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Brat is still alive and kicking.....

Drove to a large old gold mine called gold hill, supposedly mined in the 1850s. We saw a few stacked stone walls a few feet tall sloping up to the mine. Took a trail that wound up going along one of them, it was there to hold the road up, still holding 170 years later. At first B was hesitant to drive up but when he saw me going up it without any issues and taking pictures he decided to follow. We made it to a little flat spot at the top and checked out the main mine pit on foot. Found some quarts crystals. Did some five point turn arounds in the little flat spot, hanging the bumpers over the edge of the cliff, but got down without incident and went to the pony express trail. Again, mainly gravel roads, but all kinds of roads/trails off of it and good scenery. We camped just off the route in Overland canyon. One of the most beautiful sights any human has ever witnessed reflecting a nice sunrise. By this point it was clear the electric fridge slammo gave me wasn't working. You could hear it running but the sound was different and it wasn't getting cold. Also had noticed a weird smell when I opened that door of the car so I'm guessing the refrigerant leaked out. Important ingredient for staying out of civilization for extended periods of time so I'm probably going to buy a better one. Saturday morning we finished the pony express trail. Over the last couple days B had mentioned some vibration in his car, at first he thought it was washboard on the road but mine was riding smooth. We swapped a few of his tires around, never made it better, the last one we switched seemed to make it worse. Then he said it got a lot worse. Driveshaft was missing three bolts on the diff flange and the remaining one was loose. We put in some spare bolts and continued on smoothly. Pony express route generally follows the southern edge of the salt lake basin. As we went farther east there was actually traffic on the road, which was unusual for the week. Not sure if it was because we were getting closer to the Salt Lake City metro area and pavement or because it was Saturday or both. Also I think this is where we saw the first UTVs on the trail all week. We'd become accustomed to seeing a few pickup trucks a day or maybe a Jeep if we stayed off pavement. When we got to the first vault toilets (at a campground entrance) there was almost steady traffic on and off the road for people using them. Continued east, not long after we got on pavement we saw a stunt area not too far off the highway so we started driving towards it. As we got closer there was a truck and trailer parked in the main trail, something we saw in Gold Hill the day before. In this case though the guy on the flatbed trailer was setting up to do some target practice. His buddy waved us by and we found the little hills and trails we'd seen from the pavement. Made some PB&Js and found a different way back to the highway. Along the way we saw a few other fairly large stunt areas with all kinds of trailers and dirt bikes, might have to check those out sometime, maybe during the week. Stopped at the closest gas station, filled up with gas, swapped out air filters, and aired up tires. B mentioned as we drove into SLC metro that we could probably see more cars at one time than we'd seen in the entire previous week. Drove back home without any other issues. Cruise is working pretty well in Impreza. AC works great but if I used it on long mountain grades the coolant temp gauge would start to climb. B said he did about 3900 miles, I'd guess around 1000 of that was off pavement. Need to figure out the cooling issues with the Impreza, after discussing it with slammo I'm thinking maybe thermostat. It's most often a problem at low speeds while climbing or driving on sand but will start to go up sometimes going up long grades at high speeds with the AC on. Impreza takes some cranking before it starts sometimes, usually after sitting overnight. Wondering if it takes a bit to build fuel pressure. A few times, sometimes after some hillclimb, we'd hear the fuel system make a gurgling noise after the car had been shutoff for a minute. We used our jerry cans twice and I rolled into gas stations on empty four times. And that was after cutting our trail riding short so we didn't run out. It would be great to have more fuel capacity so we can wander better. I discussed the propane spare tire well tanks with slammo and he found one for about $300US shipped with 10 gallon capacity that should easily fit. https://shop.vanmeenen.com/en/lpg_cng-tanks-&-valves-1/lpg-toroidal-tanks-42 I'm thinking a vent/overflow hose to the main tank and another line with reversible pump. Then it can just be filled by the stock fuel filler and when the stock tank runs low it can refill that. Definitely need to finish the rear bumper for the Impreza, would have made the recoveries easier. Super happy with the performance and reliability of the Impreza overall. Forester holds up well too but definitely needed the low range to do some hill climbs the Impreza could do in high range. Still a great way to explore the back country and hit some fun trails. It also seems like on our last few trips a lot more people than usual have been complimenting us or commenting on the cars. These turn of the century Subarus are getting more rare in general, and who doesn't love a first gen Impreza, but it's still a fun surprise. Over the winter I want to make the straight cut planetary low ranges and get caught up on editing youtube videos, we got some good footage this past week.

