WoodsWagon

I'd recommend getting a thread insert kit rather than helicoiling it. With the insert you use the supplied tap to hog the hole out, put the insert in with some jb weld on the threads, and use the supplied punch to expand out the top of the insert and lock it in place. It's a better way to fix it because you reduce the chance of the threads coming back out in the future. If you have the 2.5l dohc in your rs, you will probably have to undo the engine mounts and stabilizer link and jack it up in the engine bay to get at the spark plug holes or remove the engine from the car.

You want the holes in the body so it fills quickly and sinks. Otherwise you just sit there spinning and not going anywhere. The subaru electrics are amazingly durable, my old wagon was in water 4-5" over the floor a few times and the only thing I ever had problems with was the automatic seatbelts. They would tweak out and move in short jerks for a few days after, then dry out and come back to life. I tore all the carpets and insulation out of it and there is drainholes in the floorpans if you poke through the hard paint. The fronts drain into the frame horns and the rears drain straight out the bottom. I hydrolocked the first motor in it and nearly lost it down a river another time. The bottom had shifted and there was more flow than I expected, ended up getting pushed downstream into the boulders and had the hood submerged with a wave coming up the winshield. Kept the throttle floored and it dragged its self across. Tore the rear subframe mounts out of the floorpan though on something in there. Most scared I've been in the woods. I did replace wheel bearings front and rear at least twice a year. Always had rust in them.

If you parked with the front of the car facing downhill it could concievable siphon the gas out of the tank and out the carbon canister vent when the canister saturates. Check your hose routing.

Yup, that's the same spot as HondaRot. The salt collects there if you don't wash inside the wheel wells in winter and gets in between those two panels. Its kinda a PITA to repair right, usually takes me 6 hours a side to cut out all the rust, bend up new metal, weld it, grind it, paint it, and under coat it. I've done it to both sides of my sisters civic, the right side of my moms outback, and the right side of my cousins impreza. I still have to do the left side on the outback and imp. Other places to look are at the back of the rocker panel inside the rear wheel well, the bottom edges of the doors, and the rear crossmember. Had the crosmember rust through on my dad's legacy.

You sure that you hooked the return line from the EJ22 to the right hose going back to the tank? There are 3 pipes that the hoses hook up to on the drivers side of the engine, one's the fuel feed, one's the return, and ones the evap. If you swapped the return and the evap, it would be returning fuel through the seperator and fuel from the tank could be coming down the return line and flooding the carbon canister.

That bearing actually supports all the load on that wheel. The spring turns with the strut, so the weight the spring supports goes through that bearing. Grease and PB is not the best mix, but keep packing grease in there and see if it will free up.

Loose drain plugs happen. It's good that you caught it, and make sure you let the dealership know, but it's best to not make too big a deal out of it. The word will get back to the tech, and they'll probably be backflagged the 0.3 hours that they got for the oilchange. You should get a complimentary oil change off of them "to restore your confidence". I always erred on the side of overtorque. My crushwashers were always well crushed, but I never had a comeback for leaking. Same thing with the filters, I tighten them as much as I can by hand. Always takes filter pliers to get them back off at the next change. More than once I would be taking a car through the carwash and get a paranoid feeling that I couldn't remember tightening the plug and pull the car back in to check. It was always tight, but still... a more rushed tech wouldn't bother. They don't call it flat-rate hack-rate for nothing.

Do you know what detonation or knock sounds like? That would occur only under load and would have the same pulse timing as injectors. Is the check engine light on? Could be a failed knock sensor.

