WoodsWagon

I was getting a creak from the drivers front suspension when I accelerated or braked. First thing I did was check the tightness of the three bolts that hold the strut rod mount in, they were all good n' tight. Then I noticed the crack in the firewall. It was kind of peeling away from the firewall, or so I thought untill I pulled up the carpet on the inside. The bolt that holds the transmission crosmember and the strut rod plate is pushing the whole firewall in and up towards the brake pedal. I'd say it's moved in about half an inch. The seam that runs up the side of the tranny tunnel is pulling apart, and if you put a light under the car, you can see it through 3 cracks. I'll be carefull driving it to school and back tomorrow, and then I'll have to see if I can weld in enough patches to keep the floorpan down. I'm not sure quite how yet.

Yeah, fuji still makes the motors for the Polaris snomobiles. Bust out the PB blaster and get that thing turning.

Lifted EA82 body's= nice Lifted EA82's with big tires and still trying to turn them with the 90hp= the suck. I don't miss that lump. It served well and took hell and was still running when I swapped it to the EJ22. I haven't taken it apart to find how bent the rods are. It was reliable and took a good beating, but it just didn't have the torque. The EJ22 in the EA82 body is nice, add's a lot to the experience. But... not quite enough low end. So now I'm looking into moving up to the EJ25. In 2wd, the ej22 is a bit too much for my suspension to handle, but in 4wd, hard hillclimbs can bogg the engine if it's not up in the powerband. If I had the gearing it would be OK, but I don't, so I need more torque.

Use one out of a SPFI GL, it will have the neutral switch that the loyale computer has to have not to throw codes. Carb'd tranny's don't even have a hole for the neutral tranny switch.

Feels exactly like running out of gas. It'll die, pull hard again, sputter, then run down to being solidly dead but will spit and fart every now and then. I was towed to a gas station before, filled it up, and it still wouldn't start. That little screw was lying in the bottom of the disty.

My service manager wouldn't be alive right now if it weren't for airbags. He fell asleep at the wheel in his 05 honda accord, woke up in the center median, crossed back across the two lanes, and went into the trees at an estimated 85mph. He remembered looking to his left and watching a tree coming straight at him, then in was all white and he thought it was over for him... but then he noticed it felt kinda squishy. He hit 3 trees hard, and slid into a couple more, demolished the car, but him and his wife walked away with the only injury being a cut to his wife's head where she was leaning against the seatbelt anchor. All the airbags went off, seat bags, dash bags, side curtain bags, and without them his head woulda popped like a pumpkin on the first hit. If you feel they're a danger, pull the fuses for the system. It's simple. But don't badmouth them. Remember how long it took for seatbelts and padded dashboards to be accepted.

To change a new style tensioner to an older style one, you need Part #5 in the above picture from a 1996-97 2.5l. You can use one from a 2.2l, but you won't have the bolt hole for the center bolt of the drivers side belt cover. Phase 1 2.5l came with both styles, it was a year change. The older ones are better in my opinion, but you can only get them off of the first 2 years of 2.5l's.

If you have a welder, and a sawzall with some steel stock, you should go a bit more hardcore with the whole bumper. Like this: I've clipped trees with the corners, hits that would have taken out headlights and quarter panels, and it stops or shifts the car. Sometimes you can't watch all your corners all the time plowing out of a mudhole in the trees, and having something that can take a hit without folding like a wet rag is nice. This bumper, in the form you see, rear ended a ford ranger at 15mph. It trashed the tailgate, bumper, taillights, and a corner of the bedfloor, and shifted the bed forward enough that it left markes on the back of the cab. The bumper was fine, however the unibody crumpled about an inch backwards and one of my headlight loops trapped the hood shut by looping over the corner. I think it's a 9k milemarker winch, but it's old and the stickers are long gone. Planetary drive, permanent magnet motor, relay box under the hood by the airbox. It will drag other cars around, however I would not block the wheels and pull for fear of ripping the body. You should put a support from the bumper down to the lower radiator support to handle the downward twist of the winch on the bumper when it's pulling.

I did the rockers on my mom's taurus front to rear... Skimcoat with bondo, spray white paint. Got it past inspection for another year... that's all that counted. It even held up when the car was hit in the rear quarter, the plastic window held in with wood screws and caulking didn't though. If if hadn't been hit again and the state hadn't come down on us for not having a salvage inspection from the first rear end hit, I coulda milked another year out of it.

