WAWalker

If there was money of any amout to be made, the automotive makers would be all over it. Couple of problems. It is an 1,800 pound car. Didn't see any info about on board fuel capacity. Are they just using the lawn mower fuel tank? Add a fuel tank so you don't have to fill up every 75 miles, spare tire, suitcase, and a friend or two. Build a safe structuraly sound body.......add 4WD...........not an 1,800 pound car anymore. Up to 70 mph in NO WIND conditions. I've already got one of those. The majority ain't going to buy it. Very interseting though.

Ya, that works to disarm the newer ones, but it is still inconvenient not being able to unlock your door with your key without the alarm going off.

You can do the same with the Subaru suspension. Just have to do a little math when making the strut extension. You can only go so far up with any independent suspension before the CV's become a limiting facture and the divetrain has to come down.

I think that is just the way it is, unfortunatly. Not a good design IMO. Being in the auto repair business I have got into the habit of using keys to lock and unlock cars. That way when I lock the car with the key I won't acidently lock the key in the car. Hard habit to break. The new Subarus get me all the time. And when a customer drops their car of and takes their key off the key ring and doesn't leave the remote..........well lets just say it can be a real PITA. IMO car alarms are worthless. I have seen motor cycles or other vihicles with loud exhaust go down a street and set of alarms on a whole line of cars, funny thing, nobody runs out into the street to check and see if their car is being stolen.

I've seen a couple Legacy's with skid plates. One was a '94 I think the other a '97 or '98 OB. And the holes hadn't been modified, so they are out there, just not a lot of them.

Get the codes pulled. There is a code for fuel level something or another. My wife complained of her fuel gage acting up in her 98 L sedan, and CEL while she was on a trip. When she got back there was a code stored that had somthing to do with fuel level. I cleared it and has never came back and gage is working so I have left it alone. If yours stoped working altogether, and if there is a coresponding code, it is probably going to be a bad sending unit. Have had to replace a couple in other Legacy's.

I kind of ASSumed from your screen name and other threads that your experiance was with the DOHC. But I question weather others who are looking for an explanation to their particular problem are going to know that. The reason for this question was to try to determine which HG failure was to be disscued in this thread. I too should have been more specific. The title of the thread is "Another scenario for the HG failure". And refured to a post about a SOHC engine. I was trying to determine weather he wanted to talk about the SOHC HG's or the DOHC HG's. Two different discussions, but inevitably the title is going to lead to discussion of both problems.

This is true for the EJ25 DOHC engine mostly 97-99. The 96 DOHC had different head gaskets and not as many were made, so the problems with them aren't as prevalent. I have done head gaskets on 17 of these engine (since I've started tracking parts usage), and have replaced at least 3 engines because they were driven hot untill the engine seized. Symtoms are always the same and the gaskets all leak in the same place. They all overheat instantaiously without warning, there is always sings of hydrocarbons in the cooling system. This problem can be intermitent in that the gaskets won't leak enough to cause the engine to over heat untill fully warmed up and put under load. They can idle all day, or be driven around town all day and not overheat. Due to the nature of this problem it can be difficult to diagnose. So there are a lot of thermostats, water pumps, and radiators being replaced to fix the problem, but the problem continues, then all that is left is the head gaskets, and the question of what was really causing the overheating. And once a shop has sold someone all these other parts you can bet that they are going to tell the customer that those parts were needed and the overheating caused the head gasket failure. Once you become familure with the cause and effect, the overheating problem with these engines is no mistery, and easily diagnosed. Also, I've said it time and time again, Subaru did not stop production of this engine after 4 years because it was a good design. Now I'm not saying that a restricted radiator can't be the cause of over heating problems that could lead to head gasket failure. But in my experieance that has never been the case and I have never had a come back for overheating after completing a head gasket job. Now on to the EJ25 SOHC engine......................................Same blood line different animal. I don't have as much first hand experiance with this engine due to a lot of them still being under the origianl warranty or the stop leak extended warranty. But that is starting to change. This engine has a different head gasket issue. The head gaskets are leaking antifreeze externaly (never a problem with the DOHC). If this leak is bad enough the engine can over heat due to low coolant level (been there done that, fix one). Could this cause a head gasket failure that could lead to more over heating? Yes theroreticly it could. The 2000 and newer OB radiators have a tendency to leak at the seam between the end caps and core, leading to low coolant levels that could lead to over heating, that could lead to...................................... I have diagnosed one of these engines as having blown head gaskets that were causing an over heating problem. It was easaly diagnosed and had all the conventinal signs of blowen head gaskets that you would expect to see on the run of the mill automobile. Coolant was leaking into the cylinders (never a problem on the DOHC). This was after another independent repair shop supposedly was paid to repair the external head gasket leak under warranty. I didn't have the pleasure to pull the heads on this engine and see what was going on because the Subaru dealership was supposedly going to repair the car this time, again under warranty. So I can't say what is most likely to cause over heating problems with the SOHC EJ25. The moral of my story is that I don't think you can group all the EJ25 SOHC and DOHC engines in the same category. What someone thinks went wrong with one SOHC 2.5 isn't going to explain away the head gasket problem of the DOHC 2.5. The loose timing belt not turning the water pump may be a good therory, but would need to be proved. The car in question was never properly diagnosed the first time around and continued to over heat, which in turn can coutinue to cause more wear and more problems and by the time you get every thing fixed and stop the over heating problem it's a little hard to put a fingure on the root cause. I will stick to the facts of more than 20 hands on cases that I have had with the DOHC engines, and do my best to properly diagnose any over heating problems with the SOHC engines to determine if there is a pattern failure with them also. Then some day I may write a book:rolleyes:

I am very aware that overheating an engine can lead to head gasket failure, generaly speeking. When talking spacificly about Subaru engine head gasket problems there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding of the cause and effect between the different engines. Subaru head gasket failures don't present the same simptoms as the average car and a lot of the time are misdiagnosed. Parts are replaced overheating problem continues, then there is a question of weather the head gaskets caused the overheating or the overheating caused the head gasket problem. This post is refuring to the SOHC 2.5L engine. Totally different problem than the DOHC 2.5L as far as the head gasket issue is concerned. Normally the SOHC head gasket problem dose not cause overheating. It is an external leak and will only cause overheating if it leaks enough for the cooling system to become low on coolant. In which case the cause of overheating is low coolant. If the leak is not fixed and the engine is continuly over heated it could lead to head gasket failure. In the post that is refured to hear there are just a lot of variables, age and condition of timing belt and water pump to start with. I've seen quite a few weak timing belt tensioners but never overheating problems related to them.

So did you replace the radiator when the 2.2L was installed?

What is it that you would like to discuss? Are you looking for a new explantion for head gasket failure?

The fancy Kent-Moore tools are OTC Hub Tammer tools. The reason for the "low force" installation procedue is to prevent deforming the hub or bearing race when removing and installing the bearing. I believe that most repeat failures of the tapered roller bearings can be atributed to the lack of proper tools and attention to detail. Most I see have obvious damage to the hub due to poor workmanship. The ball bearings used in Impreza (Ex. WRX) and Forester, were just junk.

Is that red OB on AA's web sit lifted? Looks stock. They increased the ground clearance on the new OB's so they could be classified as a light truck, to avoid having to meet new fuel milage requirements. That what I heard.

Is that red OB lifted? Looks pretty stock.

The difference is not 2WD or 4WD it is manual or auto trans. That is the front diff dip stick on and auto transmisson. The diff takes gear lube the transmission takes ATF. The trans dip stick is on the other side. On a manual transmission the front diff and transmission share the same gearlube so there is just the one dip stick.

Well I have one extra. Wish I would have know there was a demand for them when I was cleaning house.

I had a bunch of them at one time. May have throwen them out. I will look when I get to the shop tomarrow.

Who wins the prize? I know it ain't me. Cuz I don't know.

Pull the lower B pillar trim, unplug seat belt motor.

I'll see what I can do. That diagram I was looking at is from Alldate DIY. A one year subscription is $25 USD then $15 USD for each additional, if you want to go that route. I have copied and pasted info off that site so I could probably e-mail them. Let me know, shoot me a PM.

1995 wiring diagram shows ECM grounding the CEL.

Thanks! One question down. Kind of figured that, but had never flat towed one in stock form.

And should I ASSume stock jeep w/ open diffs. Pics of a Soob pulling a high centered Heep would be cool.

And would that be what we see in the background?

Has anyone had the camber checked after the addition of a lift to see if it is still within factory specs? Is it just the bigger tires that makes it look worse than it is? Does the suspenssion flaten out while driveing? After installing a 3" BYB lift on mine it doesn't track around corners when flat towing I found out. All though I never tried flat towing it stock so that doesn't really prove anything. My concern would be tire wear more than the lose of a little ground clearance. It's like airing down the tires on the trail, I'll take the traction and smooth ride over the lose of ground clearance. Not to pop any bubbles but and inch or so of clearance doesn't have anything on a solid axle with articulation to keep all the tires on the ground. Unless your deep snow wheelin'. I hope to DD my Hatch when I finish it and don't want to be eating up tires.