Bushwick

Maybe it needs extra fasteners to remain still? From what I've read, it's apparently a copper/nickel mix, and seems like it might become more mainstream since an average auto's life expectancy is increasing i.e. more older cars in the 10 year+ range still serving daily driving duties and manufacturers would have less warranty issues with brake lines that typically last that long or longer in harsh conditions. Funny the focus is that and not overall safety. I've had a few brake lines bust over the years while driving, with I think the last time being my old 92' SHO and I was a good 100+ miles from home on the highway. I made it home with virtually no brakes and timed everything while anticipating lights, etc. and had no issues and avoided an extremely expensive tow bill + being a DIY'r avoided any ridiculous repair bill. But many can't or won't know how to do that and some might panic completely and wreck.

A little trick that can work wonders if you flare your own lines is to buy vacuum hose with an inside diameter a step up from the solid line's OD. Then just feed the line through before flaring the end. Or if you have the money, get a couple containers of heat shrink wrap and do the same. Heat after flaring and get as close to the nut and it should hold up awhile. Noticed the factory line has something similar on a few bends, but it just rots where the coating stops. Can also use hose a few inches long, cut a slit lengthwise on one end, slip over the metal tube, and it'll help protect the metal from rubbing, but won't seal it obviously. Slip over 2 lines running along each other, then ziptie together. It'll effectively isolate them from chaffing or rattling. When I ran my oil gauge where the ash tray used to be, I went with a copper line instead of an electronic sender, which means the oil is flowing into the cabin area. Went ahead and sleeved the entire copper section from gauge to 1/2" before it threads into the engine with vacuum line as a safety measure to protect the copper, and also contain the oil so it can only exit on one end or the other if the copper ever ruptured as opposed to behind the dash. Makes bending the line easier too and prevents any metal on copper.

Thanks. Glad too as the car needs to remain roadworthy, though the guy was clearly at fault. Many of these plow drivers are going on 10-15 hours non stop, even more when a heavy snow occurs over several days. I was allowed in the back of AZ to look at various lines. Although I opted for steel replacements, they do have what appears to be copper lines and they were being advertised as non rusting. Probably smart to go with those, especially in the rear around the crossmember. Our lines are metric, so if you have to replace, remember that. The line cost about $4 and the fluid was a staggering $8. The nut portion is 10mm. If it won't easily crack free, use vice grips. The replacement line was about 4" shorter, so get creative unless you want to use multiple lines and have excess hanging about. It's VERY easy to do brake lines. Cost around $10 to do the rear one, but ended up going further back to a junction. Also VERY easy to bleed yourself. I've done all my own bleeding over the years. Some cars are easier. I took a small section of wood, about 1" wide by 1/2" thick. It was 36" long. With pedal all the way to the floor, put the wood (or whatever you have handy) on the pedal, then lay it to the front seat track edge. Cut the wood to that which takes 30 seconds. Pump the pedal 5-10 times then hold all the way down, put wood on pedal and prop on seat track edge, get out and crack the bleeder and snug. Repeat several times, typical until air stops exiting. In this case, couldn't hear air exiting so just went did it anyways. Can do with car running or off, seems easier with these with engine running. I made a mistake and went for driver side before passenger front, should start furthest away from master cylinder, then 2nd furthest, 3rd, then closest. When you open the bleeder, as long as you have some pretension on the pedal with a wood rod or whatever you are using, the pedal will go down a little further as pressure is released. Takes 15-20 minutes but works great if no one is around to help. $475 is insane. All you need is correct length tube, 10mm socket and boxed wrench, and new DOT 3 or 4 fluid, and a prop rod, and you can do your own brakes at cost which is typically under $20. The copper lines are tad more expensive.

Should have told them to just reroute the lines. Can always snip the old ones at either end, and pull through so they aren't banging around. As long as they aren't hanging, rubbing, etc. new ones can be rerouted. $475 to add $15-$20 worth of lines and 15 minutes to bleed the brakes is INSANE! Always use a small socket and ratchet or as last resort a boxed wrench and the bleeders should loosen up.

