the nut to go in, and welded the fender washer to the outside of the body.

They were an option, and a stupid one at that because they were designed with a bypass hole past the filter where the blower motor resistor goes. They could catch whatever happened to be in the airflow going through the filter, but as they clogged more and more dirt/leaves/pollen would just go through the bypass. You could take out the blower motor resistor and check in its hole for the filters, that might save you taking it all apart for nothing. Vacuuming off the a/c evaporator's finns could help, but it's hard to get in there. It tends to catch debris because it's in the airflow before the heater core. Also check for leaves sticking to the inside of the squirrel cage fan of the blower, that will cut airflow.

No, tires are equally driven off of an open diff. The same amount of torque is being applied to each tire when driving normally. The difference comes when one looses traction before the other, then most of the power heads out the spinning wheel. However, an equal amount of torque to the resistance of the spinning wheel's remaining traction is still being applied to the other tire. It's always a 50/50 split in an open differential, but the total power put to the tires is equal to double the one with the least traction. With a wheel in the air and the other on the ground, it takes no force to spin the airborn wheel so 0x2=0 torque applied to the wheel on the ground. If you applied the brake to the airborn wheel (like some people with dual handbrakes do offroad), then the torque it takes to overcome the brake is also equal to what's applied to the wheel on the ground. With all wheels off the ground (like running it up on a lift in a shop) the wheels with the least brake and wheel bearing drag are the ones that are going to spin. There isn't a natural bias to one wheel or another. If you have one tire bigger than the other, the differential will average the speed difference between the two of them while still applying equal torque to both. The tires will wear normally, but since the spider gears in the diff will constantly be turning doing the averaging work, they will wear a bit more. Now the deal of a "dominant" tire comes from one tire consistantly wearing faster than another, usually in a RWD solid axle it's the right rear. That's due to a torque reaction in the suspension from the rotation of the driveshaft. As the driving force goes up, the axle gets torque applied in the direction the driveshaft is turning. That torque compresses the right rear spring toward the frame, lowering the effective weight of the vehicle pushing down on that tire. So the "dominant" tire is the one that ends up with the least weight on it under load, and therefore the least traction, so it's the one that breaks loose first. It's the loss of traction and slippage on the road that causes tire wear, so that's why it wears out first. There's also more likely to be sand ect on the shoulder side of the lane, so tires on the right side of the car would tend to have reduced traction and more wear from that. So, going back to the two different tires scenario; the bigger diameter tire will have a longer lever arm between the axle and the road, so it will be harder to break loose and loose traction, assuming the same tread width and road surface as the smaller tire. So under hard driving, the smaller tire will tend to wear faster because it will break loose first. It's also making more rotations for the same tread depth, so it will wear faster on that front too. But those are both very long term concerns, and with an open differential the car will drive normally. The concern on tire size differences on an AWD car comes into play when there are limited slip differentials in play. They will fight one wheel or axle turning consistantly faster than the other, and that fight creates heat which eventually destroys the limited slip componant of the differential. If you have open diffs in all positions, front, center, and rear, the drivetrain couldn't care what size tire was on each wheel. They all get averaged out. But if you have a limited slip center, then the average speed of the front and rear axles must match. You could have a 25" tire on one side and a 28" on the other as long as you did the same on the front axle as you did on the rear. The axle differentials do the averaging work and the center differential sees equal speeds. If you also have a limited slip in the rear, then both rear tires must match and be equal to the average circumfurance of the two front tires. With subaru's, the AWD system differs based on the trim model, so the safest advise is all tires must match. With a Brighton or L with open diffs front and rear, then really only two pairs front to back must match. You could have two new tires on one side and two worn on the other and the AWD wouldn't care. But a GT or Outback would have a rear LSD that would be hurt by that same configuration.

Are you planning on running the turbo on the Vortex engine? There's a significant compression ratio difference between the two shorblocks. I've seen the spider intakes swapped onto the turbo engines and used with a top mount intercooler, EJ turbo engine style.