Rear bumper fabrication conclusion. Added some slider tubes to protect charcoal canister, hang muffler, and provide some kind of ramp when backing over obstacles. Added tabs for license plate and license plate lights. Added lateral receivers for jacking and winching. Ready for paint. Might get the old rusty front bumper on the white Outback painted at the same time. Should protect the body from trees and make recoveries easier. Slammo had suggested the thermostat in the EZ36 in the Impreza might be bad. I drained the coolant, cleaned the radiator (seemed pretty clean inside and out, don't think that was contributing to the problem), and removed the old thermostat. It looked fairly clean but is most likely 11+ years old and sat for a year or two dry. Tested it side by side with a new one from the dealer by bringing a pot of water up to boiling. New one (bottom) definitely opened sooner than the old one. But after a few minutes they both opened the same amount. While slowly cooling down they looked the same. Did that twice, same results. So hopefully the new one will help stabilize engine coolant temps. Still might add inlet and outlet temp sensors that have a calibration for the Haltech.

Drove up to Z's Friday night. He noticed one of the brake lights in the Impreza was (artistically) burned out so we went to Oreillys and got a pair of bulbs. B met us at Z's, we headed up and camped in northern WI. Saturday morning we headed north and Z took us on some ORV trails north of there so we headed north on those. Within four miles we saw a black bear and a bald eagle and some other wildlife. The main one Z had intended to take us on is ATV only. So we just drove up to the UP. Started out in an area north of Norway we'd only been through once and found some other trails and potential campsites there. Next two pictures are of one of the fairly long rocky hillclimbs (by UP standards) we did that weekend. Saw a wolf pup(?) walking down a side road, took a few pictures and let it be and got to the (nearby) dead end. Found a hillside with some big sandy hillclimbs so I tried one but stalled out and backed down when it got too off camber. Hit a different one and made it to the top. Found a human shaped sculpture made out of chainsaw parts. This sign was a bit misleading, while the road was rough by many peoples' standards, it was about average for what we drove on that weekend. Got to a man made dam that appeared to have blown out and then repaired by beavers. At the bottom where we had to drive by it there was a big leech sucking on a dead crayfish. Forester had been making a lot of exhaust noise under load so we stopped to fix that. One of the bolts had fallen out of one of the exhaust flanges so we found a nut and bolt and B got it back together while I cooked some burgers. Z spotted a big Eastern Fox snake in the trail. Wandered north and hit a bunch of trails and found a giant pile of potatoes in the woods. About a mile from the nearest farm, not sure if it was just a handy berm construction material or if they just needed to dump a bunch of potatoes. We had decided to go up to Craig Lake as B and Z hadn't been there before. Drove up to a campground and stayed the night. One of the random assortments of decorations we've seen in the UP over the years. This is miles from pavement. This weekend was a good demonstration that you never know what you'll find in the UP. Came across several beaver dams that were flooding old roads we were trying to follow. Got to a wetlands reserve and hiked in there a mile or so. Unfortunately we got up near Craig Lake to find that it's closed for the summer for maintenance. Hit some trails and did a little hiking and then camped in that area. Saw a ruffed grouse alongside the trail. It was jumping around and fanning its tailfeathers etc. It was on the passenger side and I looked out the drivers side while Z was taking pictures and saw what looked like a mouse on the ground. I went to take a picture of it and realized it was a chick so we continued on. Monday morning we went down a snowmobile trail to start wandering back home, it was eventually flooded so we found a different trail and headed south. Hit a stunt area we found last year and did a few hillclimbs. Impreza had a lot of wheelspin and rev limiter in first gear climbing a fairly steep one. Saw a turtle wandering around. Went through an area we'd been years ago that looks significantly different now, some berms gone, other berms added, trees growing up in areas that had been clearcut, etc. Found one stretch that would be good for suspension testing/tuning. A mile or so with decent sized dips and bumps and another section that's quite rough with holes in between small logs. Wound up taking a few narrow trails that went on for miles and surprised me by connecting to main trails. We took a tour of an old iron mine that was interesting. Drove through part of the southern UP we hadn't explored before with some decent camping areas. Saw a lot of turtles and some muskrats. Aired up and drove home on pavement. Lots of rain on the way home. I'm a little surprised the Impreza doesn't seem to have any leaks or electrical problems even driving through heavy rain for hours, I've done it a few times now. Overall a good weekend. No major issues, never even got stuck or got a flat tire. Impreza is great on the trails. Not used to having good rear visibility, way easier to back out of trails and the shorter wheelbase and rear overhang make it easier to turn around in the woods. The 60% rear bias and light rear end and open center diff make it handle almost like a rear wheel drive car. It was never close to actually spinning out but it has power oversteer in second or third or even fifth gear sometimes off pavement. Surprised me once in first gear on wet pavement. Steering seems to be a little quicker than the Outbacks which helps in those situations. There was one time on Saturday when B was driving it and he got stuck in a soft muddy trail. I could see just the rear tires spinning. He locked the center diff, all four tires started spinning, and he was able to drive out. It's easiest to lock and unlock when moving, never makes any grinding noises, helps to pump the clutch. So if we were in a really rough or muddy or sandy section I'd just lock the center diff for a while until we got back to some easier trails and then unlock it. Never used the low range all weekend. There was at least one hill I climbed in first gear high range that B had to use low range in the Forester to climb. Some things I like about it aren't from our doing but just because it isn't as beat and rusty as the black Outback. You can drive around with the windows down without choking on exhaust fumes, drive through all kinds of water and rain without getting any in the car. Found myself keeping it under 2000RPM most of the time and it had plenty of torque for normal trail riding. Fans ran more than I expected, when we'd start going really slow or stopping and starting the temps would creep up and at least one would kick in and then basically stay on until we shut off the car for a while but temps never got much above normal. As soon as we were moving the temps would drop back to the normal spot. Wondering if this is partially caused by our current tune being lean at part throttle at 2-3000RPM in an attempt to save fuel. Seemed like it would run a little cooler at 1500RPM where it's probably running richer. Probably a couple times a day after nearly stalling the engine it would start running rough. I just shut it off and restart it and then it would run smooth. Impreza might get a little better fuel economy than Forester on the road but worse on the trails. Might be something wrong with the fuel filler on the Impreza, on the last couple fillups it didn't seem to actually fill the tank. I've noticed recently you can feel crosswinds push you around. Not dangerously like an air cooled VW but something I never notice driving Legacy Outbacks.

