GeneralDisorder

The cylinders lay on their side and fluids do not drain away from them. The head gaskets fail such that exhaust gasses will be pushed into the cooling system. This does not lend itself to repair in a bottle. RockAuto has nothing worth using on a Subaru head gasket job. Get the gaskets from the dealer parts department. There is no MLS gasket for the 2.2 - they are graphite impregnated composite gaskets on that engine. Just order all the parts from Subaru. You can get timing belt and idlers from another source if you like - stick with Japanese origin parts. GD

No the heads are not cracked. That never happens. No the block sealers do not work on Subarus. Cylinder orientation and HG failure mode are to blame.... don't bother it's a wasted effort. Resurface the heads and install new gaskets. It will likely be fine. GD

Well I usually have to walk over to the diagnostic tool shelf for the compression tester. It's a little farther than turning around to my box. I keep that stuff more centrally located so all the guys know where to find it. Expensive diag tools are community use at my shop. I don't expect the techs to buy that stuff. GD

It's faster to do a compression test as the next test. But injectors may be indicated if it's got good comp. numbers. GD

You mean the ignitor? It's built into the coil pack so he already did. GD

You use the one from the EA. You adapt it down with some -3 braided stainless line, flare fittings, etc. It's not difficult. GD

Cylinders 1 and 2 share the wasted spark coil, so a coil, terminal, wire, or plug problem could affect both cylinders. Usually this means the coil pack is the issue but it could be coincidence. If a spare coil doesn't solve it, then run a compression test across all 4. If 1 and 2 come up low then the problem is internal because they don't share a camshaft so timing is ruled out. In that case most likely would be burnt exhaust valves which will be a re-ring and new valve situation. GD

Who said you had good reasons? That's clearly what we are debating. You don't have good reasons, you just haven't got the experience to know they weren't good reasons. You come here and ask for the BEST WAY to do something, and we hand you that. Despite our objections you wish to proceed as if this were a post apocalypse and spends inordinate amounts of yours, and others time solving a non-problem with stone knives and bear skins. Yeah, I'm a condescending a$$hole. This is well known. I've been known to show customers the door that insist on foolishness such as this. I help people, and I solve problems - efficiently. It's my job you see..... And much like Winston Wolf - if my help is not appreciated - Lots of luck gentleman. I don't beat around the bush, and I will tell you if you are stepping over dollars to pickup pennies. And I've helped thousands of people. Check my post count sir. If this project was just a diversionary side show and you didn't actually need a car to drive (which I doubt) then I guess as a learning experience on broken bolt extraction it's somewhat useful. But don't expect to be an expert in that till you do it daily for a couple decades. Each time the job is a unique snowflake so this is somewhat of an area that's best left to professionals with thousands in tooling and decades of experience. They will get you back on track much more efficiently. GD

Besides feeding my family, I have the customers best interest and liability to consider as well. Brakes are a touchy business and more than one shop has been sued over such things. I would NEVER consider replacing a caliper mounting bracket bolt with something from a bolt bin that I cut the length..... If it's bad then I get the right parts number from the dealer for $5 or whatever. Then I have a receipt to PROVE the right parts got used. You can imagine the poop storm that would ensue should the incorrect bolt shear off, work loose, etc. And then I'm left telling some judge that the part I used was fine "because I say so!".... and God forbid if somoem gets hurt or killed in that accident. I could go to prison. Not even kidding. Of course I can do all this quarter a$$ed stuff on my own cars. But I don't. Invariably it takes longer and I haven't got the time to screw around. GD

Agree. 1 quart in 5k is acceptable. GD

Teflon is like the most inert substance known to man. Seriously it's harmless. Also super cheap to have recoated. It's effectively a powder coating process. I know a coatings shop that does all the restaurant chef cookware. Cheap too. Yeah I do this every day and I charge labor. While I could easily extract the bustamacated bolt shaft... it's an indication of the larger condition of the system. I can have a new caliper and bracket in an hour or less and spend all that time making real money on another job in the shop. I understand that you feel you saved $44 here, but in reality you spent $6 and wasted hours upon hours of time (yours and your friends) and fuel chasing a problem that you didn't need to chase. Now if this were the last caliper bracket on planet dirt farm, backwoods, appalaicha or wherever, then sure - got no choice. But I would rather enjoy a hike in the woods or fetch with my dog than sharpen up my drills for a fight with a $50 rusty bit of junk. It's perspective I guess. I throw away entire engines and transmissions (that could conceivably be repaired) on a daily. A rusted up caliper bracket goes directly in the core box.

EJ22 swap is old news. We can fix the 2.5's now. No reason to neuter a Forester. Do up a proper 2.5 or fix what it's got. 2.2's are getting really old. Newest non-interferance 2.2 is now old enough to smoke Chesterfields and that's a fair description of most that are left: smoking rubbish. There's a few good runners out there but it's time to move into the next phase. The EJ25 is a great engine and the early model problems have solutions now. GD

That is not a valid test and you risk damaging hoses and plastic cooling system components doing things like that. The radiator cap on the turbo cars is 16 psi and that means it will purposefully vent at 16 psi into the overflow bottle. The reason your gauge says "Caution - 30 psi systems only!" is because it could explode in your face leaving you scarred for life if you don't end up blind. Ever heard of a pressure cooker explosion? That's what you are headed for here. DO NOT block the cooling system like that. YOU COULD DIE. Clear enough for you? As to the venting of bubbles - drive it for a few days. If it doesn't stop this behavior then you want to have someone with an exhaust gas analyzer check for HC's emanating from the overflow bottle. Also a ring of oily residue usually indicates combustion byproducts are entering the cooling system. Upper radiator hose failures are common on the turbo models as well as upper water tank to turbo outlet hoses, and radiator plastic tank failures. Highly reccomend an aluminium radiator if you don't have one. GD

