joe5

oh my god! be careful with her!!!

Sounds like classic cv joint. You can drive it for a while but eventually you'll need to swap it out. Not too bad of a job. It was actually the first fix I did on my subie (or any car for that matter) and it was manageable then, easy to do now after doing a couple times. Hardest part is getting new axle through wheel bearing but there are some good tricks if you get to that point. Its a good time to replace other front end parts if your in there. Good luck with it

Well see the above points, maybe worst motor ever is harsh. if you got a pristine ea82t thats been very well taken care of then go for it. But is that likely to be the case? I doubt it. In all likelihood, it probably has ~200k on it with an unknown history. So if you had to pick between an ej18 or ea82t, each with 200k on them (as most that exist today do), which one's safer better bet? I think we all know the answer to that. And he is just now buying the car. So who knows what a long line of previous owners did to it. I think its safe to assume the ea82t will not be as reliable as an ej18 with comparable milage. And he's wanting to do the ej swap and this gets him down that road. I'm just saying, if I had an 93 impreza that ran well, I'd go ej18. I'm not arguing that other options like ej20T wouldn't be better, but the ej18 is there and the rest of the car could fund the swap. Upgrade to an ej20T later down the road if you need more (just my opinion).

I disaggree with the opinion that the ej18 is a downgrade. The rx has the ea82t, which is many consider the worst motor subaru ever made. Although it may not seem like an upgrade because horsepower is comparable, you will see a huge improvement in reliability. Those ej18s are indestructible. Furthermore, if you ever stumble accross an ej22 that you like in the future, you can probably get away with doing a direct bolt in, since you will already have the wiring harness and adapterplate at that point. If you have an ej18 that is running well, I would suggest using it, rather than opening up a box of unknowns with a new motor. It would be the cheapest and most reliable way to ej swap your soon to be RX. You could even sell the rest of the car to fund an adapter plate and other things you will need to buy for the swap. Just my opinion.

Hi guys thanks for the feed back. I actually have another block already torn down I was just hoping to avoid a full rebuild if possible. But I guess thats not likely. I think I'll go ahead and take off the oil pan and have a look, but sounds like a full rebuild is ahead...

I'm currently working on an XT6 project. I got the car with the motor out of the car with the heads off. Previous owner said headgaskets went which is why he pulled the motor. I can see clearly the heads are damaged. There are cracks between the valves on 3 of the 6 cyclinders. On one of the pistons, there are lots of little pits, like perhaps a little chunk of metal got in there and got smashed around a bit. There is also yellowy milky stuff around the motor in general which goes along with the blown headgasket story. Based on what I see, I don't plan on using the heads. So my question is this: Any thing I can look for to evaluate the block? I have an extra pair of heads that look good. It'd be nice if I could throw them on and get a runner out of it. But I don't wanna do if the crank bearings or other are damaged. Anything I can look for to clue me in on what the inside of the block is like without actually splitting it? If I turn the crank, I can see that all the pistons at least move as expected without any grinding sounds Thanks in advance!

Based on all the other work you've done, you have probably done this, but like SoobDood05 says, check that the tires are balanced. I only take the time to reiterate because I had the EXACT same symptoms on my Loyale (same mph range as you describe). Turned out that the tires were just out of balance.

Just break em off. If they are giving ya hell they are already wasted anyway! Truely, I hate those things haha...so annoying. Unless your car is a true beauty that your trying to keep perfectly as was original, I wouldn't bother to replace them. Just get em off and never have to deal with them again!

wow crazy story. One the positive side, at least its an issue that can be overcome by flushing the tranny oil. Although it is a set back, at least it doesn't represent some other catastrophic failure that could have been more expensive. So this individuals intent to ruin your car seem to have fallen short! Let us know when you get it back on the road! If he was green with envy before, I wonder what color he will turn when he sees the bumble beast cruising around like nothing even happened in the near future!

For what its worth, the parts stores have tried to sell me wheel bearings that already grinded like crazy straight out of the box. I told em to get me another one off the shelf and of coarse it was nice and smooth as it should be. Even worse is they just put the crappy one back on the shelf too for the next poor guy that doesn't get a chance to inspect it. That said, I think your best bet is to follow the above suggestions to swap out the knuckle, just making the point that poor quality bearings aren't likely helping the situation...(not sure what bearings your using though)

Hmmm...is this the thing where a screw backs out of the rotor and it comes loose? Does the rotor spin freely?

open the hood and look in the rear of the engine compartment in the drivers side corner. That is where the white and green connectors are. Can't remember which to plug for current codes vs stored codes but thats where they are. Once you get the right ones plugged in, to count the flashes go to drivers seat and pull out plastic under steering wheel. Thats where the ECU is. Long flashes = 10, short flashes = 1. Take a piece of paper to write it down. If you only have one code, it will just repeat it over and over. If there are multiple codes, it will do them in sequence and then loop back to first. Good luck!

what do you want out of your car?

welp someone ended up buying the car before I figured it all out. But I let him know thebackground so maybe he will lemme know how it goes.

