sussman00

Thanks for the thoughts everyone. You confirmed my suspicions. Looks like I've got another project to plan for!

My 98 OBW (175K) now has a noticible vibration coming from the rear drivers side area when making hard right hand turns. When driving straight there is no unusual vibration or noise. I thought this might be a wheel bearing so I jacked up the rear and inspected the wheel for any play. The wheel is on there solidly and I was not able to detect any movement when pushing and pulling on opposite sides of the tire. I also spun the tire and tried to detect any vibration or noise out of the ordinary. Everything sounds fine and I could not feel any vibration when holding the spring. I checked the passenger side rear wheel as well and didn't find anything out of the ordinary. The tires are all matching and have been rotated recently. Any thoughts on whether a bad wheel bearing can start out with just vibrations during turns? Thanks, Seb

It has been steaming quite a bit and the coolant loss seems to be getting worse. The engine came from Jasper. I believe it was a complete rebuild. It has a 3 year/100K warranty so all the previous repairs were covered...and I expect this to be covered as well if it is a head gasket. I just figured I would check with the brain trust before bringing it in again. The shop that put it in has had success with these engines in the past. I guess I just didn't get so lucky. Thanks!

Hi All, I've run into another issue with my 98 OBW that I am hoping you might have some thoughts on. About two years ago at 128K the car blew a HG. There were other issues with the engine so I had a shop install a remanufactured engine. I have had it back in the shop for a variety of oil leaks, but for the most part things have been going pretty well with the car. It runs fine and the engine is strong. I noticed recently that it seems to be loosing coolant. It has lost about 1/2 gallon of coolant in the past month. I've checked all the hoses and I don't see any sign of leaks. I do see steam coming out of the tailpipe even when the car is warm. It does appear to be steam and not white smoke as it disapates quickly. I suspect that is where my coolant is going. The car has is not over heating, I don't see any sign of water in the oil or under the filler cap, and I don't see the gunk in the coolant overflow that I found with the original headgasket leak. So question is this...is it possible to have a headgasket leak where the only symptoms seem to be coolant loss through the tailpipe?

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts. I picked up a used hub and axle at my local auto dismantlers for $100. I installed both of those and replaced the steering rack boot for good measure. The alignment seems to be fine and the noise is definately gone. The wheel bearing was definately shot. Hopefully this setup will last for a while.

I started thinking about what might have caused the boot to slip off. In particular I was thinking about the grinding noise my wife was describing and thinking it might be wheel bearing related. To check I jacked up the car up, grabbed the wheel and tried to moved it. The wheel moves way to much in all directions. Is it possible that a bad wheel bearing caused the CV joint to heat up and slip off the hub? I won't know for sure until I take everything apart, but this leads me to think that I am going to need a wheel bearing, possibly a new hub as well as the axle?

I was thinking a replacement was required as well. Thanks for confirming.

How long the axle has been in this condition is a good question. I think that the separation of the boot happened recently...probably within the last couple of days. This is my wife's car, and she has been complaining about a grinding noise when turning left or right for the past 2 weeks or so. I looked the car over myself without finding any issues. I brought it to the local subaru dealership. I was told that the problem was the power steering pump (it had a leak at the time). I replaced the pump last weekend and didn't hear the noise myself so I figured the problem was solved until today. I hadn't really considered repacking the boot. We live on a paved street and haven't taken this car off road or anything. Because of the grinding noise (which is very apparent now!) I figured it would be better to just replace the whole axle. With that history do you think it would be better to repack or replace this thing? Thanks for the tip on MWE. I'll definately go that route if replacing. Thanks again!

My wife was driving her 98 OBW today. Thankfully she was not too far from home. It looks the the passenger side axle boot actually slipped off the knuckle threw grease everywhere. It was even smoking a little when she got home. I know I am going to need a new front axle. Is there anything else I should replace while I am at it? Thanks!

I did call CCR. Their price for a 2.5 was around $3300 which is one reason I started looking at just doing the gead gasket replacement. I'll probably just live with the noisy engine in the morning.

