GeneralDisorder

I got my high-mileage (well maintained at a dealer) '99 Forester for $1500 with "bad head gaskets" and a blown radiator. I put in a radiator and two bottles of the Subaru coolant conditioner and have been driving it for over a year. It's got 245k on it and it runs like a top. The EJ253 is one of my favorite engines - makes 8 more HP than the '00 through '04 EJ251 (MAP vs. MAF). Mine has the typical external head gasket leak on the driver's side which the dealer told the previous owner had to be replaced. I was going to do it but figured I would try to stop-leak first. Works great. Just did 1200 miles in it over the holidays. I haven't added a drop since I put it in. So.... yes you can find them. But wait till summer when HG's start to get bad and people are dumping them. Mine came with a repair estimate from the dealer for $3400. I spent $120 on the radiator and $3 on the coolant conditioner. I round-filed their "repair estimate". Sure it could use new front axles (clicking but good boots), and some rear wheel bearings. But none of that is stopping it from getting my woman to work every single day. The DOHC is nothing to be concerned about. It's the same exact process. You line up the marks on the crank and cam pulley's, remove the belt, and install the new one. It takes an extra 2 minutes to fiddle with the extra two cam sprockets. Nothing to it. GD

You can count the number of ring-gear teeth through the drain plug hole using a flashlight. 39 = 3.9, 37 = 3.7. There aren't any other ratio's for the D/R here in the US. Depending on how you build the transmission x-member you may have to modify the tunnel. Jerry (bratsrus1) builds a x-member for a very reasonable price ($100 last time I checked) that will just bolt the transmission up without touching the tunnel. The tollerances are very close with a 5 speed in the 4 speed tunnel - without lowering the transmission and rocking the engine backward slightly it will definitely rub. I would just get Jerry's kit as the R&D has been done and we know it works well. GD

Wow - I can't beleive the people at the dealer are that uninformed. Even EJ's have ignitor's..... At any rate you wouldn't like the price of a new one - they are VERY expensive for some reason. Just find a used one to try - they don't fail real often. GD

When changing gear oil after 120k - there will be metal. Always. Some on the magnet (anywhere from 1/8" to 1/4" accumulation) is normal. You may even see some swirl in the gear oil when you drain it. If, when you drain the oil, it looks like metallic paint.... that's real bad. If it's just a little swirl and the gear oil is mostly amber colored and relatively clear.... that's better (not great but not horrible). The input shaft bearings are a pretty common failure. No reason to have it rebuilt though - just install a used tranny. It's not that hard to find them with low miles for $500 or less. Has the clutch ever been done? May want to get out the inspection mirror and see if the alignment pins were reinstalled when the clutch was done. If not - you could have a damage claim against whoever did the clutch. As far as the gear oil ever having been changed.... I haven't seen that this makes a hell of a lot of difference with respect to input shaft bearing life. What kills them is "spirited" driving and possibly the lack of alignment pins in the bell-housing. From what I have seen - they will last a LONG time if driven like grandma - I have a customer with 265k on one and I recently changed the gear oil that had been in there since 90k.... it looked perfect - clear, amber, not even a hint of metal. If driven like a mad-man I have seen them fail at 120k. It's all down to how you drive - each time you take off in first you put a significant side load on the rear input shaft bearing. That's why it's a big sucker with a double-row bearing arrangement. The harder you take off and the more you slip the clutch - the worse the side load becomes. This is only made worse by lack of alignment pins..... GD

You will likely find that the speedo head is shot. You can use any speedo head from '82 to '84 as well as '85 through '87 Brat's and '85 through '89 hatchbacks. Replacing it will involve removing the cluster and dissasembling it - transfering your odometer to the new one, etc GD

It could be the speedo head itself - the "making noise" part doesn't really agree with what I have seen of cable failures. If it's the cable it's likely that it is/was kinked at the speedo head and has broken right there. That's often the case and if that happened you may have to remove the cluster in order to get at the broken peice of the cable. Make sure that the new cable isn't kinked at the speedo end. You have to pull the slack in the cable through to the engine bay or it will fold over at the head when you install the cluster. GD

Sounds like you caught it just in time. I think you have it under control. You should know up front that a valve job on those heads might put it over the cost of a replacement 2.2 engine (much more reliable and cheaper to maintain). It runs about $400 to $500 in machine work to rebuild those heads - typically all the guides are shot, the stem seals are shot, and half the valves and seats have to be replaced plus it is labor intensive to reset the clearances properly, etc. Just so you are aware. GD

