Mitchy

Well @idosubaru That is some solid advice. I intend to inspect the existing parts first, according to a sticker it was serviced (belt replacement) by a Bosch-service garage only 27,000 miles ago. I presently have no idea if the pulleys or tensioner were replaced, nor the brand of belt installed. I did peek inside the cover though to see which tensioner is fitted. It is earlier two-piece. As I am generally paranoid of garage service workmanship and parts brand selection (bueno, barato y bonito is the common maxim), I look to change what I can as soon as I have the engine face exposed, that is, oil pump seal, crank seal, camshaft seals, water pump, and belt components. I would not change the tensioner yet if it shows no signs of failure. But it is reassuring to have a fresh one on the shelf for ‘that moment’.....This is a mere 90,000 mile EJ22, but is also 23 years old.

Doh!! ..and suddenly I remembered that I have sitting in the cupboard, a new pump...

@idosubaru The thermostat I bought a few weeks ago along with rad hoses and cap, from Subaru.

My Japan built ‘97 ej22 has the two-piece tensioner as pictured. I am waiting for a more detailed answer from the vendor of the Aisin kit. Elsewhere, I have found a decently priced kit using GMB pulleys, and a Mitsuboshi belt, the water pump I can find separately Any experience with GMB conponents? I have not read any bad reviews of GMB, and the price is really good:

I need a little help and guidance with purchase of the AISIN TKF-003 belt/pulley/pump and tensioner kit... As the Legacy is running so well and giving no trouble, I thought it was about time to think about renewing the timing belt and pullies. And why not the water pump too? I often see AISIN mentioned, along with Mitsuboshi for the belt. I got searching and come up nil in Europe, all is SKF or GATES branded kit: I can shop around and cherry pick brand components I want, but it seems unnecessary. I last did the Forester belt change with the Gates kit: EU made belt and KOYO JAPAN stamped parts. 40,000 miles and no problem so far. No pump swap that time. I fancy the AISIN kit TKF-003 for the Legacy and only find it on eBay or US websites. The eBay vendor, when asked, answered that ALL the parts in the TKF-003 kit are AISIN brand. I’m not sure if that is correct, can anybody shed light on the actual contents of the TKF-003 kit? Thanks in advance

On my way back from work yesterday I stopped at a station for refreshment and to top up my screen squirter bottle. I noticed an ever so slight smell of coolant which always puts me on alert. First I looked at was the slightly soft upper rad hose area, and hey presto, there was little dry patch of whitish deposit on the belt cover. The hose had finally begun to perish externally and had a teeny weeny split. It wasn’t actually leaking with the engine idling, strangely enough, though I could feel the spot where the split was with my finger. I bit the bullet and steadily head homeward, some 20 miles, watching the temp gauge all the while. No harm done, and with no noticeable coolant loss, letting it all cool down I did a quick nighttime change with the lovely new expensive genuine hose I bought just last week... Seems just fine now. new and old romantic evening in

Yep I have put a few bids in.... Tx

Took forever for the 750 footpack and Legacy Sedan-specific 1062 clip and rubber foot kit to arrive. Its a cool system - all the right shape moldings, and installed properly it just clears the glass by a hair when closing doors! This is all discontinued new stock gear. I now need to find the bars in cheap good used condition. I’m having fun sourcing all these old-stock period accessories! Little things... Not many if these kits left now:

..

I have decided not to drill my beautiful roof to experiment with incorrect rails. Having looked into the Yakima Q-system, I finally opted for a similar and more easily available Thule system. I have found the correct Legacy II sedan-specific boxed (discontinued) clips and feet, so then I can cherry pick the bars once I have the fixtures. As soon as it is on I will update. Thanks for all your input, much appreciated.

Just found this on their website. Very helpful, even if some of it is discontinued. At least I know what I would need if I went this route: Unfortunately all the Yakima gear (2nd hand at least) comes from the USA, so it would cost more than double with postage and import duty. Back to the drawing board....

No rush at all. The option of Yakima q towers or equivalent is interesting. I would like to know which Yakima Qclips I should be looking for, as on their website they have zero info for old Subarus. If I went with OB bars, they would need to be cut somewhere after the mid-way leg.

Thanks for the tip Is that a ‘96 sedan? If so I would like to see your rack, if at all possible. That could be a less painful way to go. So they do not foul glass or damage the window rain lip? -interesting.... regards

The Forester has a single dash holder, one in the top of the centre armrest/stash, and two fold-outs in the rear of the centre console. Plus a million little hatches and hidy-holes. The Legacy is weird and just has the centre console stash. There was a blanking plate in the dash centre, where the (EU optional?) double cupholder should be. As can be seen, I have remedied this oversight. I do not care about the rear cupholders, three young kids, -less to break!

I’ll be hard pushed to find another old Subaru on the island, let alone an Outback. They just never took off here. I can find a few in the mainland though. I am somewhat of a ‘weirdo’ with my Subarus, as most cars here are french, or new Audis. I have carried some serious stuff on top of the Forester!

Legacy BD7 sedan 2.2i 4WD, from 1997

Haha thanks Larry. I think you’d be surprised at Palma nowadays, but there’s still some island charm left. Offer accepted, let me know when you are coming!

@gbhrps Thank you for the advice, that makes a lot of sense. I have been researching aplenty over the internet, but I have been quite specific about searching under ‘Legacy’. Having seen many OEM roof cross bars for old Outbacks, I am tempted to find and fit similar rails and hope that the width of the Sedan roof and same-age Outback are the same, to use the flush aerodynamic Subaru bars. After a quick look I see that some Impreza wagons have shorter roof rails than the outback: perhaps these would be suitable without cutting them down, though they are likely too long. I certainly think that it would be more practical to properly fit some good rails myself, than to fit roof bars that hook over my upper window brow/lip thingy. I often carry a 13’ kayak on the Forester’s Thule wingbars, and every so often some long lumber, ladders etc. I would like to be able to do the same with the Leg.

