DJA Posted June 10, 2014 Share Posted June 10, 2014 (edited) (Revised the original post) here's the rundown... I recently bought a 1995 Legacy with the ej22 and 127k on it and found out that it needs some transmission work (has a whirring noise on acceleration and during idling, but it goes away when the clutch pedal is pushed in). I'm considering just fixing it myself and was wondering if there are any good walkthroughs on the ej22 motor for clutch replacement and/or transmission removal. Edited June 23, 2014 by DJA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fairtax4me Posted June 10, 2014 Share Posted June 10, 2014 What is the noise you have? Does it happen in all gears just a few? What does the fluid look like? The manuals have a habit of eating the mainshaft rear bearing. Haven't ever heard of one doing that with the kind of mileage yours has, but that car has spent plenty of time driving around with old fluid in it. The mainshaft bearings will make a growling or sandy noise in all gears that is dependent on engine speed. It can also change depending on engine load, light throttle vs heavy throttle. It will also make a whirring noise when sitting still in nuetral with the clutch engaged. Disengaging the clutch (pushing the pedal down) will make the noise stop. The bearing is replaceable if you have a press, and is worthwhile as long as the rest of the trans (synchros, front diff) is in good shape. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJA Posted June 11, 2014 Author Share Posted June 11, 2014 (edited) Just went and started the car. whirring noise with the clutch out, goes away when it's engaged. Oil appears to be dirty. I unfortunately do not have a press. I'll check later, but the whirring noise appears to be present no matter which gear i'm in. Edited June 11, 2014 by DJA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJA Posted June 13, 2014 Author Share Posted June 13, 2014 Pretty sure the car needs a new transmission. Tried to change the oil today to see if the whine went away, but it's still there. I'm also pretty sure that the throw out bearing is toast. Honestly, it looked like the tranny oil hadn't been changed in years.. The plug had an insane amount of ripped up metal on it. Not good... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Atlantis Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 (edited) Just went and started the car. whirring noise with the clutch out, goes away when it's engaged. Oil appears to be dirty. I unfortunately do not have a press. I'll check later, but the whirring noise appears to be present no matter which gear i'm in. - This may only be your throw out bearing. I have an '08 Outback Legacy with only 88,000 miles on it and I'm already running into problems like this. I replaced the throw out bearing which eliminated the noise regarding clutch depression. Although, I still have the 'whirring' noise in my transmission, regardless of which gear i'm in. It gets louder based on engine speed. I believe that I will need to replace my main shaft bearing. Edited June 20, 2014 by Mr.Atlantis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJA Posted June 22, 2014 Author Share Posted June 22, 2014 (edited) I'm going to pull the transmission and have a shop look at it. I'll most likely just replace the clutch while I'm at it. I found a great walkthrough here http://www.rs25.com/forums/f105/t128163-diy-clutch-replacement-pictorial.html which is for a 99 2.5l impreza, but I couldn't find a comprehensive DIY for the 2.2l motor. Will it be more or less the same steps with the ej22? Edited June 23, 2014 by DJA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heartless Posted June 23, 2014 Share Posted June 23, 2014 For transmission work, which motor you have is kind of irrelevant - they used the same trannies across multiple platforms & years. the writeup you found should work just fine, with perhaps a few minor differences in things like harness connections & shift linkage - the basics should all be the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJA Posted June 24, 2014 Author Share Posted June 24, 2014 awesome, thanks! ordered an exedy clutch kit today and have a list of a few other things to pick up as well (rear main seal, manifold gaskets, oil separator plate, 3/16 punch, engine degreaser, trans oil, etc..). Any other small things that I should have in advance? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fairtax4me Posted June 24, 2014 Share Posted June 24, 2014 Tube of RTV. O-ring for the access cover plate. Impact screwdriver for the screws on the separator and the access cover. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heartless Posted June 24, 2014 Share Posted June 24, 2014 what fairtax said - +10 on the impact driver if you dont have one. general concensus around here is to leave the rear main seal alone unless it is obviously damaged. a small amount of weeping is acceptable. 99.9% of the time any oil leakage on the rear of the motor is from the separator plate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJA Posted July 6, 2014 Author Share Posted July 6, 2014 Thanks for the advice. Spent the last few days taking everything apart and swapping in a different tranny. I ended up skipping the access plate since the amount of oil loss didn't look too bad from there and no matter how hard I leaned into it, I couldn't get good enough purchase on the screw heads and I didn't want to strip them. The rear main seal and separator plate however looked terrible so I replaced both of those. Only issue was that I forgot to take of the little steering linkage bracket that bolts onto the back of the transmission and the dealer does not have them in stock, so I may just try and find one at the pick and pull on Monday. One more question though... In the beginning when I was taking everything off, I went to remove the transmission ground wire and it wasn't even connected to the transmission and you can see where the metal attachment point busted off. I'm guessing I could just get another metal connector piece to fix the broken end, but am unsure about where it connects to the transmission. Could I just put it on anywhere as long as it's secured (by bolt) to the transmission? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fairtax4me Posted July 6, 2014 Share Posted July 6, 2014 The trans ground strap isn't even necessary, but if you're inclined to repair it, crimp a new eyelet to the end and it bolts to the trans by one of the 12mm case bolts on top. I think its the 3rd or 4th from the front. Very tricky to get to wih the trans in the car, so bolt it to the trans first, then attach itntonthe firewall after reinstalling the trans. I had one about 3 years ago that did the same as yours, the eyelet just yanked off. Pulled the trans to do the clutch and didnt see the ground strap. Fixed it up, new eyelet, bolted to the trans, put the trans back in. A year later I was poking around under the hood and found that ground strap hanging loose. I forgot to bolt it back to the firewall after I put the trans in. Didnt hurt a thing as far as I could tell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJA Posted July 7, 2014 Author Share Posted July 7, 2014 Huh, maybe it's just a precautionary measure in the rare case of electrical surge. I'll put a new eyelet on it anyways and rebolt it to the trans. Thanks again for the advice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJA Posted July 25, 2014 Author Share Posted July 25, 2014 Update. Everything went fairly smooth and the new clutch and tranny are working great. However, I looked under the car yesterday and noticed that the baffle plate and/or rear main seal still appear to be leaking. I replaced both and am now worried that something went wrong during replacement. The rear main seal that was already there looked pretty bad and was super brittle when I removed it. The plate was the original plastic plate and definitely needed replacing. I purchased a new metal plate (with allen screws) from the dealership and used black rtv for the gasket. The rear main seemed to go in perfectly fine by using a very light amount of grease to get it to seat evenly and a wood block easily pushed it in. I allowed the rtv on the baffle plate to sit for about 30 seconds with the allen screws in "finger tight" and then torqued them down as good as I could with a wrench. Bead thickness was about a 16th of an inch and I also put some around the screw holes as was recommended on the sealant tube. I'm not sure how much pressure was applied when I torqued the allen screws down, but It seemed perfectly adequate. I know that a lot of people on this site say not to mess with the rear main seal, but it seemed fairly easy to replace and I can't imagine it leaking that bad even if I didn't add some extra sealant to it as some suggest. I'll be taking the car on a 3 month road trip in just about 2 weeks and don't have the time to take everything out again to check it. There isn't a huge puddle of oil under the car but it's definitely leaving a small spot and dripping slowly onto the exhaust. Should I just drive it, keep an eye on the oil, and worry about it later? I'm certainly not paying a mechanic the labor required to fix something as cheap as the baffle plate and rear seal... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heartless Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 keep a very close eye on oil levels - especially when on any longer, high speed drives (interstate) - and you should be ok as long as you keep it topped off - dont overfill, tho. my 90 was leaking pretty badly before I got around to fixing things - but regular oil checks/topping off kept things in good shape. on a 3 hour run from home to Madison, we would make a pit stop about halfway, stretch the legs, check oil & top off if needed - check again before the return trip, and again halfway back (yes, it was leaking that bad) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fairtax4me Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Did the RMS come from Subaru? Did you replace the o-ring behind the wrist pin access plate? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJA Posted July 26, 2014 Author Share Posted July 26, 2014 (edited) The RMS came from the subaru dealer. I didn't replace the o-ring behind the wrist pin plate. I tried to loosen the screws with a handheld phillips and an electric hand drill with a philips bit in it, but they wouldn't budge at all and I was worried about stripping the heads. There appeared to be a little bit of oil around the plate, but it didn't seem super bad. Heartless: I'll definitely keep a close eye on it. Luckily though, I haven't had add any oil after about a 100 miles of stop and go this last week. I'll be taking it on a 3hr drive this weekend though, so we'll see how it does. Here's a picture (albeit a poor one) of everything before I cleaned it... There was also some notable seepage between the plastic drip plate at the bottom of the pic below and the oil pan. Edited July 26, 2014 by DJA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heartless Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 doing things like the screws on the back of these engines is where a good impact driver pays for itself - and it is pretty much a necessity on this stuff. Even a cheap one from harbor freight is better than trying to them by hand and stripping the heads out. In all honesty, looking at that picture - I would have left that RMS alone, it doesnt look that bad. I know you said it was brittle taking it out, but I still think I would have left it alone. the RMS on my 90 looked about like that - left it in and just resealed the metal separator plate and the access cover, no more leaky problems Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvid Posted July 27, 2014 Share Posted July 27, 2014 Yeah, I've seen nastier LOOKING rear main seals, which were not leaking, and just covered in clutch filth and oil from the seperator plate. It's from memory, so I may be wrong, but isn't the tolerance for that rear main seal something crazy, like, flatness within .003 of an inch? I am also a huge fan of impact driver on the phillips heads back there. I usually still cam-out the slots on one or two, leaving them stuck in there. The solution is to cut a radial slot in the stripped screwhead with a dremel cutoff wheel, deep enough for the tip of a chisel (or good flathead) laid nearly on its side, and tap the end with a hammer, walking out the dead screw. It's a thing of beauty every time. If you are doing this job correctly, you should only need to end with 2 functional screws for reinstalling the access plate, since the seperator plate should be new and installed with allen bolts (and anaerobic sealant). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fairtax4me Posted July 27, 2014 Share Posted July 27, 2014 You'd be surprised how much oil can come out of that little access plate. I didn't replace that o-ring on my 96 when I did the separator plate. Within 3 months it was leaking just as much from the bell housing as it had been before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJA Posted July 31, 2014 Author Share Posted July 31, 2014 Thanks for the responses. I haven't noticed any more oil spots under the car the last few days and luckily there was no oil loss on my trip this last weekend. I'm just going to leave it alone until I have the time in the future to pull the motor and go over everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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