Bushwick

Has the fuel filter ever been changed? Open the hood, look on your right to the side of the driver-side strut tower. There's a canister that looks similar to an oil filter with an inlet and outlet. There's a clamp holding into place. Auto parts stores sell them for $15 roughly IIRC. With engine OFF and neg. battery terminal disconnected, remove the filter; it'll seep some gas, and might spray a little. Wrap it with a rag, and hold a rag over the hose and the nipple. Break the seal with a small flathead screwdriver. The rag will catch the spray. Remove old filter paying attention to which hose is which. The new filter will have flow orientation and an "arrow" embossed into the casing. The arrow points toward the engine i.e. the gas tank will enter the filter, the filter outlet will enter the engine. I suggest cutting the first 1/4" off the hoses so they'll seat tightly on the new filter. Tighten the clamps. Don't go overboard if the they are worm style clamps as they damage the hose; should use actual fuel line clamps with a 100% smooth banding to prevent eating into the hose, along with 100% uniform clamping, so buy some! After checking everything is reconnected, I suggest turning the key to "ON" a couple times before starting to prime the empty fuel filter. Start the car and immediately check for leaks. Let it run for 5 minutes and make sure no leaks are present. Shut it off, and try restarting. Let it get completely cold and sit for several hours, then check if it'll start or not. EDIT: Get the code pulled. Also, if you pull the neg. terminal and do replace the filter, it'll reset the codes.

A misfire can be a several things: First off, just because something was replaced a year ago, doesn't mean it can't be bad now. So don't rule out a spark plug wire or an actual spark plug. A plug wire, if it gets damaged on the exterior, CAN cause intermittent shorts as it grounds out. Easiest way to check is see if the casing is rubbing on any metal or has chaff marks, OR came into contact with fluids like battery acid or oil. A water bottle spraying water (helpful at night when it's dark) on the wires can reveal a short to ground as the current arcs. Do NOT touch the wires while it's running as the current can kill if it's shorting out. Very important to use the wire separator clips to isolate them Also, check and make sure EACH boot is firmly connected to each plug AND each point on the coil. It's also possible the wire itself has worked out of the crimping, and thus the connection is poor (you are supposed to use dielectric grease inside each boot AND pull wires off at the boot and NEVER pull the wire as it can pull right out of the crimp). You can very carefully reopen the crimp, and reattach the plug wire if you know how. Another possibility is the ignition coil. I know on older Fords, a car could run perfect, shut it off, and it'd never restart again. Saw that happen more than once. On other cars, you end up with a random misfire OR a specific cyl. misfire. Having a coil directly attached to the engine was never a good idea as it can heat soak and act differently when cold vs. hot. Thankfully the coils are all over junk yards. If no local yards, try car-parts.com and locate one closest to you. Most of the yards there should be willing to ship that to you. For $15-20, plus $5 for shipping, it's a worthwhile gamble if the coil is acting up after too much heat soak. Also check the wiring harness and plug that attach to the coil for corrosion, looseness, damaged or pinched wires, etc. A cylinder misfire can also be an up or downstream O2 sensor. I had this happen on my Saab with it's downstream O2 sensor and it was PITA to diagnose as it never threw the correct code pointing to it. It did however throw a code for a failed pre-heater element, but nothing saying it was causing the misfire (it ran perfect for a year with the failed heater element code BEFORE ever getting the misfire) . Just that a random misfire occurred and sometimes it'd point to a specific cylinder. In my case, the actual metal casing surrounding the upper half of the O2 sensor, where the wiring pigtail entered the sensor, was cracking and the chrome was peeling off. It originally started out as a very random misfire, that would clear itself out after blipping the throttle, then wouldn't occur again for days. Near the end, it'd do it after the 1st 5 minutes of driving, then started doing it again while driving. Fortunately, the car was catless briefly when it started misfiring badly, I goosed it in neutral and it backfired so badly it literally blew the muffler apart at the seams. Surprisingly it didn't hurt the turbo, and had the cat been there it'd have been damaged. Finally went ahead and replaced both O2 sensors (replaced the rear last as upstream didn't stop the misfire) and the issue was fixed. Also, when the shorting occurred, the car would slow down a bit and loose power, but wouldn't completely stall. Putting it in neutral while coasting and it'd still idle OK. So basically similar to your issue. Idle was OK (towards the end) but it'd stumble under throttle or actually not react to the gas pedal. I honestly never thought a downstream O2 could cause that much havoc. Thankfully rockauto has Subaru O2 MUCH cheaper than Saab O2 You can try disconnecting the rear O2 sensor, drive it and see if the issue stops. Car should enter a limp mode with preset values.