I don’t think that even the SUS (Outback sedan by another name?) had roof rails. The pictures I have seen of them have a gutter-attached roof rack.

Our Legacy is sleek, is smooth, has great paint, but no way to fit a roof rack unless its the rapidly-disappearing type that hooks over the window rain gutter strip, probably fouling the frameless glass as you open and close doors. I hanker for rails, like our old Forester has, and then I can pick and choose from a wealth of roof bars. Has anyone done a retro fit of some rails? I am happy to cut down some cheap rails from the scrapyard, but I need a good permanent fit and not buckle/ruin my pristine 22 year old roof. Leaking is not an option... I realise I must drill to install. So perfect..... Thank you for any advice

I got a moment to put on the brand new, old stock front flaps, and just as well I lifted the wheel well splash guards to look behind because there were a couple of lbs of wet sand jammed in the lower wing/sill: Car feels lighter driving up the track now! And as chance would have it my long-awaited, much needed cup holder arrived today too: How could this car have survived 22 years without someone installing a cup holder....? Boggled.... Lots of new-old original Scoob parts fun today! We’re just missing a roof rack, and some proper struts, and I think that’s that! (Oh, and fix the A/C....) Beer time.

Good work , sir! I once owned a ‘classic’ 1969 morris 1100 which had dash-mounted rocker switch operated wipers. That was a pain.

Hi Bennie Yes its not too extreme; 32mm (1.25”) all around, but it makes for a world of difference in our situation. We use our cars for normal road driving, and I greatly enjoy the Subaru AWD handling on our twisty roads, but there is a mile of rough track, in parts steep, from our home to civilisation. This was the initial reason we started to look for comfortable ‘family cars’ which could cope with the rough and slippery stuff! That was when I had my epiphany and discovered our trusty stalwart, the Forester. The track is crumbly and rocky in our hot summer, muddy and slippery in our wet winter, and firm but uneven between! The little extra clearance is a necessity. The photo above, taken of the rear of the car shows a less technical part of our track. I shall see how this setup goes, with an aim to fitting better parts and replacing the worn/missing bits in the near future. I had to make it higher urgently and cheaply to get along our track without excessive swerving and constantly worrying about clearance. After the lift ‘experiment’ I now see that I need three new struts due to leakage (four new struts then), plus other hardware. I first have to decide if this lift is enough, before buying a set of replacement struts and proper alloy lift kit. Perhaps more logical would be to buy the full set of Outback struts, and find the necessary kit such as trailing arm brackets or spacers, and hope that the CVs will not be overworked as I do not have plans to space the subframes/diff etc.. Either way I can re-use my springs and some strut hardware. Using long OB struts without associated OB body lift parts would likely mean trouble adjusting the camber- my front bolts are maxed out already with this minor lift.... The other thing that bothers me is lifting it so much to appear non-stock or even ludicrous with the smaller Legacy (non-OB) wheels. I am presently almost at my permitted max wheel diameter- Spanish law will not permit unhomologated mods, nor more than 3% deviation in tyre diameter. It has to be within limits or be very discreet. I have 195/70r14 rubber fitted, 2.5% larger than the standard 195/60r15. Thanks!

Apologies for the thread revival, but I have just fitted these same (30mm) spacers as a test and economic stop-gap before I go to longer struts on the Legacy, so I thought it may be relevant. No problems with the vendor, the struts came with their longer bolts too. I was surprised to find these spacers offer a bit of squish, ie; they are somewhat soft compared to chopping board material or aluminium. They have mild steel crush tubes molded into them, to pass the bolts through, and these are internal diameter of 11mm on the fronts and 10mm on the rears, so the bolts can possibly dance or move over terrain, or cornering. I am sure that they are less than ideal. The aluminium SubtleSolutions spacers are, in comparison, correctly threaded. These I fitted as a permanent method on the Forester some years back. They are still perfect. On these cheapo eBay ones, I had to insert more material inside the tubes; a further steel tube of 10mm exterior and 8mm interior to fit snugly around the bolt. The fronts got an 8mm threaded rivet installed in each tube. See photos. I am very concerned that should I leave them fitted for an extended period that the unpainted steel tubes will rust and seize the bolts, so buyer beware. The spacers with the tube modifications now fit tightly and correctly, and the crush tubes, being a little shorter than the thickness of the spacer, allow a good snug fit when reinstalling the strut. To help matters the molded-in tube just slides in and out after a little persuasion. I have had to reset the front camber bolts after the lift as the camber became very positive, just like on the Forester with 1” spacers. The rear appears to have little difference between stock and 1” lift. All-in-all I do not rate these as ideal for a permanent method of lifting; they are soft, and they require modification of the bolt tubes, which will also rust easily if left unchecked. Driving on them feels comfortable, the suspension and steering feels secure, no notable change on tarmac or off-road. Photos of the bolt hole front modification- bolt loose in the un-modded hole: The insert used for the mod: Link to the installation:

You can’t compress a spring spanning only two coils, I have discovered! All done, now I am happier. After the lift I was eye-balling the camber; at the rear it looks pretty much the same, just a little less negative camber, not quite vertical. The fronts, however, without adjusting the camber bolt from the stock position, showed real positive camber, so I wound the bolts in to maximum negative camber. I am not convinced that I am achieving the stock angle, but it looks close. On the road the handling is great. I have discovered that three of the four struts are a little soft and have been sweating, there are none of the four helpers (just those pieces of soggy biscuit), and I should replace the front strut top hats bearings. Well now I know what I need for my next shopping spree! Stock, pre-lift: Post-lift, 30mm F and R: