GeneralDisorder

There is an interlock between the shifter and the brake pedal - unless the car has power AND you step on the brake with the key in the ignition the button will not depress to unlock the shifter. You can pop out the surround for the shifter and insert a phillips screwdriver into the hole provided in the top left corner of the mechanism - this is specifically for unlocking the shifter in case of a need to tow the car, etc. You will then be able to shift it into neutral. As for why it doesn't start - fuel, air, spark. Which one don't you have? GD

If you are looking at 2000 and up stuff - don't worry about it. The headgasket "issue" is not that big of a deal (and wasn't really fixed till like '04 or '05 anyway). Throw in some coolant "conditioner" from the dealer and drive on. The leaks are external and really aren't much of a problem. The big, nasty HG problems were on the '96 to '99 engines. GD

If you have any junk yards around - that would be a good source. The hose that goes into the engine is easily made from a section of the IAC supply hose that goes into the intake duct from the air filter. You might find a good plastic nipple or one that you can save by cutting away the hoses. I can often peice a setup together from the yard and get everything for $5 or less. The dealer is ok as well but they will have to special or that stuff and it may take a day or two. Sometimes thats too long when something like that breaks. Plus today is Sunday so none of the dealers are open - figured I would give you some hope . GD

I can do it for $600 including parts (KYB GR-2's). Though driving to Portland may not work out for you..... easily done while you hang out and then drive it home again. PM me if you are interested. BTW - the breakdown is $300 for struts (thereabouts), $200 for labor, and a little over $100 for the alignment (Les Shwabb is 1 block from me). GD

Yikes! That's an unfortunate event. The 4EAT automatic's are known for their reliability. I have a '99 Forester with 245k on it and other than the head gasket leak (just like your's) it's doing quite well. He probably means the rear main seal - that is unlikely. It is most likely the driver's side head gasket that is leaking oil. This is very common and not really a cause for concern if you can manage it by adding some now and then. If you haven't had to add any in 5 months - the leak is not bad enough to concern yourself with. Just forget about that one. Subaru rack's are tough and almost never fail. The pump's on the other hand tend to leak and sometimes leak quite a lot. They can be rebuilt/resealed very inexpensively. That's a strange one - I really don't have much advice there other than "if it hurts when you do that.... don't do it!" It's probably something suspension related. Could just be bad struts in the back. Rear strut failures on newer gen Subaru's are not uncommon. You put the conditioner (two bottles of it - they are small) directly into the radiator. Drain some coolant first if you have to. And for the rest of the car's life you need to add one or two bottles of the conditioner EVERY time the coolant is changed. It's only $1.50 per bottle. It is a special formulation and specific quantity of Subaru approved "stop leak" and it WILL stop the coolant leaking from your head gaskets. This should seal up the cooling system so you won't have to top it off all the time. My Forester was losing so much it had to be topped up every few days - after the stop leak additive I haven't added a drop in 9 month including driving over 1000 miles for christmas... GD

I've got '04 Forester seats in my Hatch. Required a LOT of modification to get them low enough for my liking. Lots of cutting, bending, and welding on the rail system to get them low and straight. They are still pretty tall for me (6'2") and my head is about 2" from the headliner. I figure I will eventually break down the foam a bit and sink in farther. Plus I may remove the headliner anyway . I do like that I sit higher in the seats and they are firm and grip me well. The height will give me better visibility off-road. GD

Ok - your engine is shot it would appear. The distributor is driven directly off the crankshaft on the EA81's so something about your crank is broken. Sounds like oil starvation killed it.... somehow. That usually results in a thrown rod but in your case something else must have given out first. Poor rebuild perhaps? Find another engine. That one is toast. GD

No problem. Remember to order new throw-out bearing clips from the dealer (couple bucks), and grease the transmission quill as well as remove the fork from the ball-stud and clean both it and the fork socket and apply grease to the socket and the two points of contact with the T/O. Grease the input shaft splines lightly. Leave the pressure plate loose. Only tight enough to provide just enough friction that you can move the disc around with your finger. Then tighten the pressure plate bolts through the starter hole. If you don't already know - it's much easier to pull the engine for a clutch job on a Subaru. MUCH easier. GD

If you are looking for it to die - it probably won't as long as you keep the fluids topped off. Add two bottles of the Subaru coolant "conditioner" - that will stop the coolant weeping on the head gasket. Replacement of the head gasket is not that big of a deal - it will run like it is as long as you keep it full of fluids and likely never have any issues. Those leaks are external and not into a combustion chamber, or mixing fluids, etc. Sounds like you have an automatic. Would be a simple thing to pull the engine, replace the head gaskets and at the same time fix the transmission leaks. How do you know it's leaking from the transmission between the engine and tranny? That would have to be front differential gear oil and those rarely leak. Very uncommon. If it's ATF you are seeing then it's much more likely the PS pump. Are you sure this isn't the pump? They leak and it looks like it's comming from EVERYWHERE. You can reseal them pretty easily. Sounds like it needs a few maintenance items but 201k isn't the end of the line for an EJ251. Fix a few odds and ends and it will easily go another 100k. None of that stuff is expensive if you do it yourself. GD

Yes - go to the dealer for o-rings. GD

Exedy or the dealer. Find the Exedy part number and put it into Amazon - they have the best prices and free shipping. I have had so many problems with other brands - I will not consider anything but those. Yes - 4WD is a 225mm clutch. 2WD is a 200mm clutch. They are completely different. Exedy is the OEM for Subaru BTW. GD

Unlikley that Subaru still has any around for a '95. Possible.... but unlikely. You can't even get floor mats for them anymore I don't think . Accesories like that tend to run out and never get produced again. No real market for air deflectors for 15 y/o station wagons :-\ Not really a "spoiler".... more of a "roof accent" LOL. They probably cause a swirl in the airflow that tends to keep the rear window cleaner. The sum total of their functionality..... GD