Uh.. Fix it? 1995 means any EJ22 from 1990-95 will drop right in, just throw your intake manifold on and you're good to go. You can do it in a day if you have an engine lift. EJ22's are cheap, plentiful, and easy to swap. I wouldn't use the dealer if you like your wallet. Cloud of black smoke? not blue?

My car's not in it, so it must be hidden...

I've blown one of the newer style tensioners that way too. The horizontal 4" long tensioner pistons are way more durable than the other ones, you just throw them in the vice, squeeze them down slowly and chuck a pin in. The new style ones, like the one you broke, MUST be verticle, and can't have much force put on them. So don't just crush them down with a press. You have to be so gentle with them, and there isn't really a way to tell if you broke it untill it's on. When you put it on, turn the engine over with a breaker bar, then reverse the direction for half a turn. The tensioner shouldn't move, if it does, you blew the internal seals out. You're lucky you didn't bend the valves.

Oh, I didn't know that. I thought it was just for the 4cyl's from what I read on people using them on the EA82t's. Can megasquirt run coil on plug, or would I have to rig up a coilpack and wires?

Do you have the rounded pan or the square pan? The rounded pan fit's in a bit better, but has the same lowest point.

Is there an engine management system kinda like megasquirt for a subie 6cyl? I could pick up one for fairly cheap I think, but it doesn't have any wiring beyond what's on the intake manifold.

There's the phase one DOHC's that go from 96-99 and there's the phase 2 SOHC's That I know came in late 90's foresters, but I think the outbacks started using the SOHC in 2000? The only real difference in the shortblock is that the thrust bearing got moved from the middle to the end by the flywheel... So you can put whatever heads match the car on whatever 2.5l shortblock you get, but the shortblock and crank must match.

Up in colorado, I'd say a 2.2l turbo would be better than the 2.5l N/A. The altitude really sucks the guts out of the N/A motors. The turbo will compensate for the altitude change and still be pulling the same power.

You know of the multitude of ways to fix the stripped exhaust stud holes right? Search and you will be relieved. DON'T tear off the head just because the stud holes are stripped!

That would be nice except for the fact that there are two other enterences into that cowl area, one on each side that go into the space covered by the quarter panels. Subaru welded some expanded metal grids over these holes, but left a moderate sized gap. The mice run in through this gap. 1/4" mesh is plenty to stop mice. I'm talking about the heavy wire, welded mesh, not window screen.

Take off the plastic cowl at the base of the windshield and put 1/4" mesh wire screen over the two inlets there. That will at leas keep the mice out of the interior, but they may still build in the cowl, and it will reek but be easier to remove the nest. Any holes in the rocker panels provide an expressway into the car.

I've seen $60,000 shipments of used cats go out of my local junkyard. You cut them off, Identify what they came off of, there's a value assesed by the recycling company, and you crate them up and ship them. OEM subaru cats are worth a fair bit, like up to $90 apice. Aftermarket subaru ones aren't worth anything. Find out where the local recycler buyer is and sell them yourself. Looks like these guys might take them if you don't give them, so you might as well profit rather than be taken advantage of.

Take a craftsman half inch drive extension and use it to punch out the steel inserts for where the lugnuts go. work from the back of the rim. Cut out the valve stem, remove the lead wheel weights (it may have stickon ones on the inside of the rim behind the spokes, and voila, you have clean cast aluminum.

GCK axles seem to be mostly good, but I got one with a bad bind to it. It still vibrates on acceleration, but not nearly as bad as it was new. I've been ruthless to them with the hope the bad one will break and i can turn it in for replacement. So take it out of the box and work it around first before you buy it.

Yes, do post a picture. Or just look at them. I bet that you'll be surprised to discover your rear shocks do have a coil on them. That's the only part of the rear suspension that holds the car up.

Oh, and the rod knock could be piston slap or a cracked torque converter flex plate if it's an automatic. Piston slap will sound more like a diesel, kak kak kak, where as rod knock will be more like tok tok tok. A cracked flexplate will sound a lot like a rod knock but may change when you throw it in and out of drive. I got an engine for free because it was replace due to "rod knock" when a completely fractured center to the flexplate was the real cause of the noise.