All Activity

I have a 97 Legacy L wagon and my tires are rubbing at full compression in the rear. The suspension is super bouncy and clearly close to the end of its life so I want to replace it. I am wondering if coilovers are worth it or should I just get new oem struts? I want to keep close to the same ride height. My budget is pretty tight, but I don't want to buy something and then end up replacing it with something nicer in the future anyway.

I’ve just heard that the newer style are prone to more failure, besides looking weird. I guess I’m just stuck in my old ways and don’t like change very much unless I’m forced to. moosens you’re amazing and I would never be able to thank you enough! If you don’t find one it’s all good, I’m just going to move over to the newer style. cheers!

I’ll look for you as I go through my stash. Pretty sure there’s one there. But as mentioned going forward parts availability. Forget originality just make it run and not be a hunt and wallet drain for parts. good luck, I’m a big fan of that engine and have at least two or more but they’re for vintage projects. So all my engine and related parts I don’t really want to sell. But in this case if I have that bracket I’ll let one go cheap.

Contact me if interested. Message here or email me at moosens@yahoo.com Brown, northeast car so it’s got its spots of rot. But overall solid enough to have fun with and run for many more years. Could be repaired by the right person. This car has already been stripped pretty well. But I will return the doors and hood, and I think maybe the rear hatch but I’m not sure about that. Car will needs fenders. I think I have the brown one still. We can talk about that. Maybe another $50 and I’d be happy. Currently only on rear wheels. Not really sure what I’ll leave on it so be sure you are coming with a flatbed or trailer. Again, assuming you’re upgrading and won’t need this stuff, and if you’re going original this is the last year of U-Joint axles so you’d likely want to go with 79 and later years axles. This car may come with some extra parts beyond the shell. All depends on what the taker is doing with it. If you’re SURE you’re going to keep it mostly original I can help you out. BUT - the transmission in this car stays with me. Engine already out and used. Doors are very solid and lower edges really nice considering they’re from up here. Plenty of info and pics if you’re serious. It’s fairly cheap already but if actually come through and soon before winter I’ll make the deal super sweet.

A mate of mine here in Oz swapped over to the newer tensioner style with its backing plate recently. Far easier to get replacement tensioners than finding the original style. All the best with your search!

Anyone have a timing belt tensioner bracket laying around by chance?! part number #13086AA012 I know it’s a far cry as for some reason they have disappeared off the face of the earth, and yes if I can’t find one here I’m going to end up switching to the phase 2 style but figured I’d see if I could get lucky here first. cheers!

Been away from the project for a little bit - but I got your DM- we can chat about it there. Finally got back to a little bit of progress - Bit another bullet and decided to do a little exploratory deathwheel surgery to get a better perspective for the rear subframe mounting solution. I chopped out the passenger bed wheel well and I think I will likely be widening the rear frame slightly to accomodate a stock subframe and subframe bushings (hooray, buying more parts... 😶) This will end up being a much cleaner solution to my problem and I think the creative use of some welded captive nuts and box tubing will yield pretty great results. I kind of half-assedly leaned the new coilover through the wheel well cut after also chopping off the stock bumpstop - and I think the space will be tight but sufficient, especially since I'm planning on using the old Impreza wheel wells as a base for the new structure. There'll probably be some reinforcement of the stock bed sides too, but I'm gonna approach this as close to one problem at a time as possible. Like i said - tight but doable. Everything is also just loosely stacked in place, and the rear end is jacked up about 8" higher than it probably would be so everything seems short at this perspective. I only need about another 1.5"- 2" of real estate to mount the forward bushings, and I think I have a pretty good idea how I'm going to get those in once I've got a new subframe to play with. If anyone has a '98 or thereabouts Impreza subframe handy with the bushings still intact (I botched the original by being hasty - see previous posts), reach out quick or I'm gonna get impatient and go to ebay for one 🤣 Gonna repeat the procedure on the other side of the bed, then it'll probably sit for a little while again while I locate a suitable subframe replacement.

I've been there. I had a water pump fail and drove up to their Waterbury shop for the job. Some shops call in guys who are more or less retired for occasional jobs.

That'd be my guess. Because first start up the pressure was steady but during that start up the brittle o-ring may have sprung a leak (the engine was sitting for 20 years or so). Every start up after that first one the pressure was jittery, but it has been slowly getting less jittery. Either way I'll keep an eye on it. I have a spare pickup tube but I've tried to remove one before and it really is a major pain. I can deal with the jittery pressure so long as the pressure stays in the range that it should be then I'll just leave it. Thanks for the insight, I appreciate it. :]

I haven't had one of those apart in so long that I don't remember. I know an EJ has a seal - I just built one of those a couple months ago... EDIT: Found https://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/23378-ea82-oil-pickup-tube/

The kit number for my gauge is R12211. The gauges seem to be very quick and responsive. Oil level was okay (85% full by my eye). I added half a quart and it still is jumpy but the variation is within a tighter range. Maybe within a 3 psi range. Still no low pressure issues so I'm not super worried about it but I'll still keep an eye on it. I wonder if I bumped the pickup tube when I dropped the pan. That doesn't have a seal on it does it? I thought it was just pressed in.

