pontoontodd

I got a 2001 H6 Outback from Portland with 157k miles for $1800. It is super clean, no rust, interior is very good. I paid to get it shipped to Illinois, which was almost $1000. If I had flown out there and driven it back it would have cost me nearly that much in flight, fuel, hotel rooms, etc. Not the best time of year for a road trip from Oregon to nothern Illinois either. My plan is to have my wife drive it. The only problem the owner mentioned is that it does leak oil. Not really while it's running but when it sits overnight there are a few small puddles under it. He thought his mechanic said it was the head gaskets. Looked like it might be one of those but also valve covers and oil cooler. While I'm waiting for the title and plates I changed the oil in the engine, front diff, and auto trans. Pulled the oil pans off the engine and trans and resealed those. Replaced the pickup filter in the trans. It had a fair amount of debris in it and there was a little in the trans pan too. Hard to get good pictures. Is this normal? At least half the shavings were magnetic, the other half were mostly copper colored. Who knows how long the trans pan and that filter have been on, perhaps the life of the car, although it does look like someone resealed the pan with silicone in excess of what the factory would do. I also replaced the valve cover gaskets and spark plugs by jacking up the engine and pushing it to one side and then the other. Replaced the seal under the oil cooler. Replaced the spin on filters for engine and trans. Replaced the air filter, serpentine belt, and idler pulleys. It needs a front tie rod and boot and I plan on replacing the rear diff fluid also. While it was up on stands the passenger side lower control arm rear bushing leaked out some clear grease. Are these fluid filled or something? There wasn't a lot, and I didn't see anything above it leaking down onto the bushing. It's clear and fairly sticky, it's not oil, doesn't really smell. Then I will start off roading the white 2002 Outback. It needs skidplates and long travel shocks/struts and probably bumpers. Eventually I plan on swapping in a 6MT and R180, but I might do that to the 99 first. I tried fitting a 15" wheel from the 99 Outback on it and it doesn't clear the front brakes. Does anyone know of a 15" wheel that will fit over the brakes on a 2000-2004 Outback? Worst case I can put 99 front brakes on it, they seem to be adequate. I would like as much sidewall as I can get and I already have a pile of 15" wheels and mud tires.

Video from our trip to Arkansas/Missouri: We're planning on going back in a couple of weeks, hopefully it will be drier. Embedding videos still isn't working for me, if anyone knows how to make that work I'd like to know.

Have you ever tried riding the brakes a little to see if the ABS does the same thing? Neither of the cars I take off road have ABS but I keep meaning to try that with my friend's Forester. We rarely get into those situations though, going slow with one or two wheels off the ground. The VDC seems great but I have heard it's much harder to swap a manual transmission in due to the extra wiring.

We went to the local you pull it junkyard on Saturday and picked up a bunch of things, mainly for the Forester. Got all the corner lights, exhaust Y pipe, cruise actuator, module, and switch. We checked and the later one piece Forester headlights don't quite fit the older Forester at least without some sheet metal cutting. Got a couple of trailer wiring harnesses. Cut out the auto trans harness plugs for a future manual trans swap. I had pulled a couple of idle air control valves the last time I was there. Took the front spindles off a ~2007 Outback that has bolt on wheel bearings. My friend might eventually put those on his Forester. Ever since I did that in my 99 Outback they've been good, and if I do have to replace them it will be much easier than the press in bearings. He put the corner lights, idle air control valve, and exhaust Y pipe on his Forester. The cruise actuator on his car measured infinite resistance across two of the pins that had under 100 ohms resistance on the one we'd pulled out of the yard, so he swapped that out. It had been idling at 1700-3000RPM, now it idles normally, it's quieter, might run smoother, and the cruise works.