Misfire on #4? That could possibly indicate low compression. The #4 exhaust valve is always the one that burns on that engine in my experience. Was a compression check done prior to pulling the engine? For the future you should always perform a comp. check when these type of symptoms arise. Misfire's can be electrical or from loss of compression, etc. Pull the head. Looks like it's going to be a valve job. Don't buy any shims if you are doing a valve job - the machine shop will grind the stem on the valves to set the clearance using the shims you already have. If you were going to adjust it without pulling the head you would buy the smallest shim they make, measure, and then order the correct one. Unless you happen to have one small enough to allow a measurement with a feeler. GD

I don't take offense at his comment, but I do completely understand the feelings he has. Here's the problems that I see: 1. Most of the "crooked" or just "incompetent" shops out there are also the cheap one's. So people think they are getting a good deal. The reality is usually that the work performed and parts used will be of such low quality that the repair is not worth the money being paid - even if it seems cheap. Case in point being Suba9792's clutch. He wrongly assumed that $400 and "we'll be in and out in 2 hours" was a great deal - cheap, fast, etc. Unfortunately they used the worst aftermarket clutch I've ever seen (made in Korea), broke numerous electrical connectors, did not replace zip-ties/secure things properly, lost one of his bell-housing alignment pins, and "forgot" to put gear oil in the transmission. The job was so bad it is almost comical. 2. The "good" shops are expensive. They use quality parts and have a highly trained, expensive labor force. They stand behind their work. BUT - even people that go there and pay for the repair feel like they got "ripped off" because the cost is so high. So - basically everyone in the world thinks "mechanic" is interchangeable with "shyster, crook, scoundrel, etc" because either they do a horrible job or they rob you blind. There isn't much middle ground that I've seen except for the few independant guys like myself and Shawn, etc. And eventually we will probably fall into the 2nd catagory above as we either open our own shops and have to charge a mint for our services due to overhead or work for a shop that does the same. Personally I couldn't live with myself for doing work as in #1 above. It's wrong and I won't do it. GD

We need to see if there is power getting to the fan. The ECU or some relay/fuse setup should be giving it ground signal to run which obviously isn't happenening unless there's some kind of temperature setting that we are not reaching in this cold weather. I doubt we have two bad fans in a row. Since it needed a radiator and I had a direct replacement with fewer miles on it we just swapped the entire assembly. I've seen bad fans before and figured that was probably the case here. But it does seem to be electrical or your system is setup with a different temp set points, etc. If we have power at the fan then it's down to seeing if we have a ground signal and checking fuses/relays. That can take time - more than we had the day we installed it. GD

Well - to be fair (Mike) your's is the "stock" aluminium one - the replacement one's are steel and are even better. But both are fine and are infinitely better than the plastic one's that always leak. The benefit to the steel one is mostly that the screws can be easily removed and the plate resealed. Those pesky phillips head bolts on the aluminium plate are hard to remove without an impact screwdriver. Sounds like a pretty sure bet that your leak is the sep. plate. I've never pulled an engine with a plastic seperator that *wasn't* leaking. GD

Poor choice of words on the part of the service department. They have fallen into the "marketing" trap. You obviously don't have "zero" front brakes or they wouldn't work. Simple as that. But telling people "you have 3/16" of pad left" is both cryptic and not "alarming" enough to get them to buy the brake service. It would have been better if they had just showed you a new pad next to one of your old pads (takes 20 seconds to remove one). That would probably make you buy the service without exagerated marketing terminology. GD

I haven't, no. That's not in any of the perscribed procedures but there's nothing stopping you from doing it. Heck - freeze the bearing race and warm the knuckle to 150 degree's in the oven if you like. Then you will want to freeze the hub and warm the roller bearing elements as well. Or whatever applies if it's a ball bearing style. I reccomend using an impact if you use the FWD service set from Harbor Freight. The bearing race is a TIGHT fit into the knuckle and would have been a serious work-out if I didn't have my 1/2" impact to do the job. Even with that it took probably 15 minutes to get the race fully seated. GD

Why are the valves being adjusted? If this is being done "in response" to poor running conditions (very rough, running on 3 cylinders) then the valve is already burned and "the horse has left the barn" so to speak. No amount of adjustment will bring it back. You will need to do a valve job and repair the damage. If this is maintenance and the engine is otherwise running ok - then as noted make sure the lobe is 180 degrees away from the shim. If you still can't get a .001" feeler gauge in there..... you need to change the shim. Remove it, mic. it, and subtract .010" from that measurement. Then order the appropriate shim. Either way - it's pretty safe to bet that if there is no clearance when you are checking it at room temp - the valve IS hanging open at least part of the time at operating temp. These clearance are set so they close up (partially) when warm due to thermal expansion. GD

