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We thought we had prerun the rear diff and suspension swap on Bs Forester as best we could so we did that last weekend. Definitely seemed like it was time to swap the rear diff, it has been making noise (pinion bearing?) for a couple years now and there was more debris on the magnetic drain plug than usual. Everything went smoothly until we got to the rear diff bushings. They weren't completely shot but they almost certainly have 300k miles and 25 years on them and this would be the time to replace them. We tried the hollow hydraulic cylinder again but for some reason it didn't have as much stroke as it should and we couldn't see an easy way to bleed it or add oil. Then the threaded rod we were using snapped. At this point B suggested just removing the subframe. He was able to break loose all four bolts but then three of the four nuts started spinning inside the frame. So we hole sawed in from the top to get at those. That wasn't too bad but we cut into a vent line for the fuel tank so I replaced/rerouted that one later. One of the subframe bolts had a big shoulder on it that fit the subframe bushings fairly well, the other three were just 12mm. We used new bolts, anti seize, sleeves for all four bolts to fit the bushings better, washers and nylocks on the top when we put it back in. Pressed the bushings out and the new ones back in. Even in the 20 ton press removing the bushings took some effort. Reassembly went fairly smooth. B said the drive home was mostly good, pulling to the left which slowly seemed to improve. We were barely able to assemble the brakes with new pads on his worn front rotors we used in the rear, one of them was definitely dragging some. The next week he said everything was working alright and then suddenly on Wednesday it wouldn't rev over about 3000RPM, even in neutral. He tried a different fuel pump, the flow and pressure seemed good. Replaced air filter, plugs and wires, and tried a couple different coil packs, no improvement. He drove it to my house and we did some more troubleshooting. If anything the OBDII indicated it was running rich when it would stall and everything else seemed to be working properly (MAP, TPS, etc). Slammo suggested maybe the cats were plugged so we unbolted those. The front cat was empty. Fired it back up and revved out fine. Figured the plutonium from the front cat had plugged the rear cat so we tried backflushing it with compressed air which did nothing. Then tried backflushing it with the garden hose nozzle, not a drop came out the other end. B's hypothesis is that when we got a bunch of rain this week the moisture in the exhaust turned the plutonium dust into mud and completely sealed off the rear cat. He cut it out and welded a piece of tubing in its place and it runs great now. We also bled his rear brakes and replaced his HVAC fan switch with one that works better and did some other little things. In the meantime I changed the oil, oil filter, and air filter and charged up the AC on the Impreza and did a few other things. It's been awhile since I changed the air filter. That picture makes it look a lot worse than it was, there was just a ring of leaves at the end, filter itself wasn't too bad but I put in a new one. It has been running consistently cool now since the lower temp thermostat and hose rerouting and I think I've fixed a few small coolant leaks.

Yes. 4th gens were available with the 2UZ 4.7l. Mine is a 1st gen, though. I have a 4.0 1UZ in it. Install is far from complete, but it runs and drives (no cooling system, so very briefly).

Wife and I went on vacation for 11 days through AR, OK, and TX. Didn't really plan on doing any off roading but it's kinda hard to avoid in AR. Met up with slammo for a day in his RAV4 prime. On our way to the beach in TX looking for the camping area he got stuck in soft sand. With the folding recovery ramps and a couple straps I was able to pull him out. Before swapping in a lower temp thermostat, engine seemed to plateau at about 215F CTS / 200F upper radiator temp while driving. If left to idle for a while it would slowly climb up (small fans kick in at 215F) until the large fans kicked in (220F), then they seemed to run indefinitely. Yesterday B came over and test assembled as much as he could of the billet knuckle conversion. Got his pair heat treated and painted. Bore for the long bolt/stud being tight was the biggest issue. I got a couple different ball hones but neither of them seems to remove material very quickly. Calipers with new pads seem to just barely fit his worn front rotors. He already swapped new ones on the front. We also had all of the lateral links painted, he got those anti seized and assembled. My main plans were to figure out the wiring issue on the Impreza and swap in a lower temp thermostat and bleed the coolant. On our recent vacation the delayed accessory power stopped working. Was still getting some voltage from its main battery feed but not enough to actually power anything. At the time I just hotwired it to the stock cig lighter. Turns out it had blown a fuse in the underhood fuse box, not sure if I checked those during my initial diagnosis. Cleaned up the wiring a bit put it back to how we had it and seems to be working now. While I was draining the coolant I had the bright idea to replumb the Ford heater cores we'd added under the hood. It seemed that with both of them in series on the heater core circuit the second one wasn't doing much, the first one seemed to cool it almost to ambient temp, and that circuit is a pretty small portion of the coolant flow. So I decided to plumb one of them into the circuit that goes through the oil cooler, figuring that would also cool the oil better. When I started I didn't realize those fittings are about 1/2”, not 5/8” like the heater hoses and cores we'd added. So I made up a couple of barbed adapters on the lathe (one of them in top of picture). It was a bit of a pain to get the hoses routed but I think it turned out fairly well. Then I drilled a 3/16” hole in the top of the 78C (172F) thermostat and swapped that in. I'd had a stock 82C thermostat in it. Got a bleeder funnel recently too so we used that, no idea how much better that works than the normal method of just filling it up and driving. This all seemed like an improvement. When idling for a long time it would still eventually get up to 215F but once the small fans kicked in it would cool back down to 210F (where the fans shut off) and then slowly go back up. The only issue we noticed was the heater core circuit wasn't getting hot or even warm. I pulled various hoses off in that circuit with the engine running and just a trickle of coolant would come out at idle. I pulled both hoses off at the engine and backflushed it with compressed air and it seemed to flow great. Heater had been working great before all this. Eventually I just decided to drive it and hope it fixed itself. Which it pretty much immediately did. Maybe just needed some revs or jostling around to bleed. Regardless, it now blows hot air when you turn the heat on and both heater cores underhood get hot. Also seems like it takes less time for the little fans to bring the temps back down. While driving the temps seem to plateau at about 200F/180F so that also seems like an improvement. Will drive it a bit like this, maybe lower the fan temp at least for the small fans.