My friend finally figured out his starting problem with the Forester was a bad battery to starter ground. Added another ground cable and starts consistently now. Clutch was still basically non functional, he got one of his co-workers to tow it to my place. We pulled the CV axles and trans and found this: Knew the release bearing was bad, I could see sparks coming off it one time looking in the bellhousing when he hit the clutch. Kinda figured this was the case too, some fingers missing so you can't really disengage the clutch anymore. Ends of the fingers torched from the dead release bearing. Not sure exactly why they broke though. It's never been replaced while he's owned the car, maybe it's original? Inside of the bellhousing is beat up from the shrapnel, there is one extra hole in it now. Definitely not SFI approved. We replaced his RF CV axle that was making noise with a reman axle from the dealer, curious to see how that holds up. We did a few things to the 99 Outback. Tried fixing the rear wiper. Does nothing when you hit the switch on the stalk. Tried a different motor off an old hatch, same thing. Both motors turn when voltage is applied, go back to the park position when you plug them back into the car. Plug for the motor has 12V at three pins, ground at one pin. Still don't entirely understand the wiring for this with the whole park deal. Going to try to find the relay which should be near the gas filler inside the car. Cleaned up all the battery cable ends in the Impreza and replaced one. So they all seem to be starting and driving well now. Cruise in the 99 OB is intermittent, cruise in the Forester doesn't work, and there are some other minor things we could work on.

That is an understatement. Driver's side wiper arm rubs on the windshield sometimes too. Know of any fix for this?

There are two different ranches the Texas desert racing series and this weekend they were going to hold a race at the one we haven't been to. My friend and I convoyed towards Texas in the Outback following another friend. He'd just gotten a baja bug, formerly desert raced in Nevada, but thought it might have clutch problems. There was some rain forecast for a few days before the race, the day before we left they cancelled prerun on Friday but said the race was still on for Saturday. When we were halfway through Missouri our friend got a call saying they had snow so the race was cancelled. We found a spot not too far off I44 near Cuba Missouri with a bunch of dirt roads. We drove down a side trail in the Outback that kept getting narrower and narrower. Got back to the dirt road and our friend just wanted to do a few miles on the main roads in the baja, so we did a triangle loop. He said his clutch was definitely slipping. He thought it might have been but has no good place to test run the car since it's not street legal right now. He headed back home and we headed to Arkansas. Looked like the weather was supposed to be decent on Friday so we stayed in Branson Thursday night. Drove down to Pedestal Rocks and hiked to that and King's bluff. Then I let my friend drive and we looked for some woods trails in the Ouachita national forest. There were a couple of side trails with blue markers. He went north on one for a little bit and then we weren't sure if we were supposed to continue so we went back to the main road. The trail continued south of that road but looked more like a hiking path. There was another trail that went north that we drove on. It continued for miles, fairly narrow with a lot of small stream crossings/ditches/berms with various side trails, most of which were dead ends. Eventually we were heading down a trail that was headed straight for a road. It kept getting steeper and rockier downhill but we figured we could drive back up it if necessary and it should come out to the road. It did come out to a wide graded gravel road. On the opposite side of the road was a small dirt parking area along a raging river. We went one direction on the road and it came to a river crossing. It was not extremely wide but at least two feet deep and flowing fast. There was a house near the river and they had a footbridge over it and a truck on the other side, probably for times like this when the river can't be crossed easily. So we headed the other way on the road and in about a mile it also came to a raging river crossing much worse than the one by the house. After surveying our options, we decided our best bet was to go back up that rocky hill, even if we had to go all the way back the way we came. We aired down the tires, dumped out some extra water jugs to reduce weight, and set up a couple go pros on the front. Drove up fairly easily in low range, it was a little rough and we definitely had some wheelspin but made it to the top without any real issues. That is probably the longest rockiest climb we've ever done. Went off on another trail which also came down to a graded gravel road. The first end we went to had a raging river crossing, at which point I told my friend I'd bet money there's one a mile the other way. Which there was. There was a trail that went along the river right before crossing it but went through some deep water to get there and we doubted that would cross the river. There were a bunch of other short side trails that went to an old rock wall and camp sites along the river. So we went back up on the trails. Another trail eventually got to a paved road. The trail did continue across the road but I'd had enough for the day so we started heading north. At that point we'd been on those trails for about four hours looking for a way out of the woods and made it maybe three miles total in a straight line from where we started after maybe twenty miles of wandering. Fortunately the AC worked the whole time, it was the only way we could keep the windows from fogging up with all the moisture, which really helped being able to see in the woods. We stayed the night in Rolla. Wasn't supposed to rain Saturday morning, we would be between two big storm systems, so we went to the high point of Missouri. On the way there I tried a bunch of side roads, many of which had deep rivers/streams crossing them. One of those might have been a quarter mile of water to where the road started on the other side. We hiked to the tallest waterfall in Missouri (Taum Sauk) that's a mile hike from the high point. Not so much one big falls as a bunch of rapids but it was cool. The hike there was wet and rocky. It didn't really rain while we were hiking but most of the trail was a stream. When we got back to the car we put on dry socks and our driving shoes since that's all we had with. Next stop was St. Joe state park. It was basically on our way back and I've been curious to see it for a while now. Admission is only $5 per car, I also had to buy a $12 flag since we hadn't brought ours along since we hadn't planned on going to any off road parks. Unfortunately only dirt bikes, ATVs, and side by sides can use the trails. Full size vehicles can only drive on the sand flats, much of which is lead mining tailings. Not a very large area, about a mile in each direction, we drove around all the flats in about twenty minutes, but it would be a decent place to do some suspension testing and tuning. There was a lot of standing water when we were there and the engine started to hesitate and sputter a little bit. Not terribly but after we'd been around once I figured it was best not to push it. Put the flag in the back between the cage and the headliner, then I just hooped the bottom half around in a U to close the hatch. Almost immediately after we left the park rain started coming down hard so we just drove home. Cruise stopped working for the last hour or two. A few times during the trip it would stay on but lose some speed, I would set it at 80 and it would stay there for an hour or two and then drop to about 75 but maintain the lower speed. Maybe an hour later on the highway we heard a crunchy noise, at first I thought maybe it was gravel coming loose from somewhere under the car. A while later I noticed the fiberglass flag pole was broken and then realized that caused the noise. Overall it was a good trip, weather was crappy and we were disappointed the race was cancelled but we found some cool trails for hiking and driving and didn't have any real problems. Cruise worked again the next day. Wipers didn't work well the whole time, I've tried a couple different brands and they seem to have too much arch so they don't really wipe in the middle of the blade and don't wipe well on the way down.