Hi guys there's an xt6 project for sale locally and I'm thinking about picking it up. Its got no motor in it right now, but the guy has 2 motors for it that are dissasembled and a full engine rebuild kit with it. So I'm hoping that between the two motors I can mix and match to get the best pieces out of the two. Assuming that goes well, what other xt6 specific problems should I be aware of? I'm pretty pumped about the idea of rebuilding the motor and then being able to drive. I'm not so fond of having a gazillion little problems with near impossible to find parts... thanks!

I'm glad people found this post interesting and I'm surprised to hear how many of you guys have had similar experiences and even gone the distance to very a potential scam. The car doesn't pull one way or the other. I'm not confident enough to align adjust it myself but I can get down there and check again for movement in the fashion several of you suggested. Since both les scwabs are booked up till the weekend, I'll check for play again saturday morning before I get the car aligned. I don't have information to build on until I can do those two things. I'll be sure to report back and let you guys know how it pans out

Thanks for the quick response. I'm leaning towards what Adventure Subaru and ron are sayin. Probably the best way to find out quickly. There are two les schwabs in town, both aparrantly booked up till this weekend. I think I'll make an appointment with them. I'd rather not dig back into the cars suspension unless I have to. It seems a bit premature to submit a complaint to attorney general. I like to think no body's trying to proactively scam me

So I'm running into a weird problem with getting a shop to align my 92 loyale (its currently up for sale, and I just wanna take care of it before I pass it on to the next person). I recently got the firestone here in corvallis to put a new set of tires on the loyale. As a part of the deal, they check the alignment. They tell me that they can't because the suspension was too loose, tell me its cuz the driver side ball joint is bad and gimme a quote to fix the ball joint. I raised an eye brow because I had just swapped that ball joint within the year. But it really was a tough ball joint to install, like it was too big and we really had to pound it in...Well ball joints are cheap and I already know how to do it so I just bought a new ball joint and installed it. When I was in there, I saw the tie rod ends were kinda ugly so I went a head and swapped out both of those, just thinking I'm gonna get an alignment so why not? I've also replaced axles and wheel bearings in the front for within the last month for whatever thats worth. So now I go back to firestone and ask for an alignment. They call me back again and say they still can't do it. The dude at the desk is tellin me its likely a "knuckle failuer", another guy thought it was the inner tie rod. Are they just giving me the run around trying to convince me to pay them to swap out some elusive suspension component or is there something to this? I have a hard time believing that a knuckle can go bad. It looks good to me. So maybe it is the inner tie rod? Furthermore, when I pick the car up at home, I don't get any noticeable play of the tire up and down or left or right...I don't mind fixing something if it needs it, but I'm really scratching my head here. Any suggestions here would be great. I'm running into a point of diminishing returns since I'm selling the car. But now it needs an alignment because I swapped the tie rod ends assuming the alignment would be a tangible objective.

I got a set recently from the local subaru dealer. They might have to order them in, but they should be able to get em

Like the ball joint would have to straight up snap in half?

wow this can happen from a ball joint failure? I've run mine into the ground pretty hard...glad I'm changing em now!

yea so putting the jack under the tie rod end totally worked! Shows how much i know about tie rod ends haha And 175eya: Yea thats what I figured. The problem is that the other tie rod end boot is squashed too and probably needs replacement...If I have to go get an alignment, I should do that side too first. Bummer, I just tore into that side 2 weeks ago for wheel bearings and could have done it then.

Autozone can get it in for me tomorrow for $25. Definantly more than I was hoping to spend but no options here. I'll get a jack under it here in a bit and see if that does the trick. If not I'll just cut it off. So regarding the next step once I get there. Does the tie rod just twist on and off. Is it possible to pay attention to its location on the threads and avoid needing an alignment?

So I am replacing several things: axle, wheel bearings and knuckle. All was going well until separating the tie rod end from the knuckle. I took the nut off, flipped it around and popped it with a hammer to knock it lose. That worked. But now when I try to remove the nut again, the bolt in the tie rod end rotates with the nut. So now it looks like I'm replacing that too. Here are my specific questions now 1) How to get this nut off with the bolt rotating...nothing to hold onto and no room to get vice grips...might just have to cut it off? 2) After getting the knuckle seperated, can I just twist the tie rod end off?

count the splines to make sure its right. The aftermarket ones look different. If the spline counts and length is the same, it should fit