jj421

Yes, I've been planning on removing the rust and repainting. It is surface only, thankfully. There is no other rust that I can find other than on the body, so some sanding and painting is all I really need to do. That's gonna be a project I'm gonna do soon; probably after my next paycheck. Got paid yesterday and already spent all my money on registration and car insurance. And my paint color is not near the latch, but above the driver's side shock, haha. It's code #946. Hopefully my nearby NAPA can whip up an aerosol can of that. :-p

Got my baby registered with Washington plates, finally! Oh, let's see what else. Replaced the front passenger side axle, "restored" that 4WD decal on the rear, got two functioning trunk struts (so my trunk finally stays open), got basically new windshield wipers all the way around (shame I won't use them for a few months), and for the first time since I bought her, I gave her a wash. Tomorrow I'm gonna try and take off the bumper and replace the horns with a pair of Fiamm Freeway Blasters. And I'm gonna go from there.

Okay, I'll talk to him. I got like five 4WD and two USMB decals from him for $5 a few weeks ago, haha. Last time I went to the Pick-N-Pull, there were only two Loyales, one GL, and one GL10. Only one Loyale had the cone washer still on both wheels. One axle nut was torqued way too much for me to get off and the other, well, as I said, I lost it somewhere. But it probably wasn't very good. I guess people here in the Seattle area take all the common things from the few older gen Subarus that end up wrecked, such as cone washers, trunk struts (even though I found a good pair), and other things. I'm sure there are a number of failing washers on the road, but I'm sure there are a lot of good ones. I'd say a 50/50 split. There are probably a lot of cars where the washer is failing, but the wheel area isn't making noise yet, so people are unaware. I'll talk to ShawnW. I think I'll spend the extra bit and get some new ones from him. But I gotta do that in two weeks. Sneaking through emissions, getting the car registered, and paying car insurance is important right now, haha.

Yeah, I figured if my cone washer was worn, the noises would come back. I just wish I could buy it elsewhere than the dealership. I went to the junkyard and pretty much everyone took the cone washers off the Soobies that were there. I managed to get one, but the bag I put it in developed a hole and now the washer is sitting somewhere on the ground in the junkyard. Really? The spring washer is upside down? I honestly can't tell, haha. The passenger side is also probably upside down. I heard that aftermarket spring washers say "OUT" on the side that goes out, haha. I'll flip 'em over when I get some new cone washers. Well, even if my cone washers are trashed, I'm just glad it's not my bearings. I'd love it if I could find a place to get the cone washer(s) for cheap, haha. Although the passenger side doesn't make as much noise as the driver's side, I believe I need to replace both. I guess if they're so easy to damage and there are so few at the local junkyard, I might as well dish out the money and buy a brand new one from the dealership.

Yeah, I definitely know what to do now if the symptoms start up again. I'm just glad because now if I go through the drive-thru, it won't sound like a knife is scraping against my wheel. It seems to me like you're using "axle nut" and "cone washer" interchangeably. They aren't the same thing. You've got the cotter pin, the axle nut (a.k.a. castle nut), the flat/spring washer, and then the cone washer. Unless you know the difference. Because I believe a failing cone washer can cause the axle nut to come loose. However, I just fixed my car's noises by replacing the axle nut, not the cone washer (I'll replace the cone washer if the axle nut comes loose again). Although it is benneficial to replace the nut and two washers at the same time I guess. Although I don't wanna spend $15 on a cone washer! The four times I've torqued my axle nuts, they've always lined up with the cotter pin holes at 145 ft-lbs, which is weird. Guess I'm lucky? I haven't done any offroading or driving in 4WD lately. My wheels started making noise after I bought the car and before I went "offroading" for the first (and last) time in it, and it wasn't anything rough. Just some greenlaning up a mountain. Only time I needed 4WD was because FWD didn't give enough power to climb the incline. :-p I guess my axle nuts just deteriorated over time, since my car's got 260,000 miles. As far as I can tell, most everything on my car looks original, so I think the axle nuts were from 1990. :-p I went out tonight and took some pictures. The first pic is of my old axle nut (resting on a lug nut). You can see that the edges are messed up, almost making it a stripped. The threads are also pretty messed up. The second pic is of the new axle nut, which you can tell is in a lot better shape.

Ahh, well happy birthday to him then! Yeah, I could probably do something Sunday, depending on where we'd cruise to. Especially considering you live a fair amount south of my location, haha. If I don't go to the DMV and emissions tomorrow, I'd go Sunday, so..., yeah. And I might try and replace my horns Sunday. Maybe?