I had the turbo wagon back up and running after putting the rockers back in, it drove good, actually had some power, idled well, ect... So I left it running for 5 hours with the heat cranked to dry out the interior, it was fine, fan cycled on and off, held steady temp and stayed at 950-1k rpm. I took it for a last boot around, let it idle for 5 mins and shut it off. An hour later I come back to it, it starts rough, ECS light is on, light goes out, it perks up and runs ok, I make it 800 feet up my driveway and it dies out like it's out of gas. Engine stalls, ECS light stays out. Fuel pump is not coming on. Now, the wierd thing is that the injectors are being constantly cycled with the key on, and the engine not turning. Tic,Tic,Tic,Tic,Tic, real quick like. Hooking test mode connectors up doesn't do anything, no other solenoids or the pump cycle, it just keeps the injectors going. So I tried starting it again, and it fired up and idled around 1200, kinda a loping idle and filthy burn-your-eyes rich, but the fuel pump STAYED OFF. WTF? I'm thinking, so I prop the throttle open so it stays at 2100rpm, it's no longer rich, but still loping. Unplugging the MAF doesn't affect it. I figure it must be running on residual fuel pressure, so I leave it there. It stays running for another 5 minutes, so I try driving it back. I feathered the clutch and kept the throttle cracked and it got me 50 ish feet before I stalled it. What kind of ************ed up failure mode is that? I'm thinking the ECM is heat-unstable, but it stays running fine, it's only when you shut it off and let it sit that it screws up.

I used a prybar off the cam to push the valves down and jammed the rockers into place, couple taps with a punch to set them back over the lifter. Two on the passenger side, one on the drivers side. It runs on all 4 again, so the plan to properly kill it off is back on. It needs to go out with a bang, not a whimper.

Update: I pulled the valve cover off the passenger side head to see how loose the rockers were. Well, both the intake rockers were sitting in the bottom of the cam case. So either the lifters collapsed so far that the rockers slipped out or the valves stuck open and the rocker dropped off. Piece of junk either way.

The 3" are for the rear passengers only though, the roof doesn't bump up untill behind the drivers head. BTW, want a free touring wagon hatch? It's rusty but the glass is good.

Or you can take the transfer clutch pack an housing from the 93 and put it on your 98 to fix the smoked clutch pack, if it is actually burnt. Put a motor in it first and see if you trashed the transfer clutch pack or not. The car will still drive fine, it may just have torque bind.

The center diff is going in a friends 99 legacy outback. Binding on turns, so the viscous coupling is shot. It's a phase II transmission in it, so it has the redesigned center diff and transfer housing. I can get a 95 tranny for cheap, but I know the center diff is different. Can I swap the diff and the housing from the phase I tranny onto the Phase II? Or are the shafts that go into the center diff different too?

No, the 2.5 intake won't bolt onto the 2.2 heads. The wiring will most likely plug in at the 3 plugs at the bellhousing though so you don't have to worry about that. The 2.5l flexplate has to be used, it's a different depth than the 2.2l flexplate. Depending on the year of the 2.2l, it's single or dual port exhaust, but you got the y-pipe so that should be covered. The thing with having an engine from a manual trans car is that the 2.2l may not have EGR. Make sure that the rear drivers side of the intake manifold has an EGR valve and the stainless pipe coming up from the head on the 2.2. Should be plug and play. You're 2.5 l power steering lines will kinda be suspended in the air above the passenger side head, you can either make a bracket or swap the 2.2l lines and hoses onto it.

The forester got shipped out accidently, so it was off the table, the outback was missing its ecu, and it was an automatic limited, so loaded with options. A 96 Legacy l with manual tranny and the engine and trans already pulled came in. I got all the harness, cluster, switches, and sensors (map. Maf, ignitor, cruise control bits and everthing for $40. Though I did have to work in shattered glass the whole time, the car had been packed with broken windshields. Took 4 and a half hours to get the complete harness out.

The shims are there to allow you to adjust the pinion to ring gear backlash and contact. If you must, you can put some prussian blue on the ring and check the contact pattern after you put the sidecaps on. If the contact patch is good, don't worry about it.