Repairing a stripped spark plug hole is a much smaller project than the other options... I haven't tried, but I've seen people do it in the vehicle and just blow the chips out afterwards.

Two weeks ago we drove the Subarus out west. Somewhat last minute shift of plans to western AZ for our trip as that was the only part of the western US that had a decent weather forecast for the week. In retrospect we probably should have done the last week of April instead so we had more options but it worked out. Saturday morning Z and A and B met at my house at 8AM and we packed up and headed west. Got to a campground east of Denver and stayed the night. Not too much below freezing but we got a dusting of snow overnight. Sunday we kept driving and made it into Nevada and camped east of Vegas along Lake Mead, saw some donkeys on the way in, the first group of many we'd see that week. It was very windy that night. The ground was too hard to effectively stake in the tents so I put the loops around some large rocks but we didn't sleep well as the tent sounded like it was going to start ripping apart at times despite parking the car just upwind of it. Monday we took the scenic route to Hoover Dam including some unpaved trails. Continued into Arizona and started down some Massey trails. Saw a lot of Joshua trees in NW Arizona, some of them quite green. Started on Massey NW29. Massey NW28 was fairly high up in the mountains and we got snowed on again, this time in Arizona. Might have been graupel (small white pellets) but probably not hail. Excellent views. Saw an old Ford truck down the slope from the trail (middle of picture below) and hiked down to it. On the way we also saw a Saturn. Neither had batteries. The Ford's transmission tunnel had been cut out (appeared to be cut out where we found it, we saw at least one chunk of it laying on the ground). The transmission had been removed and presumably carried hundreds of feet either up or down a steep loose rocky grade. Some cool mine ruins at the end of the side trail. Definitely want to take this one clockwise (as viewed from above) which we fortunately did, there was a lot of rocky downhill in one section but the uphill in the direction we took wasn't bad. The next point of interest we saw were some murals that had been painted on rocks along the trail that were originally painted in the 1960s and then repainted early this century. That night we were trying to find a more sheltered spot from the wind but even a small pond at the bottom of a 100' deep mining pit was windy so we just camped out in a wash along Massey NW26. That night was windy too but not quite as bad as the previous. There were also donkeys nearby at night and in the morning. Tuesday the first trails, Massey NW26 and NW27, took us the rest of the way to Lake Mohave. Then back up into the mountains and more graupel. Saw another truck rolled down the slope off Massey NW19 trail. Drove to the remains of an old mine, probably the biggest ruins/tailings we saw that week. Got some more graupel and we were getting a bit hungry so I cooked some dino nuggets in an abandoned mining shack. A climbed the sandy tailings pile in the Forester. Numerous old cars half buried in gravel. Next we drove to Massey NW15 towards Alamo lake. It was getting late so we found a neat well used campsite under a couple big trees along Massey NW17 and finally slept well, basically no wind, A hammocked between the trees. In the morning we found an old overgrown truck bed, a homemade vault toilet, and an old well. Wednesday morning we drove to some other mine ruins and then down to Big Sandy River. Z briefly got the Impreza stuck but we were able to just jack the rear end back up out of the sand, put down sand ladders, and he drove out. We drove the rest of the way to Alamo Lake and then took Massey NW14 to a river crossing as there is a bridge for the gas pipeline but not for vehicles. I waded a few options and picked the one with multiple firmer crossings rather than one with a single long crossing and soft spot in the middle. Both cars drove through the various crossings/mudholes without incident and we celebrated with some PB&Js. It was very green along the river, not super surprising but not really what we'd expected driving in western Arizona. We took Massey NW12 to Swansea, perhaps the largest