Well, sir, I believe you just fixed two cars today. Apparently, you fixed your car with a new axle nut. I thought, hey, I got two brand new axle nuts in my garage. One came off the axle I bought and the other one, well, I don't know where it came from. I decided to swap out the brand new axle nuts and put them on the front wheels of my car. Couldn't help but notice that my old axle nut (especially on the driver's side) was really worn; the 'castle' part of the nut was chipped away, the threads were diminishing, etc. Put the new nut on. Torqued it to spec; 145 ft-lbs. I couldn't help but think, there's no way this fixed the issue. A brand new nut? No, it's gotta be something else. Jumped in my car, turned the engine on, and started driving down the street. It eliminated ALL noises coming from the wheel! It was so quiet, a blind person would think I was driving a Prius. Gonna need to check it in 100 miles or so, to see if the cone washer is indeed failing. But wow, that blows my mind. I seriously thought it was my wheel bearings. I guess I'm gonna have to sell my bearings that I bought. Anyone wanna buy 'em? Haha :-p Thanks for fixing my car too!

Really? That was it? It fixed all the noises coming from the wheel? Maybe that's all I need to do, but I doubt that, haha.

Hmmm, sounds like a similar issue to what I have, except mine is in the front. Through a lot of reading on here, I really believe my wheel bearings are going bad, and I'm gonna replace them once I can get someone to help me. I say it could be your wheel bearings or maybe your axle, just from my experiences.

Hmm, I'll see. Last time I was there, I don't think any of the Subarus that were there had a "spoiler." But then again, that was a couple months ago. But then again, based on their website, they have only gotten one more Subaru Loyale in since. I'll see tomorrow.

Yeah, I'm going to the Pick-N-Pull either tomorrow or the next day; probably tomorrow. I'll see about finding one, but I bet they'll all be taken or there are none. I'll see. Hopefully I can also get a purge solenoid, two trunk shocks (I think that's what they're called), and some good cone/spring washers.

Hahaha, well I do have a 3" or 4" extension, and I was gonna try that first. Although I need a breaker bar because my bumper bolts are stuck on there tight. If my extension doesn't work, then I'd go looking for one a couple feet in length.

This is almost a week old, haha, but are you still doing a cruise? As it turns out, I can't make it to WCSS, and I might be interested in tagging along if you are still doing it.

Quality isn't bad, but not necessarily great. I'd dish out the money and buy some quality tools if I had to do something major. But if it's like torquing the brake caliper bolt to "33–40 ft. lbs." (Chilton), accuracy is obviously not too concerning, ergo a cheaper tool is fine. Like I said, I got my torque wrench for $10, which is $25 cheaper than their retail price. That's a great deal considering what you can get at O'Reilly for the same price. :-p

Yes, haha. My car actually has a fair amount of rust, but luckily, as far as I can tell, it's only on the body. Haven't seen any rust underneath or anything so far. And as long as if you're not super close to the car, you can't really see the rust. Except on the trunk; that rust is ugly!

My Loyale isn't much, but I wanted to contribute something, haha.

Yes, that's where I bought my torque wrench. It's the Pittsburgh 1/2" click stop wrench. It was on sale for $20, then with a coupon I got it for $10. The only issue with Harbor Freight is it's a 30-45 minute drive from my house, which especially if you need something during the middle of a repair, that's quite a drive. But yeah, O'Reilly is good for parts; Harbor Freight is good for (cheap) tools.

Okay, lesson learned then. I just use it to break nuts loose, since I don't have a breaker bar, yet. But I still need the adapters to torque smaller nuts to their spec. Keep in mind also that my torque wrench is a really cheap one, so it's not like I would use it on anything major as-is. When I decide to go up to the Pick-N-Pull to get good used cone and spring washers so I can do my bearings, I'll stop by Harbor Freight and pick up a breaker bar.

Dr. RX, I sent you a PM. Hmmm, I'd have to see. That'd require me to buy more stuff though, haha. And I need to get my money back on some stuff. I bought a ratchet reducer kit (a cheap version) for using my torque wrench to loosen regular bolts. But the actual adapter sheered off. Bought another one. That one broke too. I'm down ~$9 now. Then I bought the deep 17mm socket for $7. It turned out that I never actually needed it during the axle replacement, and O'Reilly won't take it back because it's "used," although I didn't use it once. I'm down almost $20, which is pissing me off...