This car does have a good case of piston slap when it is cold. The sound goes away pretty quick once is warms up...so it seems more annoying that anything else. Is there anything that can be done to reduce or eliminate the noise while the heads are off?

Thank you all for the advice. I think you all have reaffirmed my decision to just have the HG's replaced. We have owned the car for the last 100K miles. I have done most of the work on the car so I know that the regular stuff has been done on time (most of the time anyway). I replaced the crank seal/timing belt/water pump myself about 50K ago. The shop doing the work will replace the cam and crank seals, timing belt and do a valve job while the engine is out. I figured I would have them replace the rear main seal and the water pump & thermostat as well. Is there anything else I should have them do while they are in there tinkering around?

Hi All, Well it finally happened. After 128K relatively trouble-free miles my wifes 98 OBW blew a headgasket. Unfortunately my wife was 250 miles away when she noticed the car overheating. We took the car to a tech and he confirmed that there are hydrocarbons in the coolant. Thanks to a U-Haul auto transport and a friend with a truck I was able to get the thing home. Now I am trying to decide whether to just have the headgaskets repaced (along with a number of other engine seals), or have the engine replaced with a rebuilt motor. I am leaning more towards just the HG job as the car ran strong up and was well maintained up until this point and the difference in price is considerable as I don't have time to do the work myself. I also don't think that it was run hot for very long...although I don't know for sure as I wasn't driving it. So I thought I would tap the collective knowledge of the group about their experience with HG replacements on the 2.5L engine. For those of you who have replaced the HG's what has your experience been? Can I expect another 50 - 75K out of the engine...or am I better off replacing the whole thing? Thanks!

I'm looking to install a keyless entry system in my 98 OBW. Any recommendations out there for systems that are easy to install? Any hints on the installation from someone that has been through it before? Thanks.

Yep. There are maybe 8 small screws holding the fans and radiator in. Since I replaced the water pump I had to drain everything anyway. It is much easier to operate will all that stuff out of the way. I also took off the air filter housing...made easier to access the #1 cylindere. One thing my manual called for was draining the engine with two drain plugs close to the oil pan. Instead I just pulled off the radiator hose from the thermostat housing. That did the trick...and I didn't have an allen wrench big enough to open the plugs.

I just finished the job. I did the front crank seal, water pump, oil pump o ring, and timing belt. took a little longer than I expected. But after all the posts I read about this repair in this forum I was well prepared. I ran into trouble in two spots. First getting the crankshaft pulley off. I tried first with a strap wrench. I think this might have worked if I had help, but doing this alone I needed something that let me have both hands free to wrench on the pulley bolt. I ended up buying a vice-grip chain wrench. Worked like a charm. The chain wrench did do some minor damage to the pulley, but I was fix it with small file. When I put the pulley back on, I put a piece of old drive belt down first to protect the pulley...worked like a charm. Since I took off the oil pump, installing the crank gasket was a piece of cake. However, if you install without taking off the oil pump it looks like you will need a 1 5/16" socket to tap it in. I decided not to do the cam gaskets as they looked fine...I'll save those for next time. Second place I had issues was trying to get the water pump gasket on properly. Before you start this try to get the gasket as flat as possible. I also put sealer on both the pump and the block to hold the gasket in place. Overall I would say this is a challenging repair, but certainly possible with the right tools and a little bit of time. Thanks for all of your help!!!!

I found myself in a similar situation. What worked for me was two large screwdrivers (and I mean large screwdrivers - 12'' plus) on either side of the pulley with the handles on the bottom. I just alternated lifting with each screw driver until the pulley was worked off. Worked like a charm. Before trying that I spent about 30 minutes prying from just about every direction I could think of with no luck.

Thanks for your help. I'll post what I end up using.

Newbie here on the forum with a question on replacing the front oil seals (crank/cam/oil pump), timing belt, and water pump on my 98 OB wagon. I want to be sure I have all the necessary tools before I tackle the job. The docs I have read on replacing the seals call for the subaru factory tool for replacement. Is it possible to use a deep socket? If so, what size socket should I use? Any other tools that will work? Thanks