aa8jzdial

Checked a friends tranny fluid on his 02 Forester automatic. Should of had a face shield on. Pulling the dip stick sent a quart or more fluid flying out. Did not dig any deeper yet. Is this supposed to be vented somewhere? Ignoring the pressure seems will soon cause seal problems. Any insight? thanks rick

I recall digging into this with a Forester. Pull out the sensor and spin the drive mechanism with a variable speed drill. What you couple the chuck to resembles a flat blade screw driver tip. Might take a little Mcguivering with tape or such. Run the drill and have someone watch the speedo. Just have the ignition switch in run. I have seen 2 and 3 wire sensors. My frogging around lead me to conclude the 2 wire sensor is based on a magnetic pickup design. It generates it's own signal. Don't know how many pulses per rev. The 3 wire units use #1, ground, #2, +12 volts, or maybe 5 volts (can't recall) #3 pulse out. The one I checked produced 4 square wave pulse per rev. Probably more then you want to know. I would certainly look in the junk yards before going to Sub guys. Good luck rick

91loyale may have pegged it. In retrospect the pinning may have not been necessary. Indeed the crank gear is "pinched" between the crank snout and the crank pulley. The Subaru design probably only fails when less then rated torque is applied to the crank bolt. Having said that though it sure gave me peace of mind when I installed the modified gear/pulley. Seemed to reduce the slop to an insignificant amount. With a worn key way how can we know the crank gear is exactly spot on. And just how significant is it? The car of mine is long since gone so I guess this question is just for reference. Enough on this thread?? rick

Toni for 50 bucks I would look around. Anyone with a wrenched engine will sell one cheap I bet. Let me know and I will look into one from a good friend up north. I will try and find the pix tmrw. No guarantee as I am terribly disorganized and have been for 57 years. r

I may have found something. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=54697&highlight=aa8jzdial Try this link. The guy is/was wawalker. I don't think his jpgs come through but the text seems to be there. Good luck. pm me and I will try and find the photos.

This is the third time I've entered a reply. And the last. Others got lost in the bit bucket. #@!$ computer Olnick I think is refering to some messages floating around a few years ago. I had the same problem with about 15 degrees of slop on my crank gear. A machinist fellow solved his problem (and mine via usmb) by drilling matching holes through both crank pulley and crank gear. Paralell with the crank axis. Dowel pins were pressed with a tight fit bonding the pulley and gear together. Some precison machining required here. This was then tightened with the crank bolt to 100+ ft/lbs. This tremendous force applied to the pulley/crank end interface held things perfectly for the past 40k miles. I suppose an extremely damaged keyway will take the crank beyond repair but this sure saved me major headaches. If I recall some touch up was required on the damaged crankshaft but done with just a file and some paper. New key too. This same fellow offered up the machining done on used parts he acquired for less then $100. Now that was 3-5 years ago so things change. Do a search here and post if you have no luck. I will dig into my hard drive when i get home and try and locate details. This technique should have been applied by Subaru to new motors. Rick w mi

Thanks all. Scored one for $25 from local yard. Seems to be ok. That is based on plugging it in and the motor kept running. The real test will be tomorrow morning starting in the cold. If it idles without keeping my foot in the throttle I will check the ok box. I was quite surprised to find it would run at all without the sensor. Seems like my older (and better) Legacies would not. Any how, thanks. r

I had to tow home the wife's Forester Saturday. 99 5 speed manual Would not stay running. Cough, choke, gasp. No codes shown on code reader. Unplugged MAF and ran mostly ok. Called Subaru. Apparently there was an "open recall" on this problem but mine was repaired by a previous owner. Local Sube dealer has a license to steal and wants $384 for a new one. If I can find a used one great. If not has anyone torn into a failed unit and figured out what went kaputt? Ive been working on electronic stuff for 40+ years and would love to thumb my nose at these guys. Help? Thanks Rick w mi