mine/ghost town ruins of the week, and spent a while exploring on foot. Drove down Massey NW13, a pretty fun wash, as close as possible to the Bill Williams river we'd crossed earlier and found the remains of the old pump house, more donkeys along the way. Took Massey NW6, crossed a canal and continued. Started getting dark so we found a spot off the main road to camp for the night. Thursday morning we visited more old mines along Massey NW1. Saw the Bouse fisherman, a bit disappointing honestly. Back to more old mines along Massey NW3 and a cave/arch at the top of a hill. Headed down to Quartzite for fuel on the way to Kofa NWR. When we got to the highway there was a sign to “wait for the pilot car” and the old man driving the minivan ahead of us got out and sat on his hood to smoke a cigarette. After a few minutes of impatiently waiting I noticed the powerline grade along the highway so we followed that for about five miles, crossing various washes along the way, until we'd passed the construction zone and got back on the highway. The Mobil gas station sold water for $0.25/gallon or $1 / 5 gallons (quarters only) so we got some water for drinking and rinsed off our heads. Best quarter I ever spent. The first trail we took in Kofa was Massey C2 up an extremely scenic wash/canyon. Small arch at the top of the canyon, skull rock, and a large balanced rock. You can no longer drive all the way through, you'd have to do a through hike, but we hiked from the end of the driving path up to the saddle to check out the view. Then we drove down Massey C1 (Palm Canyon trail) to hike back to get a view of the only native palm trees still growing in Arizona. It's a fairly arduous trek to actually hike up to them (start at the red post to the right) and it was getting dark so we hiked back to the cars to find a campsite. Found a decent one close to the intersection of Massey C3 and C4 where we wanted to start the next morning. Friday morning we drove south on Massey C4 to an old mining town/museum. A bit of a tourist trap but there were a lot of cool old things to see, plus they had flush toilets. We looped back to the highway and went back by the campsite to head east through the NWR on Massey C6 and C9. Where C3 meets C6 is the site of a large mine, fair amount of equipment/ruins and some tunnels to explore. We headed north out of the NWR on Massey C10, drove along the top of a dam, and drove down a bit of a fun pipeline grade. Crossed the interstate, continued north on Massey C11, and found a spot to camp next to a small old mine of course. Saturday morning we drove up to the highway and started heading home. Stayed in the same campground we had on the way out east of Denver. It was cold again, the small pond by our site was frozen in the morning, but no snow. Sunday we drove the rest of the way home. B's Forester drove about 4400 miles so the Impreza probably did about 4300. Forester needs a RF CV axle and one of his valve stems was leaking so we swapped on one of the spares in Iowa. Impreza needs a RF tie rod. Most disappointingly the coolant temperature crept up a few times on long slow uphill trails with the AC on and once in deep sand with the AC off. AC needs some work/tuning too, I might try running it at a lower voltage. It seemed to work fine last summer but it was mostly discharged before the trip and since I recharged it, the high and low pressure slowly diverge until it eventually shuts off and then it will cycle back on again. It does this every minute or so and you can feel it surging while driving. Not sure if it's fully charged. I'd forgotten how rocky a lot of the Arizona trails are. I'm not talking about challenging rock crawling, although there was some of that, rather many of the trails had a lot of 4-6” rocks that were just annoying and rattled the cars. For instance my glovebox latch came unscrewed near the end of the week. Haven't run into trails quite like that for such long distances in other states. A used the low range on the Impreza once at the top of a hill when he didn't have quite enough momentum to get to the top. Forester low range got used 5-10 times. Overall a good trip. No major problems, only got stuck twice briefly, saw some good scenery, hit some fun trails and had good weather. Sorry travelvw, not a lot of critters or carnage on this trip.