TBH, if the condition is *that* rough, why not just find a good runner for $700-900? You could keep that one as a parts car. As far as rear end ratios go, lift all 4 wheels off the ground and put the vehicle in neutral. Mark the drive shaft with a chalk, or whiteout line as well as the bottom inside of the tire that spins forward. Spin the drive shaft until the tire makes one full revolution. If you have 4.11:1, the drive shaft should spin 4.11 times as the tire makes one full revolution. Gear ratios go up to .99 before rolling over, so the .11 will be just a touch pass the 4 mark. If you had 3.73:1 ratio, it'd spin 3 times solid and stop around the 45 minute mark or roughly 75% of a turn. If the trans has full fluid, and the shifter linkage is OK and matching the gear selector numbers, and refuses to go into OD, it's most likely the converter. I don't enough about Subaru trans though to not rule out something else with the trans, a sensor, the trans electronic box, etc. Best bet is take it to a REPUTABLE trans shop that does free inspections. Let them diagnose, then say you'll have to think about whether you want to put the money in the car or not. If it were me, I'd take the car to 2 different shops (hide any evidence i.e. receipts from the 1st shop) and see if they come up with the same evaluation. From there, you can make a better informed decision on what path to follow next. If it's only the torque converter that's bad, it's something you can do yourself (saving a ton of money) with a used converter and fresh fluid, with basic hand tools. Just follow some DIY videos or write-ups so you make sure you filled the trans (AND converter with fluid beforehand) and understand about running it through the gears several times before adding more fluid, as well as torque ratings for the bolts.

Then there must be a bad connection in my lower pad where the heater element wire meets up with the actual harness wire. There's supposedly a thermal overload switch sandwiched between the 2 layers of felt, and from what I can tell it acts as a junction. If there was no heat whatsoever, then it'd be a burnt spot, but a failing solder could allow an intermittent on/off. Thankfully "low" heat works fairly well in the interim. Kicking myself as I was actually going to reflow the solder there as a precautionary measure, but thought "nah, don't mess with it if it's not broken". Oh well, the junctions are in the very back of the bottom seat, should be able to just pull the back cover up and hopefully get at them w/o pulling the entire seat again. If anyone is attempting a heat pad swap, repair, etc. I suggest separating the 2 ply felt where the harness wire enters the pad and the heater wire attach to it. Inspect carefully for poor connections. Read in another thread someone else fixing that. I used this write up: http://www.subaruforester.org/vbulletin/f77/how-heated-seat-repair-install-62332/ which covers the basics. Further down a guy fixed the junction I'm thing is faulty on mine and has a pic of his.

No one knows if their seat heat on "high" stays constant or not? I really need to know if something is wrong with mine or not.

Left them on the "low" heat setting for a drive just now, which did seem to provide constant heat. Selecting the "high" heat setting and they've come on every time the switch was on, but it seems to get hot, level off, then get hot again. Not a constant temp though like the "low" setting. Just trying to figure out if it's regulated like that for the higher heat setting or not i.e. a safety feature. During the 30 minute test period before putting the heat element back into the seat, I left it on "high" then sandwiched between 2 foam sheets. The temp seemed to remain constant, but hard to say as it was already warm out then and the actual unit wasn't exactly heat soaking like it does being sat on under the fabric.

Could be the converter isn't locking up. I know this is an issue with 90's Fords. The torque converter clutch fails, and won't lock up and you drop 4th gear. I'm assuming Subaru have 4EAT have them (hope I got the correct trans there). Towing heavy loads at highway speeds in 4th can kill them, especially if there's no aux trans fluid cooler attached, but you should still be in "3" anyways with towing. If it has failed, I'd suggest keeping it limited to "3" while cruising so as to avoid random RPM surges or possibly random engaging then disengaging from the converter clutch trying to still do something it can't fully do anymore. You might want to manually shift 1, 2, and 3 if you find the clutch is locking up in the wrong gear. 300k miles is a pretty good period of time to get from any trans. If it has failed, go to a bone yard, find a torque converter from a lower mileage car, flush out the old fluid, top it off with fresh fluid, attach to the trans, fill the trans properly, and off you go.

Just to be clear, I'm asking if your heated seats (any year Subaru I suppose) emit a constant heat, or does it cycle on/off like a furnace does once it reaches a certain temperature?

