GeneralDisorder

That only applies to '98s - the '99 and up Foresters got the SOHC engine so they are completely different animals. I would avoid the '98s as that is the DOHC EJ25D and has more serious HG issues than the SOHC engine on the '99 and up. It's also more expensive to work on. How you can think the Forester is higher quality (based on the cheap Impreza) than a '99 OBW is beyond me. There's little actual difference except the OBW is a higher end model and better appointed usually. GD

EA82 rear springs are WAY smaller diameter than EA front springs. I doubt anything would swap between the two. As far as stiffer but same height - I would fab up some mounts for an air-shock. GD

Head gaskets and rear wheel bearings. I have a '99 Forester with 242k on it and it's doing just fine. If you change to the upgraded head gaskets and install the Legacy rear wheel bearings it will be just as reliable as any other Subaru IMO. GD

Run it to operating temp once a week and install an hour-meter. Change the oil every 50 hours of operation. GD

When you see that it's getting too hot and in danger of burning through - make your weld wider and bring more of the base metal into the weld path. You want to move faster over thinner sections (like where the joint is located - there will always be a tiny gap here no matter how well you fit them) and get back into the pipe - never stay in one place - you want short overlapping loops that return to the slightly cooled section you just went over (that's now thicker) - it's not going to cool enough in that short time for slag to form and be included in the weld. The devious thing about flux-core is that you MUST run a bead. If you peck at it with little spot welds (which I have done with gas on really thin stuff and things like expanded metal grating, etc) you have to stop and clean each little spot before proceeding and that's just not practical. This is why doing thin stuff with flux core is so freakin hard. Experience with thicker stuff will help - try getting some small peices of 1/8" plate and welding them at right angles to each other - called a T-joint weld. When you can get your T-joints to lay concave in the center with no undercutting on either side and lay down like a "stack of dimes" you are doing good. There should be no "hump" to the center of the weld on a joint like that. A hump indicates staying too long in the center and not incorporating the base metal - this is often accompanied by "undercutting" the base metal - usually on the vertical section of the joint because gravity pulls the puddle down. You have to "wash" the puddle up the side and stay on the base metal for longer than you stay in the center. Travel speed on each section of your "loops" is very important...... I'm probably just confusing you. Did any of that help without pictures? For the exhaust project - it might also help you to get an exhaust pipe expander from harbor frieght so you can make one section slip over the next - this will give you a thicker base metal upon which to weld - double the thickness at the joint. GD

Get the belts and pulley set from ebay - like $65 or something for both tensioners, the idler, and both belts. Get yourself a set of cam seals, a crank seal, and an oil pump seal kit from the dealer. Ditch the timing belt covers. Should be able to do it for well under $100 with parts and coolant. Takes about 2 to 4 hours to replace them and no internal damage can result from them breaking so if that's all that's wrong with it I say go ahead and replace them. GD

That sounds alright actually. Especially when running the machine on a low setting. They generally reccomend a 40 or 50 amp for a 220v machine though. I have a 40 amp dedicated breaker going to mine. I built a 50' 8 AWG extension cord that allows me freedom of movement - best to build your own from SOOW cord. It makes the best extension cords ever! It's so flexible it's unreal. It's less stiff than all of my 14 and 12 AWG 110v cords . You might have an experienced welder check out the machine and give it a quick run - if it's not working right you might never get it to weld decent. It would be good peice of mind to know that it's you and not the machine . Going off your pic there I see a lot of spatter. You need to practice your puddle control and make little loops or C shapes as you move. Pay attention to the puddle not the arc. GD

Sounds like piston slap to me. GD

One thing you may not have considered - your power supply to the welder. With a 220v machine it's very critical that proper wire sizing be used to supply it including any extension cords. What's your setup for power supply to the machine? GD

Ok - so I was cleaning the garage and I ran across a bit of exhaust tubing and my old Harbor Freight 110v MIG welder (already setup with Harbor Feight cheap-rump roast .035 flux core ) and I thought.... what the hell! I'll give it a whirl and see if I can make it burn and encourage you a bit..... so here's the result.... mind you this is with about 5 minutes of setup - I lopped off a couple 4" sections of pipe, ran them on the belt sander to clean off the aluminizing, clamped them to my welding table and went to town. I did a couple passes on a peice of scrap to get the settings down - minimum amperage, and a wire speed of about 1.5 or 2 on a scale of 0 to 10 (not sure exactly since I did it by feel): Not my best work - but reasonable given the cheap junk welder, cheap junk wire, and setup time I gave it. So I take it back - it's possible if you know how to run a welder. If you don't have the skill already it's not what I would sugest learning on. I let a skilled welder (WAY more skilled than me) friend of mine borrow this cheap machine for a job where he didn't have 220v availible and he said the same thing - he could make it run but he wouldn't give it to someone that didn't know how to weld because it would just frustrate them. Doing this under a car, overhead, etc will simply add to the frustration - I did this on a table, with the ability to run a short section, clean it, rotate the tubing, and run another section. I did this in three sections - you can see where I started and stopped and was frustrated with the flux-core's tendancy to not arc well into a cold joint. GD

You are going to have to *make* new lines to delete it vs. going to the junk yard and buying the line you rounded off to replace your's with. Or you could just use vice-grips on it from now on and call it good . Still less work than eliminating it. But if you really want it gone then you might be able to find some lines from an automatic that can just be pulled and installed into your car. I would have to look to see if that's possible or feasible. GD