By the way, if yours does eventually rupture, you can try the e-brake in bursts as well as downshifting auto to D, 2, and finally 1. "1" will slow the car down very quickly. Trying pumping the brakes in 1 to stop the car. Manual trans pretty much same deal, but the braking effect of 1st gear probably won't be as strong. Pulling the e-brake up hard can cause the car to fishtail which is bad. Pulling up while holding the button in gradually until it's starting to slow the car down, is much safer as it'll be less likely to kick out. Try and keep the steering wheel straight! Bumping the e-back lever "up" will be like a really slow ABS method and won't allow a skid. Even if only one wheel is braking from e-brake, it's better than nothing. Brake fluid is extremely bad for painted surfaces and will strip paint right off, so again be careful.

Couple days ago while running to a doctor appointment, I was doing about 45 and saw this pickup truck plow truck backing down a driveway and towards the road I was traveling, as I kept watching him thinking he'd stop, he didn't stop and proceeded to back out in front of me completely blocking the street. He NEVER even looked to see if traffic was coming as I was watching him look forward while apparently talking to passengers. I laid on the brakes and after stopping about 75% of the way, I thought I started sliding. Forgetting the horn is 2 little buttons while looking forward, I started banging on the wheel thinking I was going to hit him. Finally found horn in the anger-induced panic which he backed up even further and ended up having to swerve off the road into about 14" of snow down a steep slope beside the road. Guy finally got out of truck and accused me of being impatient thinking the horn was because I didn't want to wait while blocked traffic!!! I explained no, he backed out and I almost hit him. He was like "I looked both ways and didn't see anyone" which wasn't true. He offered to pulled me out so I left it at that as I wasn't go sit around for a possible ticket as he had 2 passengers meaning it'd be me against x3. Apparently it hadn't skidded. The brake line that connects to the passenger rubber line junction and the ABS module ruptured under the panic braking. Why brake lines aren't mandated to be a non rusting metal like copper or even aluminum is beyond me. Had the rupture occurred 2-4 seconds earlier, I would have t-boned the idiot. Thankfully the car was barely drivable as it still had a slight pedal and with downshifting gradually to "1" then quickly neutral, didn't need the e-brake and was able to make it to doctor 20 minutes late, then drive 8 miles to AZ to get another brake line and fluid. Swapped line there and limped it home and bled the system at home. Very odd as I never heard any air escape and was basically fluid exiting the entire time. Had to do it twice to get a solid pedal i.e. LR, RR, LF, RF, then repeat. Each time spent about 5 cracking and bleeding and topping off as needed. Very lucky is was in the mid 30's. Anyways, since this is the 2nd time brake lines have needed to be replaced on this (driver's rear that went around the rear crossmember to driver rear caliper was bad buying the car, which appeared to be a replacement that ruptured) I suggest finding a section of flat road and trying to come to a very quick stop from about 40-50 with no other cars around nor people and see if the brakes are OK. I'm going to get into the habit of this myself as any present defects waiting to fail, will hopefully surface THEN, rather then when the car really needs to stop! Happy wintering!!

The previous glass with the rotted hatch heated up really nice. Usually anything on there from sitting overnight would be rolling off in 5-8 minutes. An easy visual to see if they are heating is when light amount of snow is on the glass. It'll be apparent by what's melting.

I was lucky it was in the mid 30's yesterday. Hovering around 10 today and had dog out briefly. Have around 8-10" of snow and top 1" is frozen, so he was hopping allover it and seemed to like breaking the surface snow up LOL. But yeah, way too cold when it's under 25 degrees.

I noticed some of mine appeared thinner near the center too. Hard to tell if it's deliberate or not to focus more heat towards the center. Might want to try and add a supplemental ground like I did and see if it heats better or not as that at least got it working again. I'm thinking the ground broke out internally in the casing, which would be possible if the original wire was inadvertently an incorrect gauge. It didn't feel overly pliable like a normal wire should. The very bottom of my window, which is coated with a wide swathe of that reactive material, gets very warm to the touch. I imagine yours should do the same if it's working correctly. Might need to remove panel to touch that area of the glass to verify. If that section isn't warm to the touch after it's been on for 15 minutes or so, add an extra ground (even temporary) and see if it gets hotter. If it does, you just fixed it Wish I'd even thought about this being an issue as the rotted out original hatch had a perfect defroster. For $50 or so, it would have been worth trying to have the glass swapped.

