Wayne Boncyk

Seafoam is a fantastic gunk/varnish solvent in a can that you can pick up at most Pep Boys or Car Quest stores. And actually, now that I'm relocated to Denver from SoCal, I can say for sure that SeaFoam is stocked at the Pep Boys in Wheat Ridge (saw it there yesterday)! There's a great post in the archives here somewhere that shows you how to suck SeaFoam in thru the intake manifold to clean the entire top end of your engine. A little smoky, but worth it if you have a high mileage engine and you want to unstick some gunked up valves, etc. before changing oil the next time.

If the flakes are large enough, and if you have a relatively strong magnet handy, you can do a little simple metal analysis yourself. Take the oil with the metal flakes in it, mix with a solvent (mineral spirits or kerosene), and then pour the mix through a paper coffee filter. The metal flakes will be left behind, and if you then rinse a couple of more times by pouring clean solvent thru the filter and then let it dry, you'll have isolated the flakes from the oil. Next, do the magnet test -- steel will adhere to the magnet and aluminum will not. Steel = Bad (probable bearing on the way to self-destruction), Aluminum = Better (probably just scoring of the cylinder and although you'll push some oil out the exhaust with a config like that, you'll be OK to drive it for a while longer).

Too bad the rear pumps have gone the way of the dodo. My 1950 Olds became mine after it had been parked in a barn for over 10 years -- I bought the car in 1973 -- everything under the hood was covered in rust and dust, yet I was still able to get the engine to turn over after a few oz. of oil was poured into each cylinder to loosen 'er up a little bit, and later on when the old 6 volt battery gave up the ghost, I was able to roll her downhill every morning and effectively push start the car via that old hydramatic tranny. Built like a tank -- and handled like one, too, but I could always count on that car getting me where I needed to go.

Well.... I've never seen this in a subie engine, but I've pulled apart my share of old GM blocks over the years, and IMHO the metal flakes are not a good sign. It means that it was probably run dry, and then somebody tried to "fix" the situation by re-filling the crankcase and hoping (or praying) for the best. My take on it is to consider that engine as very near the end of its life -- because a rod bearing is gonna fail shortly. They don't take too kindly to being run with direct metal-to-metal contact without any oil in there! If you choose to put 'er back together without a complete teardown and inspection (and posibly replacing every moving part below the heads), then I wish you luck -- its anyone's guess how long it will last. My money's on maybe 1000 miles... if you're lucky.

OK - I finally did it. Since I had torque bind in addition to a failed duty solenoid C, I started to replace the old tranny extension housing on my '96 Outback (2.5L engine, 4EAT auto tranny) with a spare one that I got from one of the guys on this board. Here's the problem - when I removed the old housing, a few parts popped out that I didn't expect to come loose. There is a 2-1/2 inch pin that looks like it is the shaft for a cam that sits up in the back end of the main part of the transmission, but that shaft, the cam, and a retaining spring all popped free when I pulled the old housing. My question - does anybody know how that stuff is supposed to go back together? It looks like the shaft fits into a hole in the main part of the tranny body, and the cam slides onto that shaft, and somehow the spring holds that cam under tension so it doesn't fall against the drive sprocket that couples power over to the clutch pack assembly, but I can't see how that spring should be installed. Anyone have any pictures of the back end of one of these trannys with the extension housing removed, or any idea how that spring should go in there? Thanks in advance for your help!

Well, if you can't keep a plug tightly threaded in, then you probably have a stripped out head -- bad news, since re-tapping the hole isn't likely to fix it -- not enough metal left to allow tapping out to the same diameter, if you've stripped it so bad that the plug's just spinning in place. I'd pull a replacement head from a junkyard, and start over. It'll give you some practice in proper torquing of head bolts -- then you ought to be ready to torque down that new plug without cross-threading or over-torquing it! Unfortunately O2 sensors aren't exactly cheap - and $65 isn't a bad price for a replacement.

Well, I admit that I usually look at the "trade-in value" rather than the Private Party resale values from the Kelly Blue Book, because in my personal experience I don't often sell a car for the private party value, and when I buy used I can usually settle on a price closer to the trade-in than the private party value. So, that's the difference between your number and mine. There is no difference based on geography between this coast and yours. I ran both my current zip code and my mother-in-law's (my wife is from Philly) and the estimates were nearly identical.

I'm surprised that nipper hasn't spoken up on this one. He will tell you, rightly so, that a host of problems (and potential problems in the making) will be forestalled by a tranny fluid flush. He and I differ over the wisdom of using synthetic tranny fluid in a high mileage rig - I think it's a good idea and he thinks I'm dead wrong - but the essential truth is, if you want that tranny to last you've gotta change fluid regularly. Personally, if it were my car I would probably do it just on principles since you don't know the history. Others might say to look at the color of the fluid in there now. Bright red is good, brick red is on the way out, and brown is a clear DANGER signal flashing right at you. So if the fluid is any color other than the clear bright red as it comes out of the bottle, I'd say change it -- and if that tranny has an external fluid filter, change that, too!