The roof or the hood has the bubbles? There's a difference If it's the hood, and the paint isn't chipped, then it might be a defect or bad spot underneath. A hood deflector will help with preventing stone chips, but will do nothing to stop rust, especially if it's already bubbling. If you have a car you care about or want to last, and it's driven during the winter where the roads are salted, you MUST take extra steps to minimize exterior rust. My best advice (for future preventative maintenance) is to have the underside oil-sprayed. This will add years to the car's life span as it helps keep the salt dust from caking up. In lieu of an oil spray, take the car to the wash it yourself pressure washer bays and spray the wheel wells (fender lips, struts, strut housing), spray under the entire car (especially under the crossmember in the rear as well as all around it and on top), spray under each bumper, open the hood and spray the exposed metal underneath, spray along the frame rails in the engine compartment, as well as the strut towers, get the oil pan sprayed off too. AVOID the spark plug wires, engine harness, fuse box, etc. Doing all that at least once a week (for heavy driving on salted roads) to maybe once every 3-4 weeks under light driving or below freezing will help the car last a little longer and stave off the nastier rusting that occurs when salt from Jan. is packed into crevices and resting on bare metal well into April. I bought a car in Oct. once that still had salt dust all over the engine from the previous year, but took a chance on it anyways.

What connector are you referring to? Be very careful with anything dealing with the airbags, whether they have power to them or not. I'm not sure how much of a cavity they occupy or if they are in a large recess or not. If they don't occupy a large chunk of the seat, it'd probably behoove you to remove them from the seat so as to avoid any unintentional deployment- nothing worse than getting t-boned, rolling over a few times, coming to a rest, then having a rogue bag deploy a killing you. You'd probably drop 8-10 pounds per seat plus you could sell them. Depending on the space they occupy and where it's located, you can probably stuff the hole with high density foam and never be the wiser. The fabric that covers the seat actually hides a lot of ugliness.

Keep an eye on the plastic end links. They might crack (mine did) if you are out pushing the car a bit. I only did the rear bar on my 95' (from an Outback) and took the car out and pushed it a bit after the swap. Unbeknownst to me, the front end links cracked, and I was clueless until the car wandered a bit in the snow above 25 mph or so.

I wouldn't pay $4k for that. If it had ZERO rust and the fenders, hood, front bumper matched factory paint, maybe $4k, but not in that shape. He wanted a WRX, but instead took a NA EJ22 and tried turning it into a "racer", meaning it's been driven hard, especially with the mods he focused on. Also, he states the interior is "100%", but it's not. The carpet is stained and faded, and covers a large portion on the interior, so more like 60% of interior is OK. The exterior rust is not on a DIY easily spot. So figure $500-1000 to properly patch in fresh metal and a new paint job to keep her looking nice. Major front end piece replacements with NO paint and wanting to sell might point to an accident he never reported. Do your very diligent homework before taking it seriously. I wouldn't pay more than $1500 for it in that condition. For what it's worth, I paid around $850 for my 95' Legacy that had about the same amount of rust. It had noisy lifters and a rotted out rear crossmember. Interior was roughly the same as that Impreza. It didn't have the LSD, or few extra add-ons, but it ran great and was owned by an old woman and no abuse in it's history. I paid $18 for a 1 year old rear crossmember and got good, used lifters for free as the junk yard chick fancied me. I could drop a turbo'd engine in the car and slap WRX rims on this and still have less than $4k in it.

1.6L NA? Yeah, that engine isn't exactly a power house to begin with. Did you buy the car and it was weak? Or did it gradually loose power over time? I'd look at a clogged cat too. Which O2 sensor did you replace? Upstream or downstream? Easiest way to check for a clogged cat is to attach a vacuum gauge to a vacuum line "T" it into an existing line on the throttle body (stay away from a fuel pressure regulator though). Let the engine warm up completely and get to normal operating temps. Letting the engine idle in Park/Neutral, where's the vacuum needle at? Is it bouncing? Holding steady? What numbers per sq. inch is reading? Come back with those figures and we can tell you if the cat is bad. You can use a vacuum gauge from a parts store, or get someone to loan you a boost/vacuum gauge from a turbo car as it'll tell you the same thing.

It could be a PCV hose leaking. I vented mine to atmosphere in another car and the heater would pull the fumes into the car. Not enough to get sick from, but enough I could smell it. The odd thing is I've had older cars with V8's that vented to atmosphere and yet the fumes never entered. I'd insist the mechanics look it over again. If it WAS exhaust, you'd have a noisy leak + plus you'd probably be dead by now. Also, don't drive it if it's enough to get "sick" from and by all means, roll the window down if you must move it.