Yeah - there's just something cool about the MT's. Though I do like the Reeves drive concept - it's a purely mechanical system (minus the electronic controls but still similar to the 4EAT and 5EAT) vs. the hybrid CVT's that have all kinds of electrical stuff going on with motor/generators and such. GD

It's pretty amusing how often broken bolts will just turn right out like that - basically all the tension was being applied by the head of the bolt - once that broke off the threaded part left in the crank was under no tension at all. I've seen this dozens of times. The left-handed drill bit's will often grab and spin the broken section right out. Rust is another issue entirely - different from breakage due to overtorqued or stretched bolts. I still use my left-hand bits but I have much better luck with welding a nut to the broken section - along with liberal application of penetrant, etc the heat from welding will often get them loosened up. Broken/rusted fastener extraction is an art-form all to itself - I like to think I'm pretty good at it but I know the east coast and midwest crowd here has more experience than I do . GD

Unless it's leaking there's no reason to remove it - just remove the cable from the clutch fork and replace it with a return spring. If it's not being actuated by the cable it does nothing at all. Seems a bunch of extra work to eliminate something that's not a problem and not in the way. GD

The TCU won't let you do anything dangerous. You can rapidly descend in gears though if it's setup right. Mostly that's just an "added feature" as they are not designed to be shifted at all really. They have an infinite gear range so it's best for mileage and such to just leave the TCU to do it's thing and not touch the paddles. GD

$37 for a T/O and we pull the engine and replace it. I don't see a reason to replace the whole clutch kit for just a bad T/O as long as there hasn't been any slipping, etc. It's about 4 hours to pull and replace the engine with inspection and cleaning, etc. While the engine is out we can check the tranny input shaft for play. Typically if they are bad they will make noises all the time and the gear oil will be full of metal. GD

That kind of rust is almost unheard of out here - especially on a 7 year old car. Where did this thing come from? That looks like east-coast rot. I have seen those bolts on my 20+ year old Subaru's not nearly so nasty and usually come right off. Stuff here just doesn't do that.... GD

Actually - more and more car companies are adopting CVT's - notably Nissan which has switched to CVT's on all it's small and medium sized cars in the US. Virtually all of the hybrids are equipped with some form of CTV including the Prius. The Subaru design is interesting in that it borrows from a very old technology called a Reeves drive - which is a set of variable pulley's on which runs a belt or in this case a chain. It's a really simple concept and fortunately it's pretty well a proven technology in the world of machinery - it was a common form of variable speed control used before electronics - back in the '40s through the '80s they were used extensively. They weren't suited to cars because of a lack of computer and electronic control - relying primarily on an operator to adjust the drive for the desired speed. On the downside - it's *not* a proven technology in the world of automotive transmissions. Subaru is once again doing their own thing and opting for a design that departs from all the designs of other CVT transmissions. It's actually an elegant solution using very few moving parts - it *should* be pretty well bullet-proof eventually - but a few early design bugs are sure to creep in. Fortunately it's not very similar to the Justy's ECVT. So we'll see...... I personally prefer to stand on the sidelines and watch all the guinea pig early adopters from a distance. GD

I would guess that there is very little experience with these outside of the dealerships themselves owing to the fact that most are still under some sort of factory warantee - therefore..... being both new technology and such a new car in general I would not reccomend any shop besides the dealership. I'll add my own feelings on the matter - NEVER buy the first generation of any new technology. Early adopters have a high probability of getting burned. Hard lesson but one that needed to be learned apparently . He's just going to have to ride it out - failure may result - but until they get the bugs worked out there's no tech anywhere at the dealership level that's been highly trained on these and the most likely results are either total failure and subsequent replacement under recall/warantee - gradual failure and eventual replacement after the warantee expires - or it just makes funny noises and never fails. If the old Justy CVT was any kind of water mark on the subject..... well let's just say they were total peices of crap. Only time will tell what happens and what Subaru's response will be. In the mean time he should not be so "sensitive" - as an early adopter he's going to have to get used to quirks in the products he buys. One would think, having clearly fathered a child that is now of adult age, that he would have learned this by now . GD

Changing the axles is trivial though - especially with the transmission removed. GD

Any 90 to 95 2WD Impreza or Legacy transmission will work. After '95 Subaru did not make 2WD's for the US market. GD

Your's are hydraulic and do not require adjustment. GD

The choke spring is broken - they have a "hook" bent into the end of the bi-metal spring that engages the choke plate lever. After years of use and cold-temp starting the choke spring wear through at the hook and no longer catches the plate lever - rendering the choke plate fully open at all times. You can replace the electric choke (go to the dealer for this part and be prepared for sticker shock) or conver it to a manual choke using some of the generic kits that are availible at most auto-parts stores - there is usually some mild fabrication involved, removal of the air filter housing, drilling of the rivets holding the choke on, and a bit of work installing the manual choke cable through the firewall and mounting it under the dash, etc. Another alternative is to install a Weber carb instead. This will give an increase in performance as well as fix your choke problem and is well worth the entry price of ~$350 or so. About twice the price of the electric choke part from the dealer but worth every penny unlike the dealer part which is only fixing an already old and crappy carb. GD

Depends on the year. GD

Yes. GD