Having been thru the head gasket, oil seals, wheel bearings, etc., with my '96 Outback (also a 2.5L) I can tell you that it is neither fun nor cheap to have those things repaired, but if you're like me and you appreciate an occasional mechanical "challenge" to remind yourself what it's like to have a little grease under the fingernails, then these particular Subes are something that you can grow to love -- I know -- I have. That said, an asking price of $3K on a vehicle on which you know none of the history, is way too risky. I'm assuming with your international designation that you are quoting either Canadian or Aussie $$. If that's an American dollar price then that dealership dreams of making big money by snagging the odd sucker, er, I mean customer, on a deal such as this. The Blue Book value on this vehicle out here in the Western US is only around $2K. Be aware, and be wary. I think you could find a bettter deal without much looking....

Hey, Frag -- the cylinder and piston is the "old style" tensioner, and as far as I know, is identical on the 2.2. and 2.5L engines.

Ain't it nice to know someone cares??

Congrats!

BTW - I agree with you, having learned the value of a vacuum gauge at a very young age, while working on my old 1950 Olds. I still have one, and use it!

Ok, I just tried it, and I added one thing to your test. My son helped out, by adding an extra bit of pressure to the accelerator pedal once the engine was warm, to get the RPMs back up to around 1500. Here's what I observed -- engine cold and idle at 1500, there was a light exhaust pressure on my hand. Engine warm and idle at around 800-900, apparently stronger "puffs," but they came more much more spaced out than when the idle was at 1500 (slower puffs, no surprise). Then we tried taking the RPMs up to 1500 while the engine was hot, and what do you know? The pressure felt the same as with the 1500 RPM idle cold, although the exhaust was definitely hotter! Don't keep your hand near the exhaust pipe too long if you try this once the engine is hot. My conclusion - this test doesn't tell you definitively if the cats are plugged, or not. Sorry!

I'll go and try it right now. My '96 is definitely cold now, having been in teh driveway for the past week! Back with the results shortly...

Good Luck, Man! I hope the swap goes without major incident. Let us know if anyone in the Utah Air Quality Gestapo descends down on you!!

I had very similar symptoms with an intermittent cam position sensor. It was devilishly difficult to diagnose because just as in your case, waiting a little while made the problem go away. One thing that I do remember about my situation -- it was definitely temperature related. It only occurred if I had been running the engine a little while, but not very long -- as in not long enough for the coolant temp gauge to come fully up to normal operating temp. So the block was warm - not hot. If I'd then shut off the car, and try to restart it a short time later, it would buck, wheeze, sputter, but never fully catch. Waiting until it fully cooled down was the only way to get it started again. Interesting thing about this failure was that it didn't throw the OBD-II code for cam position sensor at first -- only later, as the problem became less intermittent and happened over a wider range of temperatures.

Xtravisions are good, brighter than OEM but they last a reasonable time. I've been using them in my OBW for a while now.

Your can of worms gets bigger and bigger. Given my experience with the reliability of the HG fix, I'd say get the new HGs done, and be done with it!

There's loads of tranny related postings here already -- just search and you shall find what most people recommend. As for me, check the fluid level first, and look for obvious leaks second. Then commence with other troubleshooting. Most of the time slip into first gear is a sign of not enough fluid in the tranny. And if that isn't the problem, definitely try a flush fix before anything else -- if it works, it's a cheap repair as compared with almost anything else.

There's very little chance of it, unless they're required by the inspection process to confirm that the engine code on the block matches with that linked to the vehicle's original VIN. Not likely, but the fact that engine swapping is "illegal" in Utah has me wondering just what they might be required to check there.... Do you know anyone who does smog checks in Utah that you could ask?? Is anyone from Utah reading this thread right now? We're all just speculating here, guys -- we need to hear from someone with direct experience.

Hey, you may still want to consider just replacing the HGs on your 2.5L. Before there were lots of "extra" 2.2L engines lying around (like back in 2000) I replaced the HGs in my '96 OBW (that was at between 67K and 97K miles -- I can't remember which) with the new HG material then available from Subaru. I haven't had a problem with 'em since, and I'm now pushing 218K miles. I think that if you catch the probelm early enough -- before the block and heads are cooked beyond repair -- that you might be OK with the repair. And it CAN be done with the block left in the car. I know from experience.

Carl, A LED might be a bad idea, because it would need to be in series with some resistance in order to keep the current in the LED down to where it wouldn't get cooked when it was on. That might not then allow enough current to "bootstrap" the alternator. A better idea might be to have a resistor in parallel with the lamp. The current would be divided between lamp and resistor, but a value could be chosen that would allow enough current to pass thru the resistor to bootstrap the alternator regardless of whether the lamp was in the circuit or not, and still have enough to light the lamp when the alternator wasn't operating. Why doesn't Subaru do it that way? Who knows?? -- spending an additional $0.03 in parts and probably a few bucks in engineering to have it changed in order to increase reliability may not have occurred to them!

You're Welcome! Have fun!!

What the shop is saying is probably the most optimistic view. This is an interference head design, so odds are if any of the valves were open when the cam seized, they (and maybe the pistons in the affected cylinders) are toast. Doesn't really matter what caused it -- what matters is you can probably pick up a used engine for about the cost of the repairs, if the worst has come to pass.... Have they pulled the heads yet to see how bad the damage is?