Andyjo

might be a long shot, but check out your steering yoke (the thing that goes from the steering column to the rack & pinion). The bearings in mine went and it was REALLY hard to turn.

subaru fever... that's right, has anyone taken note that almost all new cars are starting to look like subaru's?? They just want to be cool like us :cool: ANother thought that came to mind when looking at the front... BMW... looks like the front end of a BMW.... ewwww

ohhhhhhhh THAT nut? in the middle? that's supposed to move in the strut mount

you still have that solenoid issue

Where's the motor go? Maybe it's just me, but i love opening up the hood of my impreza and being able to just go at it, not removing plastic plating, or have to bend around stuff to get in there. I haven't event heard of the thing until tonight, so i'll do some reading, but i'm guessing the power is alright, because most new subi's seem to have some punch to them now... but it looks like a minivan... maybe a subivan? I don't blame subaru for trying to get a few more bucks in their pocket, that's what it's all about, and if they know what's smart then they won't take their eyes off of the loyal customers like us.

oops! Well you either stripped the pressed in bolt, or it's not seated correctly. You might want to pop off that whole strut assembly and check out the bottom of that strut mount. Torque's also depend on the brand... i bought some kyb struts last summer, and i broke one of the bolts, because i went by the subaru book instead of reading the paperwork that came w/ the struts. I think, don't quote me on this, but i think it was something like 43ft-lbs..

Didn't Austin use outback struts? I think i'm gonna head to the junkyard one of these days and see what i can pull off some of the foresters there My imp. OBS will get taller this summer, i can feel it!

our school's mini-baja team uses really knobby tires as propultion. As for the fluid dymanics of it, i'll get down to crunching some numbers when i get a chance. you'd also have to worry about your electronics.. like my fog lights are pretty log, and have a feeling those would short out, along with the other stuff up front. I'm thinking that for stability reasons you might want some sort of outrigging, fiberglass pontoon, or styrofoam or something like that. eh...

Don't Jetta's have them? they're spring loaded, and the key part flips out the side. Or maybe it's Saab's? something like that

i want to ask why

this question maybe have been answered before... but which assembly will give you more lift? Legancy struts, or Outback struts? my instinct's telling me the outback struts... because everyone uses them

Torque wrench? 120ish in-lbs is what my book says

driving around w/o a swaybar link... must be a real soft ride... don't take any turns to fast

my impreza never has changes in oil.... i use 10w-30. you might want to check your oil pump, when i first got my subi there would be a burning oil smell, and it turned out that there was a very slow oil leak onto my exhaust, hense the burning smell. so we cranked out the oil pump and a few of the screws in on the pump were VERY loose, fixed that and it stopped. you might want to check that out.

So most of the new gen auto subaru's like mine (97 impreza) have a towing fuse, you plug in the fuse and it disengages the rear end or something. I was wondering if anyone has tried driving around like this... improved gas milage? Maybe it'd be a way to save some $$ in the summer months. who knows? I just won't want to mess up my car so i was hoping someone more knowledgeable would give me some knowhow.

my thule bars are wicked loud i think i've narrowed the sound down the the rain gutter mounts. I'm thinking of poping them off tonight and seeing how much of a difference it makes... but... it could also be the ghetto CB antenna mount

If you're interested, or know a good place let me know. I fixed the car.... now it's time to break it again.

I offroad it w/ my auto OBS and i'll agree with you there, clearance is the only issue i have. I hauled tree that fell over our road.. large tree... about 1.5-2ft diameter, and wicked long, neighbors thought it was funny, too bad i didn't get any puctures. Also, my subi has gone places one of my friends couldn't get w/ his manual jeep, in 4 lo w/ his diff locker on.

Here's something for yall' The guy who invented this, the multi-port gassous fuel injection system, used to live down the street from me, and my dad knows him. He's got a pateint on it an stuff. His name is Wayne Swanson. I was gonna talk to him about doing a conversion, we're going to do it to our old chris craft, with an 8 cyl aluminum block i didn't really read all the posts, but the whole deal is that propane burns slower, and you get better compression. So you get more powerful and longer powerstrokes. mmmmm... power....

my 97 OBS gets 20-27ish, and... with the thule box & racks it goes from that to about 20-23mpg. But an idea! subaru's auto's have that crazy 'fwd' fuse for towing, you know you put the fuse in when you tow the car. what if you were to run the car w/ a fuse in there.. i've never tried it, just an idea that came up.

if you're turning when accelerating it could be your power steering... eh?

So i've got this impreza, and last summer my rear wheel bearings went. So it took some time, fixed it, dropped some money on it, they worked fine. But now they're starting to act up again, and i'm thinking it's because of either romping around to much on them, or loading the car down so it has no suspension movement, then slaming into putholes and such. So i was wondering if anyone knew of say.. a better wheel bearing than stock subaru? I haven't done any research, just wondering if anyone had any ideas, besides lifting it, because i already know that has to be done. On a brighter note, the rack & pinion is back in, and i can turn! woohoo!

At least you didn't break the weld, aye? how about trying to take out the fender bolts w/ an electric drill on the highest torque setting... i only have 2 top fender bolts now... :-\ oh, another good one, lowering a vehicle onto your foot.... man i've never turned a jack around that fast before...

Mine's pretty good.. got a rock stuck in my steering, messed up my rack & pinion and steering york... and while taking out the old rack managed to break a welded on nut inside the frame, cut the bolt, grinded a hole to get the old nut out... fixed that stuff. Managed to lose the same bolt at LEAST 10 times in the period of 30 minutes... took me 2 hours to connect a hydrolic line to the rack... ohh.. it was a good day. also, the stabilizing bar links in and imp. should be almost vertical, not horizantal *crunch* but on a brighter note, my steering is fixed, and smooth yay!

A while ago i believe someone told me that the auto was 75:25, Front:Rear. And that the manual was roughly 50:50, Front:Rear. I like my auto.. because well... i've only gotten stuck in it twice... once traveling 50mph, sideways, into a field w/ 2ft of snow, and the 2nd time after driving over a snow bank... into deeper snow.... i think the only issues i've had w/ the car is being high centered, not w/ the transmission oh yeah, i drive an OBS, but i think the transmissions are similar