I know the '96 Outback I'm working on right now has electronic. It's possible that your '95 does as well. The connectors WILL be different. That I know for certain. There are differences between body styles as well as differences between years. I know the speedo head connector on a '96 is different from a '97 for example. Physically incompatible. So reqwireing using the donor car's harness connectors will be required for sure. GD

SPFI stands for "Single Port Fuel Injection". It is not a single part but rather a series of components that together provide both fuel and ignition. Thus it cannot "fail" in the sense of the word you mean. Nor can you "buy" a rebuilt one. You could buy all the parts of the system from Subaru but the price would be ghastly - much more than the value of your car. What symptoms are you having? The way it works here is you describe your problem and we tell you what to do. So stop troubleshooting what you don't understand and tell us what your problem is . GD

Is the drive gear still on the distributor? Is that what you are seeing in the hole? GD

I wouldn't bat an eye at the ebay stuff going 105k - they are intended to do so. All the kits I've used (mizumoauto and theimportexperts) include japanese bearing idlers. I have not had a single failure over a single belt change interval (60k or 105k) and have not heard of it on this board either. As for the dual-row vs. single row idlers - personally I haven't seen a significant difference if they are changed at every belt interval. The reason Subaru went to the dual bearing idlers is because they DO NOT list a change interval for the idlers at all. If you just leave the things in place then eventually one will fail and when it does the single row bearing idler will collapse. Chances are that the doulble row will make a lot of noise but not actually keel over sideways like the single row will. But the biggest source of failure is the cogged idler. By far that is the most common one to seize up or start squeeling. I do LOTS of timing belts. Often a couple a week. I can easily do them in less than 3 hours. I have yet to have a problem with the ebay sellers or their products. As Northwet noted - mizumoauto has been very good. They have the better prices of the two sellers and their customer service is great. They flubbed up and sent me an incorrect idler on one of my kits - they promptly sent me the replacement and I sent them back their (clearly non-Subaru) part. It was simple and easy and I have NO complaints with them or the quality of their components. GD

So the disributor is not spinning? Does it still have the drive gear attached? Have you pulled out the disty and confirmed that it's not just a sheared roll pin or damaged gear? This sounds like severe oil starvation. I don't know of any other way you would break a cam on an EA81. Never heard of this before...... GD

It's not the PCV valve - this was addressed in a breather hose upgrade kit that came out in the early '90s for the SPFI engines. It changes the porting of the PCV hoses on the intake boot. Go to the dealer and get the kit that addreses the long, sweeping right hand turns issue. It is part #11813AA010. It's not real expensive ($30 to $40) as this was a kit for people that complained about the problem. I don't think it was an official recall but it was done as a "courtesy" repair for many, many cars when they were newer. A dealer *might* still fix it for free, but I doubt it. The kit takes about 2 minutes to install - all the changes are right on top of the intake snorkel. GD

$108 shipped for the whole kit with water pump on ebay. I have used dozens of them. Look up the seller "mizumoauto". No reason to reuse the ilders. I wouldn't consider it. GD

What year is your hatch? Early (80 and 81) models had external voltage regulators. The fact that it dies with a brand new battery is very strange - it should run on the battery alone for a time. That it will run with jumper cables tells me the "new" battery hasn't got enough juice to do the job on it's own. GD

1/4" ratchet and shallow socket work great for me. I put a ratchet on the crank bolt to counter my loosening/tightening force. Sometimes I slip a pipe over the 1/4" ratchet handle. Nothing special. It helps to disconnect the TPS and IAC, etc and move the wiring as well as some of the PCV hoses. Really not that big of a deal. GD

Anything is possible. Might be more work than you want to do. Not sure if the '95 had a cable-drive speedo or electronic..... something to take a look at. For sure some of the connectors would be different. I'm sure with enough time and some schematics you could make it work. There isn't that much to a cluster. GD

You will need a custom length driveshaft. You will very likely have to angle the entire drivetrain back slightly to clear the larger diameter of the transfer section of the 5MT D/R. Obviously it will not mount to a top-starter EA71 - I assume you already have an EA81 or a fat-case EA71 with the side-starter bell-housing. I would just throw it up in there and go from there. It will be custom for sure - but it's not that big of a deal. Mostly building the x-member so that the tranny is low enough in the back to not hit the tunnel. Probably have to do some linkage mods too. Nothing that you can't do with your welder I would imagine. GD

Somewhat rare, yes. That is an EJ22T (turbo, closed deck) from a '91 to '94 USDM Legacy turbo. Basically the block is worth a little to the right person because it's a closed deck engine (very rigid). The 22T was the largest closed deck Subaru block ever made and Subaru ceased production of the sand-cast blocks after '96. But these days everyone uses the semi-closed deck blocks. A few years ago you could probably get a couple grand for a new/rebuilt 22T. But now that they make the EJ257 (2.5 and semi-closed - good to 1000 HP or more).... the market pretty much evaporated. Might fetch $300 for one if you know the internal condition. If you don't - maybe $200. Not worth a ton anymore. You could get $1000 for a running, complete engine - but an uknown condition 22T short block isn't worth a lot. Plus it's only the block that's valuable - the internals are junk. The piston-skirt oil sprayers often fall out of the crank so those holes need to be capped off.... and the *thing* to do with those is stroke t them with a 2.5 rotating assembly - creating a 2.35 with much higher HP potential. The cylinder wall in that one picture looks.....BAD. Maybe just the picture though. If it's trashed - it's worth just about.... scrap metal price. GD