Yes, I love the feeling. I can imagine how great it felt for you to actually be able to drive your GLW after doing that! I really got the feeling when I replaced by front brake pads a week or so ago. Mainly because the passenger side cylinder was being really stubborn and it took some time to push it back in, haha. And I was proud because, well, my brakes still worked. :-p Then I was happy that everything worked after the axle repair, especially since you (kinda) have to take off a number of parts to remove/install the axle. Second part, yeah, it's not necessary. But I do want to take a class if I can save up and afford it or something. Not only so it helps me fix my car, but I also would like to pursue a mechanic career. And the classes would teach me with working on other cars, which would be nice to know about. I would like an actual class with hands-on projects, but I could also learn online. An online course would definitely be easier to take (and probably cheaper), but yeah, working on a real car would be better. I would love to go talk to someone else working on their car. Unfortunately, I live in a rich neighborhood where ~30% of cars are brand new 2010+ cars owned by teenagers that were given to them by their parents. Another 60% are owned by adults who have either brand new cars or late '90s. Those two groups of people take their cars to a mechanic to have fixed. People here are "scared" to buy fixer-uppers. My old $350 GL was the laughing stock of the community, all because it had a few dents and an exhaust leak. Ugh..., haha. The final 10% are people who have cars that they work on themselves. But they seem to do it in private. You NEVER see a car being worked on in someone's driveway/garage. I live next to busy intersection though, so whenever I work on my car, hundreds of people drive past me. I've lived here for ~11-12 years and I have not seen one person working on their car. I'd have to drive quite a ways before I find someone. The best I can do is actually talk to and get mentoring from a mechanic, but I only know one, and he is almost always busy. So only so much I can do, but I understand what you're saying. If I lived in a community where people buy more than just windshield wiper blades and coolant from the auto parts store, I'd definitely go up to someone working on their car. Yes, now I know what to do for any future replacements (which I hope I never have to do again ). In retrospect, I wouldn't say it was too difficult. It would have been a lot easier if I knew to disconnect the sway bar.... I disconnected the inner control arm bolt, but not the sway bar. Now I know what to do. Luckily, despite all the miles and my car having been owned by people all over the Northwest, there is hardly any rust (besides on the body), so bolts are pretty easy to get off. I did manage to cut my hand from my ratchet slipping off a tight bolt though. :-p On a side note, I feel like I type way more than I need to. :-p

Yeah, if I'm inexperienced like I am and impatient like I am (albeit a lot more patient than most teens), it's gonna be exhausting. This axle repair.... I went into it with a vague "textbook" knowledge on how to do it. I didn't necessarily know what tools I needed or anything really. I just knew the general concept as to what I'm doing. Again, if I had to do this repair again, it'd probably take me a couple hours and it'd be relatively easy. As I gain more and more experience working on cars, it becomes easier and easier. You also have to keep in mind that I've had no formal auto mechanic training and not one person to help me or show me. Every repair I've done in the nine months that I've owned a car have been me researching it online and doing it by myself. Might not sound like much since most "backyard mechanics" do repairs by themselves, but at least my first few repairs would've been nice to have someone with me with some sort of auto mechanic knowledge. But anyways, I can say one thing for sure; there's not many greater feelings than when you work hard on a repair and in the end, everything goes as planned. Oh, and I do hope to take an auto mechanic course at a local college or online, hopefully by the time I'm 18. So then I'll have the knowledge.

Haha, wow. Yeah, I know it'll get tougher when I get older. I just kinda have to "break myself in" a bit. For example, when I first got my job, after a 4 hour shift, I got home and was extremely tired. Now that I've been working for a while, I can go on an 8 hour shift and still have energy afterwards. Another example; when I got my old GL (with an EA81), I had to replace the valve cover gaskets (my first car repair). When I was doing the replacement, I thought it was really difficult and a pretty major repair. When I was finished, I was exhausted and whatnot. Now if I had to do the valve cover gaskets again, it'd take me a lot less time and it's be a really easy thing to do. So as I do things more and more, I get more and more used to it, thereby decreasing the difficulty and exhaustion. If I were to do another axle replacement, it certainly wouldn't take me two days, I'd know what I was doing, and I wouldn't be tired afterwards. So long story short, I know things will get more difficult later in life and whatnot. It's just the first time I do things, I can get exhausted easier.

I've never been a fan of rain guards and whatnot. But then again, I've never actually tried them. I think they'd worth a try and see. I'd see the pros in opening the windows when it's raining. In my Loyale, when it rains, the windows do tend to fog up (especially with two people in the car). The defog kinda works, but makes the car idle at ~1800 RPM. Opening the window(s) is the best option, but the rain can be annoying. But I generally don't like the looks of rain guards. Plus I'd need to open the windows past their effective range to defog the windows. However, I'd be interested in the rear spoiler/visor/wind deflector (on the Soobie on the right in the picture; mine, on the left, looks a bit different since the picture was taken :-p ). I think that looks pretty good, especially with the roof rack that I don't have. As I took a second glance at this photo, I think I see something. Is it just me, or is my Loyale taller, wider, and longer than that GL? Is the Loyale a bit larger than late '80s GLs?

Thanks! Now I need to do my bearings.... I'd really need someone to help me in person with those though. But that's a project for another day. Again, thanks for your help!

It just sucks though because I might only be able to go to WCSS for one day. I work the other two. Since it'd be my first time going to WCSS, I don't even know if I can just go on the third day, haha. But yeah, I'm sure I'll get it done. It's just those four bumper bolts are really hard to get to, haha. Plus I'm kinda sore from the two days of work on the axle. Crawling under the car, getting up, reaching into the engine compartment, going back to the knuckle, going to get tools, going back under the car, etc. I definitely need a creeper, haha.