A good old buddy who is a whiz bang shade tree sube guy but a worthless Internet fellow wants to know about using some designer style gear lube for his manual transmissions and maybe also there motor oil. Any insight into stuff called Amsoil? Is it worth the big bucks? I am skeptical but told him I would seek data from the world's Sube guys. thanks rick

I recently swapped trannys on my 99 Forester. The original tranny / vehicle had a 3 wire pickup. The scrap yard tranny now in the vehicle came with a 2 wire pickup. I am not sure what vehicle it came from. Someone else found it for me. Works fine except for no speedometer. The 2 wire pickup has a drive link that resembles a flat screw driver blade. The 3 wire has a allen head link. The 2 wire puts out an ac voltage when spun. Magnetic pickup I assume. Lead to lead resistance is about 3-4 ohms on an old analog ohm meter. (all I had at the time.) The 3 wire resistance readings are higher. Can't recall exactly. 2 wire is self power, mag pickup? 3 wire is an active device requiring 5 or 12 vdc to energize? Can I McGuiver an interface circuit to use the 2 wire sensor on the 3 wire ecm module input? other options? This is not a crisis but the wife drives the car for work and get paid mileage and she is not happy. go figure. tnx r

For what it is worth. My 99 Forester tranny (manual) went bad this summer. Replaced with scrap yard unit for $350. All good so far. Bought a real clean 2000 Forester for the red head. 120k miles. Input shaft bearings kaput. after about 3k more miles. Bought scrap yard tranny again, $450. Grinding noise from center diff area after just a bit of driving. Have unemplyed Sub certified mechanic (boy does he have some stories of how the public gets taken, especially women) trying to take 2 bad trannys and making one good. I have had great luck with Subes over the years. I am presently maintaining 6 subes spread over myself, 3 kids and one wife. Sometimes you just have a bad run of luck. My experience as of late is trannys can fail. I need to find cheap new tranny parts and get over my fear of rebuilding them. rick

If in doubt, remove the drain plug. Clean and dry one tooth on the ring gear and mark it with a Sharpy pen. Count the teeth. 37 teeth on ring gear = 4.11. This is because the pinion gear has to have whole numbers. In this case, 9. 37/9=4.1111111111 It is completely a math thing. If Subaru used 400 teeth on the ring gear and 100 on the pinion it would be 4.0000 to 1 but the small teeth would not carry much torque. 4 teeth to 1 tooth = 4.00000 but 1 a tooth pinion gear is real hard to manufacture. I have not done the math but the possibilities are very limited. Think about it. r

Great pile of info guys. Much appreciated. How about the peanned over nuts, if that is a good term. Should they be replaced? It may be a bit before this project gets tackled but this surely will help. I will try and blast an update when things progress. Now to find the best prices. Thanks rick w mi

2000 forester. manual Replaced noisy tranny with used unit. All seems ok. A fellow at work is interested in rebuilding the failed tranny. He is anxious to get into it and will bill me $100 labor. In fact he has it apart and has identified the problem as the large bearing on the main (input shaft). We both looked it over and with my limited understanding would say the rest of the gears/bearings look ok. This tranny has 120k miles. Is this a common failure? Is this job so tricky to do correctly that the likelyhood of success is pretty low? What all should be replaced besides the obvious bearings and seals? Ballpark $ for parts? Only available from Subaru? He has not done Subes but seems to be competent with a wrench. This will sort of be a test rebuild and maybe this guy will turn into a good resource. Thoughts? thanks rick w mi

Thanks a bunch folks. Maybe I was being too anal. I just didn't want to regret being cheap later on. Now to deal with the stuck exhaust stud. rick

2000 Forester, 2.5 l, 5 sp manual, 120k miles. I am in the process of replacing the tranny. While the motor is out I will be installing new head gaskets. I am using the gaskets from Subaru. I read the extra cost may be worth it. How about the head bolts? I don't want to reuse the old ones if this will be a compromise. How can I tell the condition of them? They stretch, right? Measure the length or diameter? What is a go/no go dimension? At about $120 a set I don't want to change if not necessary. Thanks Rick