Yeah I've seen them that bad. And had this same discussion with customers and warranty companies. They don't want to pay for rings. So we gasket it up and amazingly it doesn't leak or stink anymore but still adding oil. Virtually the same amount too. Never fails - every time someone believes they know better than I do that their rings are fine.... They aren't. GD

Wow. Some people just don't listen. Two ways to do this. Take it to a machine shop with an EDM and it's done in about a minute. Or you get a reman caliper - THEY COME WITH THE BRACKET ya dolt! Facepalm. You don't mess with fubar brake calipers or brackets. By the time you run all over creation, break half a dozen tools, and buy a bunch of expensive taps and drills, it could have been done already. GD

Burnt exhaust valves are due to piston ring oil control failure. The carbon builds up around the valve stem, and prevents the valve from closing rapidly and completely. It also coats the valve seat and face. The valve has 1000+ degree exhaust gasses traveling over it and if it cannot make complete and rapid contact with the seat, it cannot dissipate this heat into the cylinder head. This heat soaks into the stem and carbonizes more oil to the stem and guide making the problem worse and worse. If you don't replace the rings, it's a GUARANTEE the burnt valve situation will reappear within 20k miles. Before you go any deeper into this foolish rabbit hole - pull the oil pump and check it's condition. If it's scored up inside just wash your hands of the engine, or more likely the whole car. You can't buy oil pumps anymore for this engine. GD

It has a lot to do with how it's driven, and how often you let the oil go past it's useful life. With cars that are religiously maintained, you will be much more likely to not exceed the life of dino oil before it gets changed out. It still doesn't make it cheaper though because you could go twice or three times as long for less than double the cost by just moving to synthetic. Not to mention the labor savings. Then there's the people that have some kind of cooling system malfunction, overheat the bejesus out of the oil and the rings. Lose all the ring tension and turn the oil to burnt garbage. There's lots of reasons, but ultimately synthetics provide much better protection, greatly increased oil life, and withstand much higher temperatures for a lot longer. And all this is free if you just increase your change interval commensurate with the product guidelines. You will do less work, you will spend less money, and you engine will last longer. I'm not seeing the drawbacks here? To me it makes absolutely no sense to run dino oil unless the consumption is just too high in which case you need new rings anyway and this conversation is moot because your engine is a broken mess. GD

Just get a reman caliper. It comes with the bracket. Let the rebuilders deal with it. Reman caliper should be no more than $50. GD

The leaks from the head gaskets don't actually amount to much. They look bad, but if you are topping off the oil, then 99% of what you are adding is going out the exhaust. GD

You can use any 99 to about 04 transmission from a 4.11 equipped vehicle (non-Outback Legacy) except the Legacy GT. Those had the sport shift and I'm not certain of their compatibility. GD

I just did a re-ring on a 2005 Forester: Customer came in complaining of noises from the engine when accelerating and especially uphill under load. I've never worked on this car before. I drove the car with the customer in the passenger seat. Immediately recognized the unmistakable sound of pinging (detonation). I drove a bit more and he filled me in on how it only does it after it gets warmed up, etc. At the end of the test drive I asked the customer "How much oil are you adding between oil changes?".... he says "How did you know?".... he's using a quart every 1k miles. So this Forester has about 100k on it. It already had a burnt exhaust valve and the DEALERSHIP sent the heads out to be repaired and did HG's, timing belt, and water pump. Now I'm in the position of having to tell this customer that all the work done previously - two head gasket jobs and a burnt valve repair - was a waste of time because the engine is burning oil, creating carbon deposits in the cylinder, plugging up exhaust valve stems, and making cylinder hot spots that are causing detonation, knock sensor goes wild, computer pulls timing, and basically it's just a huge mess and he needs new rings. So we do rings. Birds chirp, sunshine breaks through the clouds, etc. He called me on an unrelated and says it's never run better. More power than it's ever had, no pinging, and smooth as glass. When you have seen this sequence of events play out a thousand times.... You won't buy non-synthetic oil anymore. Just a matter of vast amounts of experience, that's all. Also - remember the owners manual is written by the people that want to sell you a new car every few years. They have an interest in your car lasting through the warranty period - after that it's not as much of a concern. 7,500 mile oil changes with non-synthetic will kill these engines VERY quickly. GD

DO NOT overhaul the transmission. This never ends well because it's a very involved process and the skills to do it correctly just aren't out there. If the "mechanic" doesn't understand the torque bind, then he hasn't got the skills to rebuild this transmission. RUN. Get a used transmission. They are plentiful and failure is uncommon. You will regret an "overhaul" mark my words. GD

Yeah we have fabbed axles. It's not that hard if you can fab press tools to take them apart without damage and have a master (and I mean this in the strongest sense possible) welder that can shorten the shaft, weld them together, true them on a lathe, and the sleeve them.... etc. We shortened a set of EJ axles for doing a 5 lug swap on an EJ swapped Brat for rally-x. I would say it's probably beyond the capability or price of 99% of the EA community. It's easily $500 per shaft. GD

The engines will keep going long after they should be fixed if you keep pouring oil into them. But they will be down on power, pinging and pulling timing, and the oil consumption will lead eventually to burnt exhaust valves. And I have seen spalling and pitting to camshaft lobes, in addition to rod and main damage from all the carbon build up. The older engines (pre 99 2.2's, and pre 97 2.5's) have large oil slots in the piston skirt behind the oil control valve. These tolerate dino oil, and less frequent oil changes. The newer ones do not. GD

It may not be too bad as far as dino oils go, but none of them work well long term on Subaru motors made after 98 or any of the 2.5's. The oil return passages in the piston will clog and it will burn copious amounts of oil. Synthetics are the best way to prevent this long term. GD