On my wagon I used a hole saw to go through the floor on the inside so I could put a nut and washer on the backside, then welded them into place. Those 3 blocks need to be solidly linked or you will have more problems. On mine the transmission tunnel started to tear as the floor pushed up on the drivers side from the stress of the strut rod. We had to plate the inside and outside of the firewall/floorpan and sledgehammer it back to where it was. I weld a tab to the strut rod plate to link the plate to the top of the lower block, and link the two other blocks to each other. Seems to help. The other spot you will have trouble with is where the rear crossmember blocks attach. They will start to tear out of the body if you don't reinforce the link to the 2 bolts in the floorpan. I had to weld a nut to a heavy washer, then hold it up in place on the hole in the body where the body tore out and weld the washer to the body, recreating the captured nut that had escaped. A mig welder is your friend for this.

If you're re-doing the motor, why not put on a set of DOHC heads and manifold off of a phase 1 EJ25? You can drill the ports on the back of the passenger head for the turbo oil and coolant lines. Take a look on legacycentral, they have a bunch of pics of the port locations. Might as well make more power while you have it apart. Check the oil squirters in the block, they tend to back out and you may find them in the pan.

Yup, and you can go one step further after you torch it off and weld a ring to it so it's easy to pull out. Have one in my toolbox.

My best luck has been with re-booting subaru axles. Find a set of used ones with age-cracked but not torn boots, spend $30 on boot kits, and repack the cv's. I got good at it with how many axles my lifted wagon went through. You drove that car, you know the kind of abuse it took. Oh, a GLF coupe came in a my local yard. Power steering and cruise. You need anything off it?

You don't need the springs. Use whatever springs your car already has on it. Forresters/impreza's are a lighter car, so the springs probably have a softer rate than the legacy/outback springs. Using legacy outback struts and springs lifts a impreza higher for this reason, but the ride is firm. Order struts for a 1998 legacy outback or forrester. 1996 outbacks are the same height as legacy's. Impreza outback sports are the same height as regular impreza's. The only problem I have run into so far is putting outback struts into a 1990-94 legacy in the rear. The nut will not tighten down and clamp the strut cap to the rod, so you will get clunking in the rear. I made a spacer so that the nut clamps the strut cap. Not hard to do. Don't disconnect the brake lines when you swap struts. If you remove the spring clip, you can pull the hose through the strut a bit, then use side cutters to cut open the bracket on the strut. Bend it up, and slip the hose out. Use a hacksaw to cut the brackets on the new struts, carefully bend out the tabs, and slip the hose in. Bend the tabs back, put on the clip and your good to go without dealing with rusted brake lines, bleeder screws, and bleeding the brakes. Get an allignment after you're done swapping struts.

Do you have a distributor on the rear of the passenger side head?

My 86 turbo wagon was running ok this winter, rich, rough idle, but it cleared out ok when it was under boost. Drove it around the property a bit, then parked it on a steep downslope with the front down. Aparently one of the injectors was stuck open, and it siphoned a fair bit of gas into the engine. Like a gallon or so. The crankcase was a couple qts overfilled and the exhaust header was full. I tried starting it a couple days after I parked it, it sounded like it had no compression, figured I'd snapped a T-belt. Then I noted gas dripping out of the downpipe flange at the turbo. I drilled a hole in the exhaust and drained that. I tried cranking it some more, it would fire on the #4 cyl, but that was it. I left it till now. Drained the oil/gas mix, put in the used oil I drained out of my truck. New filter. Drained all gas in tank and filled with 5 gallons fresh. Checked t-belts and timing, all good and turning. No compression. Like nothing at all. Hooked up leakdown, little past the rings, but nothing too bad. Could hear air rush out on exhaust stoke, but none on intake. Removed air hose, cranked motor. Air gusting out of hose on compression stroke, untill I put my finger over the end of the hose, then nothing. So the intake valves aren't opening and letting air in. Can the lifters collapse so far that the valves won't open? Will they eventually pump up with oil, or do I have to remove them and drain the gas out of each one?

You came from this: To this: Then complain to those people? Your origional question was why people waste money on lifts when you can get there without one, My response is that lifts are a nececity for the terrain I drive on, and therefore not a waste.