The trans fluid filter is in one of the wheel wells. Did you check the oil on a level surface? Makes a big difference in Subaru engines. Midwest Subarus are notorious for the gas filler rusting out, it's in the rear wheel well and gets a lot of dirt, salt, etc. What do you mean by a lot of heat from the exhaust? You can feel them through the floor while driving?

Finally figured out my AC issue with the 99 Outback. I've been skeptical of the Harbor freight gauges for a while now, just seems like they don't always respond when you think they should. I got a couple pressure gauges from McMaster which I added on and those agreed with the HF gauges. I was telling one of my friends about there being no pressure drop between high and low and when I told him I was only adding one can of R134 he suggested I add more. Then I noticed when you go to fill the system the low side immediately jumps up to 60-70psi and the can doesn't get much lighter. Eventually I figured out the low pressure fitting on the HF kit was not charging the system. Got a new one this afternoon, system charges, AC blows cold, took two cans. Running about 100psi on the high side and 20 on the low side but it's only 40F outside. lt's probably not fully charged but works, going to wait until it warms up to try to add more.

I've been wondering about this a lot lately, I currently have three Subarus 15-21 years old with 240-260k miles on each. Sure, head gaskets have to be replaced occasionally, and if you drive them too hard transmissions and other things break, but those repairs cost a few hundred in parts at the most. Just wondering why Subarus are usually totalled or not worth fixing. I see a lot with over 200k miles, some with over 300k, but not many over 400k. Maybe they're just not old enough to accumulate that many miles. Around here they rust out which becomes a giant PITA after 10-15 years. At some point do most owners just decide not to pay a mechanic $700 to replace the head gaskets on their quarter million mile car? Are they statistically guaranteed to be in a collision by 300k miles?