After adding a direct, secondary ground, the unit actually started to work. The bad thing was I noticed 2 consecutive rows at the middle of the window, dead-center of course, with broken lines (actually looked like they blew out like a fusible link) and thought, "well, all the others look OK" and the entire bottom of the window where the wiper passes through was actually pretty warm to the touch. Waited a while for some more snow to build up with it on, and discovered only the very top line and the very bottom of the window itself plus a second from the bottom row was all that was working. Not sure what went wrong here as nothing ever touches the window, and seems odd to have all those rows seemingly go out together. Starting to think the unit wasn't working at all after installing though I could swear it was. Oh well, at least the base of the window gets hot and between that and the TWO remaining rows that work will be enough to at least keep heavy ice from forming until the cabin temps are up. Thankfully these things have rear wipers. Thanks again for the advice everyone.

I'll go out and mess with it. When I was probing the ground tab and the chassis, it never went zero like when you directly short the probes together. I'll try and ground the tab directly then and see if it melts anything or not, then go from there. Thank you.

It's funny I never noticed the driver-side tab before. During the hatch replacement, only the hot side was removed as that part of the harness needed to be fed back through the donor. Seems like something is goofy with the driver-side tab (ground). If I probe the passenger-side (12v+) and body ground, it shows around 13v. If I touch the neg - probe to the ground tab and pos. + probe to the pos. tab, it'll show 14v. If I probe a body ground AND the neg. tab, it won't zero out on the display, which is odd and suggests it's bad, though I dunno why it show voltage across the 2 tabs still. Can I just ground out the neg - tab directly? I followed the wire as best as possible but don't think it grounds to the hatch. Think it grounds out up under the headliner near the rear hatch dome light. Thinking of just pulling back some of the insulation and adding my own (new) ground and be done with it. Both tabs are tight and holding to the window.

I only checked voltage right where the spade tab connects at the window itself. The probe was touching the metal tab. So it's at least getting voltage to there. This car has no window tint. One of my previous cars did, and was just saying I completely forgot about that being an issue i.e. conducting material on glass. Didn't have time to inspect today, but will look later tonight or Sunday. @Fairtax How would you check voltage at both sides? Just touch probe directly to material on glass at the sides of the rows? Are these rows grounded somewhere from the glass? Trying to picture how it completes the circuit..... aren't the rows heated like the heater wire in the seats? Meaning 12v+ passes through the rows and at some point the end of the circuit grounds out?

If the donor is a DOHC and your EJ22 is SOHC, you'll probably need to use your EJ22's crank pulley. I'm assuming it'll line up on the block in the same orientation i.e. spacing and are keyed the same so the teeth for the timing belt are in identical orientations, but that's something someone else will have to answer. Only thing you'll need to be VERY careful with is the engine is interference, so if you do this, turn the engine over by hand (ratchet on the crank pulley bolt) several full rotations i.e. intake AND combustion cycle to make sure the pistons aren't hitting the valves. Many people ignore this seemingly simple step and destroy the engine they spent hours replacing. If it were me, I'd take the heads from the EJ22 to a competent (and trustworthy) engine builder and have them thoroughly cleaned as well as checked for warping. You can probably clean the intake out with a decent degreaser if there's grime on the runners then rinse with water. Since your engine is knocking, chances are it ate up one of the bearings pretty good and you don't want that material transferring from the heads into the new block. And if the heads ARE warped, you'll have more headaches down the line. If you sell off your old block + the EJ25 heads, intake, TB, sensors, etc. it'll probably cover the head cleaning and inspection. Just something to consider.

Ah that's right. Completely forgot about it being an issue with removing window tint (razor = bad) as it's actually "on" the glass. Dunno why I was thinking copper strips sandwiched in with the safety material I'll have to look more closely then if something flaked off. I can get creative enough to possibly come up with DIY solution to that scenario. By the way, does the coating ground itself out or is it just a loop? I don't remember there being any other connecting points other than the 12v+ tab.

Like others have basically stated, look at the fuel system, and listen for the pump to engage with key on (might be easier with rear seat up). If you hear nothing, investigate further by checking if it's getting power. No power, find out why. Worse case you can jump it just to hear the engine. If it's priming, and reaching the rails and leaving the injectors, then it's probably spark related or possibly ECM. Do NOT pour fuel into it. That's extremely dangerous and an easy way to flood it, which will have you running in circles. Use starter fluid instead. If it's getting fuel, then obviously look at spark. Did the airbags deploy? Dunno if Subaru has some sort of immobilizer with an alarm equipped cars or not. Might be worth trying the key fob or something to lock then unlock the car. And as mentioned already unhook the battery for awhile. Sometimes it's the simplest little things.

