Leaderboard

The continuous stream of bubbles is exhaust. At least at 0 to 1000 feet above sea level.... It will gradually get worse, until the headgaskets leak bad enough that you can't get a mile or so without blowing all the coolant out.

Yes most can be machined and returned flat and true. Reseal the breather plate on the back of the block.

Same symptoms with two thermostats suggest this is something other than a thermostat issue. Definitely check or just get an oem one in there but don’t hold your breath.

Owners manual is a good source for viscosity. When searching here - search his user name and "Amsoil", his most detailed responses involve that. Google search might work better but it should be readily available here too. And you might try searching his posts for EZ30 in case he's ever pointed it out. Oil opinions are 99% of the time not given by someone acutely aware of failure modes, causes, metallurgical deterioration, interplay of lubricity degradation and heat escalation, oil degradation, or any kind of engineering/large scale data analysis, when it comes to oil induced issues. This isn't a big deal except when we consider how obsessed people are with oil choices. Except maybe GD. Hours and hours of internet reading/watching is just a bunch of half-baked (at best) opinions and picking whatever sounds good, there's nothing scientific, engineering related, or data driven about that. But here's the thing - it doesn't matter. Run synthetic, never let it get low, and change it on time and you'll never have an oil induced issue. Outside of "don't be dumb", follow the owner manual, there's no chance of viscosity giving any meaningful benefit (ignoring fuel mileage) for an average daily driver. Change two different EZ30's from new with 5w30 and 10w30 for 200k and if it's never run low or past interval there will be no difference. EZ-30 guts/materials/clearances are commensurate with all modern subaru engines. There's nothing special regarding the EZ30 related to oil viscosity. There's not much information or consensus because it doesn't matter. That engine runs 250,000 miles all day long on the cheapest on sale oil you can find if it never gets low, and is changed frequently. Technically even conventional oil is fine if you change it a lot, but synth is so good and forgiving of potential running hot, or low oil, or other compromising events, and longer change intervals, it's silly not to run it. There are two minor oil related considerations on the EZ: 1. the timing chain tensioner supplies 2. the EZ30 has 6 cylinders - so failure or incidence rates of unforgiving circumstances will be 50% higher when speaking about the combustion chamber just mathematically speaking. Keeping the oil clean, full, and changed regularly is key to those two points far more than viscosity...again, follow the owners manual.

Yes - consider this! Regrease both axles and switch sides left to right. I'd be very surprised if you have any noise regreasing and certainly not after regreasing and switching sides. Also a visual inspection of the guts is smart cookies.

Put the middle of axle shaft in a vice. Twist both of the cvs and feel for wear. You should just barely feel any with a greased CV. One with a blow boot and low grease might have a degree or two. Any more than that, and it's suspect. Take the axle apart all the way, clean all the old grease and dirt out. Then put the axle shaft in a vice. Assemble the CV on it with no boot or grease, just a dry test fit. Give it a twist again and feel for slop. It should be like max 5 degrees in my opinion/exp. I have never had issues with pitted balls, cups or cages. The grease seems to even it out.

If the heater core under the dashboard makes a gurgling sound when cornering or accelerating the heater core hoses are backwards on the engine or at the firewall. Swap one end around will sort that issue out. The high temp spike issue sounds like HGs to me. Get on to that sooner rather than later. Cheers Bennie

Use the 6mm pin punch to check the stub axle hole alignment with the CV cup’s ole before smashing the roll pin back in place. Or slide under the car or safe to do so and visually check it, either way works for me. Cheers Bennie

You could use a rod slightly smaller than the hole as a double check, I just check the spline / valley positions. Use the drift to get the insertion depth right, the tap the roll pin in, paying attention in case it hangs up. I disabled, cleaned and re greased a clicky axle or 2. I also bought ball bearing balls, and replaced the bad ones in one. Look at the wear on the center start piece, and the walls of the cup. One of mine had a little more wear on the sides that were carrying the load, so I swapped the axle to the other side, which puts the load on the opposite faces. So far, so good. Almost all of my axles are OEM axles. I've been running these models since 1988. I bought used OEM axles back then and re greased them. When one of my earlier cars was done [due to rust] I saved all the parts except the rusted out body. I never bought an aftermarket axle, the only few of those I have came on the later used cars I bought.

Crow bar will probably work if it’s been apart and not stuck. The further you spread the receiving side of the ball, the easier it’ll come out too. I use a pickle fork to remove ball joints but that damages the ball joint boot and I’m almost always replacing them. Works every time even on nasty fused rusty garbage. Ive got a 100% success rate cleaning and repacking noisy axles. Some really bad ones. But I’m always doing it to my own axles I know their age exposure and some or all of their history. The noise is caused by lack of grease or it’s all watery and in terrible condition. pours out when you cut the boot, not like normal grease. If it’s seen sand or aggregate your chances probably go down. I have tossed some I wouldn’t bother repacking too if they’re unknown or saw copious sand. You don’t have much to loose to try. they basically drive forever on noisy axles anyway. My 230k Tribeca OEM axles have been noisy for awhile snd I’ll wait 10s of thousands more miles to repack and regrease them. They’re not broken and I’ll wait until I have to pull the axles for some other job. Zero worries. But I detest aftermarket axles so I’m not saying they’re a good candidate to approach the same way. But that aside, the axles are probably more forgiving than colloquial auto wisdom touts. As a test - if the boots are broken you can simply repack grease in through there with a grease gun and needle fitting. If it quiets down then you’ll likely be fine. I’ve done this before and they quite down immediately just like a freshly greased door hinge, but the grease will sling out almost immediately. So it’s not lasting or workable even as a short term fix. But it gives you a proof of concept and test if it’s hard to believe me over conventional axle “wisdom”

1. headgaskets 2. intake manifold gaskets leaking internally into the combustion chamber 3. another leak you haven't found yet Carefully look for an external leak. Pressurize the cooling system to check for leaks. When it's running hot look for bubbles in the overflow tank.

if the air doesn't work itself out in a few drive cycles, you have either a leak, or a beginning slow failure of a head gasket. There should be no air in the cooling system. How to check - Check the level in the overflow, and squeeze the upper hose and listen for the gurgling, and the giggle pin. DO NOT open the radiator cap. Every time you open the cap, you let in air, you will never know if it is getting better or worse. Check before each cold start. Over a few times, you should notice progressively less gurgles, unless there is a leak, or head gasket beginning to fail. Also, try to not if the cooling system pressurizes faster than it heats up. Look at the over flow tank after a run, before shutting down - if there are bubbles rising in the overflow, that is a good indicator of failing head gaskets. Many leaks do not leave easy to find evidence. Leaks to the outside often evaporate off the block, and take a long time to build up evidence if you run antifreeze, Intake manifold gaskets can leak coolant into the intake, and it takes a fairly bad leak before you see steam in the exhaust. It is also possible to have a leak between the throttle body and the intake.