Ah - I missed that it was an 05. I was still thinking '00 from the original poster.... my bad. GD

They are dealerships - call them and order it. If you read *anything* on their web site you would know that. In multiple places they say "contact us for availiblilty and pricing!", etc. You can email, call, etc. They can get them they just don't have a lot of requests for that stuff. Besides all that - they have listings for "Loyale" which uses the same exhaust gaskets. GD

www.subarupartsforyou.com www.1stsubarupart.com There are others as well. GD

Since you don't have a press/hub-tamer it will be most cost effective to just swap out the whole knuckle, yes. For $129..... pretty much a no-brainer. It's less than an hour to swap out the knuckle. Just remember to mark the upper strut bolt with a paint-pen, etc to retain the alignment when you install the new one. I would not assume that the "hub with wheel bearing assembly" is the entire knuckle though.... that price doesn't sound right. You might need a press to install it into the knuckle. That's what it sounds like from the description and the price. Usually a whole used knuckle is in the $50 or less range. I would go that route - you won't find a cheaper option. GD

Any Subaru Dealer. All others are inferior. GD

Sure - but a google search would have brought up any number of forums just like this and within a matter of hours he would have all the same reply's you have had..... he didn't have to call out the throttle body. He could have done some homework before he told you to buy some expensive parts. The first thing you do is a search of this forum and others - if no one is replacing throttle body's then the chances of that being bad are slim. Further investigation would have yeilded the answer is what I'm saying and all the tools and experience in the world will not trump that. There is always going to be a problem that you haven't dealt with before and that's where the phone and the keyboard come into play. GD

Well - over time the throttle shaft (what the butterfly pivots on) will wear and will wear the aluminium bore on which it rides. Not much mind you - but if things were too close it could become an issue. It doesn't take much to get them to bind and it sounds like your's was on the ragged edge of binding for a long time and finally the shrinkage caused by the cold weather grabbed the throttle plate and wouldn't let go. Isn't it sad that a guy with a computer and the ability to type can diagnose stuff better than the average mechanic?..... I tend to think that's what seperates the superstar mechanics from the horde of monkeys. Basically it comes down to reading, research, and search skills. My list of phone numbers, web sites, and my reading comprehension/typing skills are far more valuable than any tool in my garage. With just those and some start-up capitol I could put a man on the moon. And that's only about half "joke" too.... GD

Only if you opened the cats and installed a pipe inside them. The large cavity of the cat will create a "stall" in the flow velocity of the exhaust - that will cause issues with the feedback from the O2 sensors - they will not get a consistently timed exhaust flow through the entire RPM band. It's a bad idea. Though you could get cat's that have larger pipe openeings than you need, gut them, and then run a pipe straight through them. So the point is for a visual inspection requirement? Why not put a single cat after the collector like the stock exhaust? GD

More like 90 to 100 inch pounds. These are tiny little guys. You don't want to use anything but the OEM pan gasket - the aftermarket are total crap. You would think that cork is cork..... but that's not the case. Density and the amount of glue being used makes a huge difference. I wish Fel-Pro would make a single-peice silicone gasket with hard bolt bushings for the EA series pan's. They make these for my 350 SBC and it's a lifesaver! I replaced that damn 4-peice cork/rubber thing like 3 times before I gave up and ordered the silicone single peice unit for $25. Total win. GD

The cheap cork gaskets that you get from the aftermarket suppliers will split, yes. The OEM one's from the dealer will not. You need to coat both sides of the gasket in RTV and let it dry before installation. This saves the cork from absorbing oil and failing down the line. You are creating your own rubberized gasket and they work quite well if you are careful and use a good inch-pounds torque wrench to tighten them. GD

Where did you get an '84 RX? Those were not imported to the US. At any rate - you can do something like the EJ22 conversion - but there is not an engine that will easily work in place of the EA81T. Yes the heads are difficult to find but they are still out there. I still see these in the junk yards around here now and then. Any EA81T heads will work - '83 and '84 turbo wagon's, coupe's, and Brat's all have that engine. Don't call it an RX because we never got those in the states so no one will have a parts interchange for it. If you are looking for a "cheap" solution.... there isn't one. Best bet is to fix the EA81T - even at $500 for a set of heads you will still be ahead. Trust me. Minimum you could even consider doing an EJ swap for is about $1000 and it's unlikely that you have the resources to do it that cheaply. Usually closer to $2k and up for stuff like that. An EA82T from '85/'86 might be able to run from the EA81T's ECU, etc but those engines are WORSE than the one you have and have just as aweful head issues - so that's not a good solution. GD