I haven't worked on one of those, but the most common cause of such problems is bad wiring between the body and the door where it flexes, followed by burnt out speakers. Does opening and closing the door, or wiggling the bundle of wires to the door, make it go on and off? Does thwapping the door over the speaker make it go on and off? Does poking something through the grille and pushing on the speaker cone make it go on and off? If it's not the door flex wiring or the speaker, then look into the radio itself and the rest of the harness wiring.

Update - I let the car cool down for a couple of hours and burped it again. Just when I was about to lose hope... the fans kicked in. Just to be safe, I hung around until they kicked in a second time. All seems good now. Thank you everyone for your advice. I really appreciate it.

I finally got a chance to really look at it, and it turned out to be the driveshaft (prop shaft). It was odd though, because, when the car was sitting, it would somehow cause the center bearing to lock so it didn't feel loose at all. I only figured it out by getting under it, with the left rear on jack stands, and having someone spin the left rear wheel while I watched the driveshaft rotate. It got to a specific spot, then it came loose. Got another shaft at a u-pull yard for $23 on sale, and the vibration is gone.

Car is done! Kept it two tone for the win. Purchased new sheet metal including radiator support, center hood stay, and right/left hand radiator panels for about $160. These come painted (black) from Subaru. Or just cut them out of a donor. I counted just over 20 spot welds for the total weld job. Didn't have to completely remove the fenders to access the weld points for the radiator support, just moved them aside. Removing the bent metal wasn't hard using a 3/8" spot welder hole saw removal tool and a drill motor to punch through the spot welds. For the rebuild, these welds are beyond the harbor freight 240V "pinch" spot welder in my opinion due to the lower section essentially welding to a tube. My neighbor has a HF MIG welder that did an excellent job welding the new metal in place. Just cover the whole engine first with fiberglass cloth to avoid hot slag melting the harness. Before removing any metal I marked the outline of the pieces to help line things up. Having the headlights in place helped line up the two radiator panels (actually they should be called condenser panels) prior to welding. The hood latch was aligned with the hood and clamped prior to welding. After welding, put the condenser/radiator/headlights/bumper/bumper cover back on.

Got em all out without breaking any - I don't think Ive stripped the holes either but haven't cleaned it up yet. For this really tough bolt I decided to use a "paint stripper" heat gun on high for about 15 minutes and it still wouldn't budge so drilled a 2nd hole down closer to the threads, earlier had drilled a hole about in the middle of the column to get the penetrating oil down into the crud in the bottom inch of the column also. After drilling this second hole and then using a lot of penetrating oil, then heat, I had progress had to heat up down by the head for at least 10 minutes with paint stripper heat gun, that's why my aluminum shield has turned golden brown .. I tried a M.A.P. torch but it was to scary and causing way to much smoke for my comfort.. and wiggled back and forth tell I could get about 1/4 turn, came back next day tried it cold no t so much movement so heated it up again and kept working it back and forth - but not going as far in as out.. then add more sauce.. do it again and eventually.. Here's the bolt right after I got it out - I used a lot of B'laster penetration oil, and couldn't get it moving with the 3/8" impact gun - had to really push and pull on this ratchet - really hoping the bolt wouldn't break,, kind of amazed it didn't

Been a really long time since this thread was updated. Had my share of local trouble with attempted theft and damages. https://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/186359-beware-of-mevotech-parts/ Decided to go with KYB 2wd struts(new old stock) and Lesjofors '94 Kia Sephia front springs(4044208 on RA), new KYB strut mounts(SM5364, IF you can find 'em). New KYB 4wd rear shocks with better looking, less rusty springs. Rear cross member with gaps in mounts filled with urethane. Superpro front strut rod bushings(SPF2534K). Superpro new moustache bar bushings(same as rear diff mount bushing). Rides much better without all the bounciness on highways. Combination of Sachs 4wd struts with those Lesjofors springs, they're about .040" thicker than stock, will get you another inch of lift in front. Combination of those and 2wd rear KYB shocks + stock rear springs OR 4wd rear shocks with Honda Accord front springs, Lesjofors 4135713, may ride even front to rear. Just a suggestion. KYB 2wd strut, Lesjofors spring, KYB mount, SJR 4" lift. For $86 shipped this McPherson spring compressor was worth it. MUCH safer to work around than those hook compressors that tend to slip and always at the wrong time. spring compressor Be sure to lube the threads and round part with gear oil.

