belacane

I saved my Subie . My WRX had a blown head gasket (internal; coolant in combustion chamber), and I had to make a choice. I decided to fix her, and I am so glad I did! She's no longer going to be my DD, as I have a an XV crosstrek now, but I'm planning on some awesome joy rides on the weekends, and absolutely can't wait! Took her for a drive this morning and it felt so good. It was confirmation that I did the right thing

Well, last weekend, this happened ...finally! Not drivable though, as I'm still trying to figure out which hoses go where, and what can be deleted altogether. Also, the interior was flooded and is a bit lacking in seats at the moment

These are awesome! I have to make it out there one day! .... one day

The Haynes Forester manual goes up until 2008.

+1

Congrats on your new Soobie! Imprezas are fantastic little cars. I have an '02 Wagon and I love it to pieces. They're small enough to be agile, yet still tough, they fit enough crap inside, and are overall just awesome looking (in my opinion anyhow =P). Regarding the brakes, it depends on what you feel ok with. Having worked as an apprentice Subaru tech for a while, we'd constantly get people coming in with 'weird noises' coming from the brakes. Turns out, in most cases they put cheap pads on OE rotors. Cheap pads + Subaru rotors are known to be pretty noisy and wear down rotors like they're going out of style, but as far as I know, stopping capability isn't really compromised. You just kinda get what you pay for really. Regarding the shifter bushing, if I'm thinking correctly, it's possible to access and change it without really removing anything besides pushing/tying parts of the exhaust to the side. The smaller your hands are, the better Regarding the catalytic converter, after market ones tend to go bad quickly on Soobies. I noticed you live in Illinois, so you'll need to do something about it for emissions. I know that on my '02 Impreza, if I clear the code, it takes a few driving cycles for it to come back on, so if you do that right before you head to emissions, you might get lucky =P. As an apprentice tech for Subaru in the past, I saw a good deal of P/S pumps (including my own) start leaking in the late '90s and early '00 Soobies. A nice swicharoo to a fresh one should do the trick, but I'm sure you know how to clean and look for leaks. Oil leaks.... like you probably know, clean it up and look for leaks. Can't say where it's coming from without looking, but I know that a lot of older Subarus tend to have oil leaks from the valve cover gaskets. Those can be easily changed by taking out one of the bottom engine mount bolts and tilting the engine up to each side on an old tree stump / log or something. Don't reuse the washers that go with the bolts or you'll find yourself leaking again. Good luck and have fun!

Congrats! Soobies are the best Which Chicago area dealership did you end up going to? (I'm originally from there too )

http://jdmfsm.info/Auto/Japan/Subaru/Impreza/2006/Service%20Manual/ Probably best to find out what codes it's tossing at you first. It's hard for anyone to give you any hints in the right direction if we don't know those.

Gorgeous!!! Welcome to the Subaru family Can't wait to see/hear your adventures with your brat (mechanical and otherwise =P)

The two cars also offer different steering and suspension feels, if that's something important to you at all. Good luck finding your ideal Soobie! Both are going to be fantastic in the snow by the way

Not necessarily. Owner's manuals have been seriously 'dumbed down' as of late, meaning they do not include much maint. information any more. However, you can call a parts department at a Subaru dealerships and get the OE plug part #, coolant type, bulb information...etc. Any auto parts store will have similar information on after-market parts. As for lug torque, on Subarus (and most vehicles these days) it's about 90ftlbs. Regarding coolant, 2009+ Subaru's use the blue 'super long life' coolant from Subaru (it's supposed to be good for 100k+ miles) Anything before that uses the classic 'green coolant' that is recommended to change every 60k miles (or something close to that).

Most of the Subaru manuals for the latest cars are now digital... As far as I know, dealerships don't even get 'hard' copies of the manuals unless they specifically ask for them. Make friends with with a tech at a Subaru dealership and ask him/her to print what you need .

Thanks, everyone! I'm pretty sure mine has the 23 spline, as last time I changed out a CV Axel I used one described as stock for the ea81 (23 spline if I'm thinking correctly).

Hello all, When I got my '86 Brat with the original EA81, the previous owner had already done a 5sp DR swap on it. I'm curious, which 5speed DR transmissions from which soobies work as a donor EA81 5sp dr swap? This would be good information to have should I ever need to replace the tranny, as I rather like having the 5-speed.

I ripped out the carpet from my flooded '86 Brat and gave it a good soap up, as well as started to scrub down interior console parts. Felt good to get something done for once! I just used dish washing soap and scrubbed and scrubbed. Does anyone have any other tips for trying to salvage a flooded/moldy carpet?