I just converted a non heated seat 95' Legacy to a 99' Outback heated seat. I've noticed the heat seems to kick on, stay on a bit, kick off, then eventually kick back on. The switch's light is staying illuminated the entire time. I can't tell if it's normal with these or if I missed a bad connection? These supposedly have a thermal switch integrated near where the wiring harness attaches to the heater wire element, and I'm not sure if this part of their function or not? My Saab's heated seats were always constant if switched on. But I know one of my Dr. Scholls heated back rests will run for x-amount of time before kicking off. Also, the center console switch cluster from the 99' Outback donor had both heated seat switches, and what appears to be a rear defrost switch along with a coin holder in the switch cluster. But what's puzzling is the donor also had a rear defrost switch next to the cruise switch? Or is the center console switch for heated mirrors? Every car I've owned with heated mirrors lumped the feature into the rear defrost switch.

You can do like I did when swapping my cloth cover over a heated (originally leather) seat, and buy some 1" high density foam (Jo Ann Fabrics sells it, it's green and around $18 a yard for 1") and some 2" to 3" HDF. I spray tacked the 1" (after cutting with a razor knife to fit) in the seat centers, then used 3" (3" was a tight fit, but the comfort added was worth it) on the bolsters top and bottom. I'm 165 pounds and the seat went from being basically flat and compressed, to being like a new slipper. If the WRX seats ever get that way, you can do the same thing, but I'd stick with the 1" HDF cut into 3 sections per seat half, so 1 section in the center, then 1 section per bolster side. Use spray tack on both the seat's foam mold and the foam cushion. It'll set and should stay put while you reattach the hog rings.

Here's an update. Found a 99' Outback with worn leather and manual seat track + heat. Some research revealed the seats are extremely basic and ALL the wiring is what's basically attached to the switches, leading down to the seat plugs. While both switches are keyed differently at their plugs, the actual seat-side plugs are identical (meaning if one switch is bad, just flip the seat-side harness and rotate the switches in the housing). Feeding the switches is a light blue wire (12v+ switched on) and a shared ground (black) wire. Attach those 2 wires and you are in business. The switch's amber light *should* light up with rocker on low or high. Accessory lights are from 2 other wires that are white with a stripe. Unsure of polarity with those as they can be reversed to provide lighting and don't appear to actually ground out and are not connected to the main ground wires. Unfortunately, BOTH bulbs were burnt for accessory and the amber rocker "on" light burned out during initial testing, so if you connect the blue and black wires, and nothing lights up, it might just be the bulb is shot. (my passenger switch had a dead accessory as well, but the "on" bulb was OK so I used that switch; I pulled each bulb and tested to verify they were dead) I reused my cloth covering from my seats, and slipped it over the leather seat body. The upper seat portion was an exact fit, the lower seat portion was extremely close. I went to a Jo Ann fabrics and purchased some 1" high density (green) foam, and a small section of 3" high density foam. The 1" is in the center of both seat sections, while the 3" was trimmed to fit the outer bolster areas. I used spray tack and gorilla tape on a few areas that were going to see high traffic. The gorilla tape also helps to pull the hard ripped foam back from where you constantly enter/exit the seat- it rips and exposes a metal bar. (EDIT: The gorilla tape is very heavy duty duct tape. It's usage UNDER the seat fabric isn't noticeable with the seat cover back on. The seats hard formed foam mold can rip. Glue gun the rip or spray tack, then use the gorilla tape to pull the broken/ripped section back into place. I had to use some of the tape on the outer bolster foam as 3" was rather thick) The heated element has a spot that likes to pull apart. It's on the seat bottom, in the center, about mid thigh. It's poorly secured from the factory and pulls the heater wire, causing a short and heat failure. The actual heat element is nothing more than an extremely thin gauge wire, complete with a rubber coating. Very carefully expose the good wire from the fabric, strip back the coating, and you can solder in a splice patch. I used shrink wrap to seal the connections and also went with a heavier gauge in the splice. I reinforced the entire area in the gorilla tape so as to prevent the connection from pulling apart. I used zip ties to loosely hold the heater fabric in place, while giving *some* room to move under compression. The pay off? I have a seat that is extremely comfortable to sit in, hugs you on the sides, and as a bonus has heat + the lumbar and height adjustment. I've got a bad back so this was more of a forced necessity as the factory seat was like sitting on a plank of plywood and extremely irritating to sit on. Sorry for no pics, as I wasn't even thinking about doing a write-up as there are some already out there that pretty much cover everything. Only thing I did differently was reusing my fabric on a leather equipped seat with height adjustment. Had to get creative on the seat bottom as not all the fabric attachment points are the same for the plastic clips to seat frame. Also, the leather seat has more anchor points for the fabric where your butt rests, whereas the fabric seats didn't as they didn't have as many seams. All in all in was fairly straight-forward, and if you attempt any of this, it'll make more sense. It took me few days to complete as my back + meds only allow for so much before I have to call it quits (back is like getting hit with baseball bats), meaning most of you could tackle something like this in a day. Also, with the heater element out, Run the blue to 12v+ and ground the black wires, start the car, and run the heater element for 30 minutes (or more) to make sure everything is working and WILL work. If it's going to short again, it should do it right away. The wires can also come apart right at the thermal switches, which seems to be right where the factory wiring connects up to the heater element. If it breaks there, you'll need to carefully pull apart the fabric (split it apart like a 2 ply fabric) and see which wire is separated. My splice has held thus far, and the maiden voyage was a success and the seat is beyond comfortable! Don't be afraid to get into your seats. If yours have rips or wear spots, it's EXTREMELY easy to replace the covering.