I have a 2002 OB with EZ30 with over 240k on it. I've had it for about a year and 15k miles. The whole time it's been consuming coolant at the rate of roughly a quart per 500 miles. Basically every couple tanks of gas top it off, doesn't overheat if it stays mostly full. Doesn't use much coolant at all when my wife is driving it around town. I have a 1999 OB we swapped an EZ30 into, also about a year ago, and I've put about 20k miles on that. The first engine from the original donor car was leaking like a sieve from about a dozen places. The next one seemed to have the normal slow coolant losing head gasket leak and supposedly under 100k miles from a junkyard. Got them to replace that one with one with supposedly 80k miles on it. Same deal with that one, and it leaks oil. The oil leak is not really while the car is running, most times if you let it sit overnight there'll be a couple little puddles of oil under it. We have plumbed the coolant system to purge itself of air and I haven't had to add coolant in a long time, but not really a long term or universal solution. I just purchased a 2001 OB with EZ30 with 156k on it. Has the same oil leaking issue described above, seller estimated a quart per month of normal driving. He says the mechanic he took it to said it was the head gaskets. So eventually I may wind up doing the head gaskets on all three of these. Thought about just replacing them with lower mileage used engines but didn't have any luck with that for my 99. I've heard the timing chains last forever in these things, what would be worth replacing while the engine is apart? Water pump, head and valve cover gaskets, spark plugs, radiator hoses, timing chains/guides? I've read elsewhere on this forum that the heads and/or blocks are basically always warped on these by the time the head gaskets leak. Is that true? That changes this from a weekend project to an engine build and waiting for a machine shop to flatten things.

I think you're going to need a lot more than a harness and the transmission is the least of your problems. It will almost certainly not be worth your time to make that work, but hopefully for your sake I'm wrong.

Make sure both cam pulley marks are lined up with the covers. That's the easy part. Since it's not interference you shouldn't have to worry about bending valves by turning various shafts independent of each other, but if you suddenly get a lot of resistance, stop. The trickiest part is to line the mark on the crank pulley up. It's not the super obvious arrow. There is a small hash mark on the flange that needs to point up at a non obvious hash mark.

I think you're missing the joke. 4000RPS is 240,000RPM. Any Subaru engine would probably doing a lot more than bucking at that speed.

A couple weeks ago, when the engine was cutting out, I heard a bad noise during very hard cornering and acceleration in a rough turn or two in the 99 Outback. Looks like the u-joint at the back of the trans hits the driveshaft strap under extreme loads. It's probably an inch away at rest but that trans mount is soft. Need to bend that strap down. You can sort of see it in this picture. Replaced the head gaskets in the Impreza last weekend. One thing I've been impressed with in every Subaru engine I've done head gaskets on is that you can still see the cross hatching in the bores and the ring gaps are tiny with a quarter million miles on them. There were a lot of little dings on the quench area of the heads. Those must have been caused by something the previous owner did. Head gaskets definitely looked a lot different than the new ones but I'm used to the MLS gaskets so I don't really know what bad looks like with these. While the engine was apart I replaced the timing belt and clutch release bearing. I put everything back together and as I started filling up the radiator it started leaking out the middle of the core. If you saw this radiator you would be surprised this is the only leak, but the strange thing is that it wasn't leaking when the car was running. Some piece of debris must have been clogging the hole and fell out when I drained it. Also the battery isn't quite enough in sub freezing temps. So I got a new radiator and battery. If I'd known all that I don't know if I would have done the head gaskets, it's a great car but probably not worth spending a few hundred bucks in parts and a few days fixing it. On the plus side it seems to run fine now. Drove it for a few hours today and no overheating or coolant loss/overflow. Really need to find another rust free H6 car.

Thanks for this tip, if it acts up more I will check VSS wiring. Saw another thread with I think an EZ30 that would cut out at 4000RPM tied to a VSS issue. Thanks for the tips and links. Drove the 99 Outback down to southeastern Illinois over the weekend. Cruise worked pretty well, shut off at most once an hour on the highway. Engine ran fine and never cut out all weekend. Mainly 100s of miles of interstate driving but at least 100 miles off pavement. I'd tried something different with the front struts but it didn't seem to work as well as before, so I'm going to put it back. We did see some cool ice though. Indian Kitchen: Secret Canyon: arch along entrance road to Garden of the Gods: Pounds Hollow:

Battery in my 96 Impreza died, looking for a replacement, even the cheap ones aren't cheap. I have an Odyssey in my Outback and it's great but I don't want to buy another $300 battery. Local Subaru dealer wants $124. Rockauto sells a Deka Intimidator for $175. Considering a junkyard battery, don't plan on keeping this car for more than a year. Any other deals out there? Sooberoo - did you make sure the battery light comes on when you turn on the key? My friend had problems with one alternator that wouldn't charge since he had LED bulbs for some of the idiot lights and that was enough of a change to keep the alternator from charging. Check voltage at the battery, not the alternator, with the car running and making sure it's at least 14. Also, your brake lights shouldn't be a high current load.