GD Thanks for the help. You talked me out of trying the rebuild. We did come up with a 2000 Outback with 120K miles. $450 This should be a 3.9/1, right? Therefore I go back to the yard and bargain for the rear diff. Now for my education, I looked into a drain port on a 4.11/1 tranny and counted 37 teeth on the ring gear. Therefore the pinion gear is 9 teeth. 37/9=4.11. If that is true then I assume the 3.90/1 will have 39 ring gear teeth and 10 pinion teeth. If I look in the 2000 Outback tranny, count 39 ring gear teeth and it is indeed 3.90/1 I spring for the rear diff. Yes? Sheesh. I need a beer. One more thing. .... With the 3.90/1 will my wife get tickets for speeding or have folks blowing the horn at her to get her moving? If so how can I resolve this minor issue? Thanks again. Rick

This sounds like what I had this summer on my 1999 Forester. Put in a used tranny for about $600, parts and labor. Now our second Forester, a low mileage 2000 model has developed the same problem. Question #1. Can a 4 thumbed rookie have any chance of replacing the bad main shaft bearing, or bearings? #2 If so, what is the likely costs? #3 Any idea what tranny besides one from a 2000 Forester will work? Issues like speedo gearing and neutral / reverse switches. I believe the diff ratio is 4.11/1. #4 if I find a donor car, will the VIN reveal the diff ratios? #5 How hard is it to count the ring and pinion gear teeth to calculate the ratio? I am beginning to like the early 90's Legacy more and more. thanks, Rick w. mi.

Thanks for the quick reply Josh and the concise info. I think there may be a difference between 98 and 99 vintages as I recall seeing 4 wires going to this MAF sensor rather then 3 as referenced on the 98 schematic. Even so I will check these pins. I beleive I will snoop around a bit more by comparing the signal coming out the troubled MAF sensor with the signal coming from the MAF sensor on my 99 Forester. I found that removing the connector on the Impreza MAF sensor the car will cough and die. That is getting me thinking that maybe there is not a funky connection to the ecu MAF input. More digging. rick

1999 Impreza CEL and driveabilty issue. Code reader says "Mass air flow sensor input low." Checking the output sig from the MAF (under the hood) shows from 1.4 volts dc at idle about to about 2.5 volts while mildly revving the engine. My thinking is if the reader is correct the wiring harness must have a break somewhere. The trouble is I do not have the schematic indicating which pin to check on the ecu to verify if the MAF signal is or is not getting to the ecu. Can any one help? thanks Rick

Thanks for the help guys and sorry for the late followup. The original motor was a 2.5. The number from the tag on the fender well is TY755VC1AA. 1) Is this likely a 4.11 ratio? 2) If I am looking at Legacy transmissions will they have a number other then TY755VC1AA and still work? 2a) In other words does the same tranny have different #s if used in different vehicles? 3) Legacy/Forester transmission from what year to year will work? 4) If I haven't already, I now expose my ignorance. What is USRM? tnx rick w mi

2000 Forrester , awd-manual, making very unpleasant noises during throttle down. Checked diff. oil and found telltale flakes on the dip stick. One of the great things about Subes is the parts interchangeblility. I have no experience with this problem though. What should I look for while searching for a used tranny, differential? I need to match the front diff ratio with the rear? How can I tell which is which? What is a good price for used tranny/diff? rick w mi

777 I am pretty sure they are not great. Neither is the 95 Impreza The struts on the car are real bad. The eternal issue of new vs used parts. Especially parts that are subject to wear. It's not like an intake manifold or bracket. Thanks for the advice. I will try and pick out the best pair. rick

My 95 1.8 manual awd impreza needs rear struts Friend has a stash of undefined used struts Are the Impreza struts unique? He has pulled most of his parts off pre 96 Legacys. I know the fwd vs awd are different. thanks rick w mi

99 Legacy Intermittent Speedo. I am recommending to friend to put voltmeter across the gauge. When it stops working, read the handheld voltmeter monitoring the drive signal. Good readings on the hand held, head is kapput. Good Idea? Is the signal millivolts, milliamps, volts or btu's per psi? thanks rick w mi