40+ together. Wow, what an amazing achievement! Here's to another 40+!!

Already surpassed the 40 years milestone of being with my "BumbleBeast" in continous ownership and, despite that this SportsWagon is looking smaller as new cars around tend to get bigger; I preffer this Yellow noisy fellow over any other car, everyday in any weather condition. Lousy cellphone photo Kind Regards.

Due to the Photobucket ban, I saved "Offline" versions of my main Write-ups, complete with all their photos, Each writeup were saved individually, inside a compressed .rar folder; which you can Download freely, in the following post, here: ~► The BumbleBeast feel free to leave a "Like" there if you find this info, Useful. Kind Regards.

Their yard in Roxbury is wild. Ever been there? I might be up there this week.

I don't know anything about isspro's gauges, and their website seems to list at least six product lines but gives technical info about none of them... An oil passage being clogged wouldn't cause a cyclical reading. Nothing ever settles or needs a re-torque. lol. A leak on the suction side of the pump, like where the pickup tube connects, will let it pull air bubbles and cause a varying reading, without any external visible signs. The stock oil pressure gauge is *very slow*, so I don't know how much pressure variation is normal on those engines. I also don't know if isspro's gauges are prone to jittery readings.

Isspro electronic gauge. I'll double check my dipstick but I added 4 quarts and change. Granted I lost a bit between the pump plug leak and the head retorque but it can't be more than a few ounces lost. I do worry about an oil passage being clogged but I doubt it as the engine has ran completely fine and I took it on a very short trip into town (5 miles round trip, including a turn onto a 55 from a dead stop) and it hasn't done anything abnormal. Do the oil pump o-rings settle and the pump may just need a retorque? I haven't noticed any leaks from the pump body itself and the HLA's have quieted.

What kind of oil pressure sender and gauge are you running? Leaks do not cause jumpy readings. Low level or air leaks at the pickup tube or pump intake do....

It runs and moves under its own power. However my oil pressure is jumpy. It never sits still and constantly fluctuates within a 5 psi range. As the engine warms up, it fluctuates less but it still doesn't sit still. I am still getting leaks from the oil pump. Oil pressure is within acceptable range though, it's definitely got decent pressure. I had to use a thread adapter for my new gauge and it's leaking from that. Maybe that's throwing off my readings? Meaning my pressure is steady but because it leaks so close to the gauge, that's throwing off the readings? My oil is clean but I need to flush it and change the filter to get all the old milkshake out of it. Perhaps the remaining milky oil is causing this fluctuation since the two liquids compress differently?

Well, winning the Smoothest Brain Award is better than winning the Time For A New Engine Lottery!

It was the throttle body gasket. After I installed it I pressure tested the coolant system. I also had a leak at the temp sensor but after tightening that I had no pressure loss at 10psi over 3 hours. It started up fine, took about 20 minutes of idling to blow most of the coolant out or burn it off. Idled nice and healthy, though it was noisy due to the HLA's needing to fully prime. I am about half way through the retorque and I have an oil pump leak to deal with. I used a plug where the old sensor was as I added an aftermarket one. But other than that she's ready for the road. Also, I noticed there's no pressure values for the cooling system in the FSM only head pressure. For that 20 minutes mine sat right around 4.2psi. Not sure if this changes with extended driving but I'll post if I notice a pattern. What a learning experience. It was quite disheartening at times. :]

Any updates on this? Going to do any racing this summer?

There could be two leaking sources of coolant. I’d test again after that gasket is fitted on the throttle body before adding coolant. The other issue could be the O ring in the block between the two case halves is corroded and leaking - I reckon that’s a long shot but who knows. Cracks in the head are more likely than that ^ and they will usually occur between the valves and head down the exhaust port as they become worse. Once really bad these cracks will dump all the coolant into the exhaust on cool down. Not your issue here though. I wonder if you can use a bore scope in each spark plug hole to look around the cylinder and the combustion chamber when you have coolant in the cooling system - with air pressure at the radiator (if possible) to “load up” the cooling system and hopefully exposing the coolant leak.

I'm kinda surprised it's an intake thing... I think you'd hydrolock it before you get milky oil...

My money is on the bearings on the inside of the engine, at both crankshaft, and piston rods, are rusted up so that you would have to tear the crankcase completely apart and replace them. Then the steel piston rings are probably also rusted in place and did not help the cylinder walls any. Long story short, you are wasting your time with an engine that has water condensing inside the crankcase, due to the changes in weather, regardless of whether it was under a hood or not.