I was just wondering if it was possible. Usually motor mounts have enough excess stud length to allow a few spacers if needed. U-joints can typically tolerate it as can trans mount if the movement is small. Was just thinking it'd be easier than notching if it worked.

Is there a reason why you guys don't shim the motor mounts instead? 1/4" to maybe 3/8" shouldn't really hurt anything.

Here's part 10 and the dragstrip video.

Depending on the car you are referring to, add a 1.5" drop MAX (front/rear) with a progressive rate spring, add higher-end adjustable shocks (front/rear), add the thickest rear sway bar you can afford (18-20mm roughly) and consider a thicker front bar; add aluminum stabilizer end links to replace the plastic factory ones and outfit them with urethane bushings, add aluminum front a-arms with urethane bushings, add double adjustable aluminum bars for the rear axle + urethane bushings there as well, then get an alignment and I'll bet any amount of money it'll handle better than a VW. Can go a few steps further and add urethane steering rack mount clip inserts, a front strut tower brace (very easy to DIY) and consider adding a custom rear 3-4 point strut brace that ties the rear top shock bolts to a bar that also bolts to the floor. I did this with my Saab and the rear brace alone had the biggest improvement next to aftermarket springs. You'd be amazed at hard you can enter a turn and remain flat. Good news is most stuff from a WRX can fit or be made to fit. For $500-700, you can have an awesome handling car w/o really sacrificing road comfort. Go with 1.2" drop for a little more comfort and use say Eibach springs. Pick tires based on preference; handling vs. comfort vs. something in between. Go to Auto Zone, buy a prewired rear license plate bulb (comes in a tiny housing that angles light one way) and also get an interrupt switch, and a small spool of wire + a fuse holder and 5 amp fuse OR find a non critical fuse in the fuse box for say dome lights and tie into that. Drill a tiny hole large enough for the interrupt switch to sit through, so that when the glove box door is open, the switch is on, closed, switch breaks circuit. Mount the light near the back up top. Wire into a non critical fuse i.e. don't use an ECM or fuel pump fuse. Electrical tape your wire crimps and you now have a glove box light. Other option would be to find a car that came with a glove box light factory (Lincoln, Cadillac, etc.) and remove it's light housing, the door open/shut switch, and immediate wiring to the the light and switch. Then wire that into yours. LED bulbs are really nice for these types of custom add-ons as they don't pull much current, nor do they get hot. Only thing to watch for is avoid excessively hot bulbs and make sure they aren't touching anything as they can melt plastic. All in all, it's a 2 wire set up. One wire is hot and runs to fuse, other wire is ground and can be grounded directly to chassis. Very easy to do this.

That link had a price of $678? Yikes. Interesting though as it showed the element as a separate unit. I realize a person further up the board stated a custom install into a non heated seat resulted in a short that could have caused a fire, but I suppose if done correctly and in a way the element can't be damaged, they can be swapped in if you cab buy them like that. But not for $678! I can get complete seats for $27 (cloth) and complete leather for $35 each (heated, full power). It'd be cheaper to reupholster the entire seat then buy 1 of those units. Or just be vigilant and find a nice set w/o damage.

Thanks for the tip John. Will have to check it out. Do your seats just ground out at the seat bracket? Meaning 1 hot wire, and the chassis of the seat serves as the heater element ground?

Are you talking about where you lift the arm rest, remove the 2 screws, then lift the cover that sits over the e-brake handle? And there should be a blue wire terminating into an empty plug? Is the wire fused and hot?

The news keeps getting better and better Never would have thought before a non power seat would have come with heated elements. Wouldn't have even bothered looking in the past. Excellent news and thank you!