The expansion valve has just two connections and some kind of metal diaphram looking thing with a copper tube that ends in a bigger copper tube clamped to one of the lines. Presumably some kind of temperature compensating orifice. I have no idea if or where there is an inline filter. I did not flush out the evaporator or condenser. I would think any added restriction from a clogged filter, evaporator, or condenser or collapsed tube would give me more pressure drop than normal, not less, but I guess that's why I'm asking.

The clutch engages and turns the compressor, but still no pressure drop, now maybe 10-20psi, but not the 200 or so it should have. I replaced the expansion valve which is mounted in the car with the evaporator. What is the compressor expansion valve?

Cruise is still shutting off on me occasionally. The light on the button turns off, it's not just cancelling. Is there a relay for that aside from the one in the cruise computer? I tried a different cruise computer from a junkyard and it does the same thing. I replaced the expansion valve in the AC system and there is still no pressure difference between high and low side with the compressor running. Could this be caused by insufficient oil? Or should I get a different compressor? For a few days the engine was cutting out at about 4000RPM in first gear at full throttle, like you turned off the ignition. Never at part throttle or any other gear. Cleared trouble codes and hasn't done it since. Been messing with some other minor things and waiting for some shock parts to try something different. Also getting serious about finding another rust free H6 Outback with under 150k miles, preferably 2001-2004 non VDC.

How much longer do you think it will be until you drive it? Looking good, love your paint booth!

It looks like you should make your skidplate wider to cover the exhaust if you're worried about it. You could probably just add a piece on each side to cover each exhaust pipe. Attach the outer ends to the old swaybar mount brackets. I have heard the European market Outbacks have the exhaust going over the passenger side of the engine crossmember like the turbo cars. If you can get one of those manifolds or something from a WRX (a lot of people upgrade their exhaust, you might be able to get a stock one cheap) it would help. The part of the exhaust that runs along the trans and driveshaft is probably going to be one of the lowest parts of your car no matter what you do. I wound up replacing the section of mine from the cat to the rear diff with 2.5" .095" 4130. Kind of overkill, but more practical than trying to make some kind of skidplate for it. Only one dent so far.

You probably know this but I think the BRZ trans is completely different than the 6MT in the STI. Stock BRZ trans is good to about 400hp. If you've got a t case after it, it will probably last a long time. Anyone ever mess with alternator wiring? Mine works but can't keep up with a half dozen 55W HID lights and the AC/radiator fans. It's supposed to be 90A stock. The wire plug has three wires. One is 12V just fused to battery +. Another is switched 12V with ignition. The third one is an open circuit last I checked. My friend tells me that is some kind of load circuit and he's read depending on whether you ground it or give it power, it changes the output of the alternator. Cruise is only staying on for short periods of time while driving now. Couldn't find any relay that powers it aside from the one in the cruise control computer, so I've got one of those coming in to try. It will stay on indefinitely with the car parked and ignition on, engine not running. Doesn't turn off when you shake/tap the cruise computers, so maybe it's not that. Still haven't decided what to do about AC, same pressure on high and low side with compressor running. I've tried both H6 compressors I have. Any thoughts on that? Could the orifice be blown out? Where is that, mounted to the evaporator?

Went through this and my notes and I think all the information is here now, added a few things to the first post.

I really think you want some kind of square tube lifting part that goes on the hi lift, square tube receivers in the frame, and maybe even a locking pin that goes through them. Like a trailer hitch. I would just use those, you could always mount a winch or something to them later. The square tubing will keep the jack from tipping over and the pin will keep it from sliding out. If you put one near each bumper frame mount that would probably suffice. You could put them on the sides of the car too, if you do I'd get them as close to the suspension mounts as you can and notch the pinch welds so they don't hang down.