Leaderboard

1/2" drive six point socket. 22 mm or I think 7/8" also fits. You can put the breaker bar on the drivers side frame rail just inftont of the battery and hit the starter. A VERY short crank will break the bolt loose. It's at 225 ftlbs I believe.

Sounds like a missed or dodgy earth somewhere near the transmission, it could be on the intake to as the ECU pulls many of its earth points from this area. The front O2 sensor would be one to look into. Cheers Bennie

If I read your missive correctly: Overheating is likely either: bad head gasket (or worse a bad head) or something wrong with cooling system. Water pump, radiator, collapsed hose, etc, but, oil in the coolant, or coolant in the oil points to a head gasket or head issue. my $0.02

All Subaru's went back to mechanical lifters in '97.... I don't know of any EJ251's or EJ253's with hydro lifters..... At any rate - you adjust them every 105k miles per Subaru (same as the timing belt). They are just like any other rocker-arm solid lift setup - you have a set screw and a square headed adjuster bolt. You loosen the set-screw, adjust the clearance till there is slight drag on your feeler gauge, and lock down the set-screw. Easy. Bucket and Shim, or more recently "Shimless buckets" are only used on the DOHC designs because in them there is one lobe per valve. Not so on the SOHC's where one lobe drives two valves. GD