If it's just a rod knock, I'd consider using that 2.5L block with your 2.2L's heads and intake manifold. Would save you from having to adapt anything sensor-wise to the upper half of the engine. Might need to adapt to a different coolant sensor or something, but everything else should be straight-forward from my understanding. Do searches for a "Frankenbuild EJ". Thankfully Subaru didn't put different balances on their engines. You'll get a bump in hp/tq too, which would make the car a little more fun to drive and help with passing, but it does bump the compression up slightly. Not sure if they used different exhaust manifolds or not. If they are included with the engine, take them. If your's don't bolt up or have significantly different ports, use the donor's.

Noticed the last few times the snow/ice wasn't melting off the rear glass despite the rear defrost button lighting up. Took out the volt meter and opened the hatch, then checked the voltage directly where the plug connects at the glass (the actual spade tab that's slightly exposed) and grounded other probe at chassis. Was getting around 14v. I'm stumped. Only thing I can think of is a break in the actual wire embedded into the glass, but I've NEVER heard of that happening before. Glass has NO chips or external damage that I can tell. Ideas?

Awesome! Glad it's back to normal. Gloyale, it has nothing to do with engine being grounded or not. If the negative ground isn't allowing full current to pass through, whether this is a result of missing or completely broken grounds, heavily corroded connections like green and brittle copper strands, etc. the current will find alternative means to make up for it. If you have a solid metal clutch cable with a solid steel casing, it'll ALWAYS act like a ground as it connects 2 different areas together. Since the factory ground wires are typically the shortest path from the battery to engine block/alternator, and are designed to handle loads of current, it's the path that's taken. If that cable isn't doing it's full job, the current will seek other grounds w/o prejudice if they are actually grounds or not. Think the fact replacing his grounds fixed the car, speaks volumes here.

Hmm, that sounds like what happened to my original hatch's lock assembly. IT was corroded up like that and wouldn't move and almost looked like it sat at the bottom of the ocean for 50 years with all the calcium deposits caked on it. It's like 11 degrees so gonna have to wait until a tad warmer and I'll investigate. Don't remember seeing anything out of the ordinary though when I transferred the unit to the donor hatch. You are referring to the metal tube that passes through the glass? That gets caked up internally?

Anyone have an idea if the module is built into the stalk then? If not, is it under the column area, or is it in the rear hatch area near the wiper motor or tail lights?

The noise occurs during the arm's movement. It's fairly loud. Would be more of a dry bearing sort of noise as opposed to a grinding noise. The donor's plastic gear was all chewed up, so just not a fan of plastic.

When I swapped out the rear hatch awhile back, the donor's rear wiper was seized, so it forced reusing mine. It'd been quiet for some time, but now has an intermittent noise it makes. Point is, I'm worried it'll seize at some point and I'd like to avoid this. I noticed they used a plastic gear under the case which can't be good for longevity. Anyways, any idea what's actually making the noise? Figure this has to be a common issue. Does something typically loosen over time? Maybe it needs grease?

I noticed the Outback (late 90's) has a different wiper stalk with the extra adjustment to select different rear wiper speeds and intermittent, which I'd really like the intermittent feature as the wiper's speed as-is is too fast for everything but a downpour. Are these a direct swap? Meaning if I just swap different stalks, will it give the intermittent feature? Or is there another relay somewhere that adds this? The turn signal stalk on my 95', appears identical to the Outback (both have the external "ring" switch selector), and would also match the wiper stalk that mirrors the "ring" selector, so it'd be a nice "upgrade" to have and thankfully they look the same. Anyone try this?

It hasn't been doing it lately. Also, despite having a mid-range digital multi meter, the AC side has (what I think is) a blown diode and won't hold zero reliably. I shorted it many many years ago after accidentally running too much current through it, but everything else works and it'll still read AC and DC. I'll have to wait until the car acts up again and try and run down to AZ or finally tear the multi open and replace the bad part.