Car has been fully stripped and is now at the sandblaster, can't wait to get it back and get a plan in place for all the repairs

Rain has finally stopped in Minnesota, time to get the Brat out.

Friday morning we went to Ely, got gas, and started calling and visiting tire shops. We couldn't find a 215/75/15 of any kind but they did replace one of B's valve stems that was leaking. We'd found Devil's Gate slot canyon online that was roughly on our way so we started heading that direction. Going up the mountain pass we came upon a full size pickup truck with ~20ft enclosed trailer. Truck had a Green Bay Packers sticker in the back window. Fortunately he was pulled over just enough for us to squeeze past him. We stopped at the pass/saddle to enjoy the view and then B saw the truck and trailer coming. We ran back to our cars and made sure we stayed ahead of him. Going down was a narrow, rocky, dirt switchback mountain road. I have no idea how he was navigating it but we looked back when we were near the bottom and could see him slowly working his way down. Continued east through the desert down some washes/canyons. The last one was quite fun, we could go there quickly since it didn't have 2' deep ruts like the Vegas to Reno course. Took it to Devil's Gate. We hiked through it and up to the top and drove out of the wash and while there was a large flat gravel area that could be called a parking lot, there were no signs of any kind this awesome slot canyon is here. It's limestone which is unusual, most slot canyons are sandstone. So the rocks here are polished. From here we headed back into Utah towards Massey northern #13, a portion of the old pony express route. On the way we took a side trail up a wooded valley along a stream with an amazing alcove in one cliff. Cut across Massey 13 and headed north through some hills on some fun trails.

I think it's clear what you're working on. But for future reference. DOHC subarus (I think all of them, certainly EJs) require removing the cams to access the head bolts. SOHC engines do not.

When I went to take out this upper left bolt it was feeling really tight, then "rubbery", then the head broke off ... I tried "liquid Wrench" with a nut on the end taping it a bunch with a hammer to "induce vibration" gripping it real tight with needle nose vice grips, etc. and letting it baste for a couple of days.. SO I thought maybe I could use it as a stud with a sleeve nut and it torqued down good. https://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/gallery/album/897-ea82-water-pump-broken-bolt-fix/

I mean, it's a truck; 8.5" Chevy 10 bolt rear, two FWD ea 5 speeds, one D/R ea 5 speed, 2 axles (think they're ej rears) an ej25 intake manifold, and a 97 Impreza L rear differential = Carolina squat BRAT. What's that, maybe 700lbs? 500? I don't know but it's definitely the most I've put back there yet. I need to look at the rear brakes. Noises. I'm going to have to come up with some type of quick disconnect to mount the seats in the back. They're a little annoying when you're trying to load stuff, would be way more ideal if they were easily removable. I would also like to fit some type of bench seat setup in the cab, maybe from an old Nissan hard body or a Mazda or something. Would be nice to be able to squeeze 3 people in the cab on occasion if the need is there. #dreams Put a good 400 miles on it over the course of 2 days last weekend. Averages 29 mpg on the highway super consistently. It'll do 90 which is about where it is here (via GPS) noticed the speedo gets inaccurate about at about 75 maybe they never thought it would be there 🤣🤣 It's way happier cruising in the 70-75 mph range, that seems to be a good happy spot for it. Anything over 3500 rpm is a bit excessive. There's been a heat wave here in the northeast and I gotta say cruising on the highway with the sliding window open, the t tops out, and the windows down with the music cranked is pretty awesome.

Yes as the valve is working as it should.

I’ve been meaning to get back with an update on this: I finally got the car running again, and of course the problem was simpler than I thought. Turns out the wire from the distributor/ignition control module to the + terminal of the coil had come loose from the ring terminal connector. I don’t know how I missed it because I must have looked that wire over multiple times before, but I reconnected it, and it fired right up!

Battery voltage fluctuating with the turn signals is normal. The two 1156 bulbs draw about 5A when hot (~27W each), and at least double that cold, i.e. every time they blink on. The stock alternator is 55 or 60A iirc. You're pulling surges of a quarter of its high-rpm rating, and you're at idle (since you can hear the fuel pump) where it can barely keep up with the loads anyway. And when the voltage dips, the fuel pump slows down. A spark when connecting the battery is also 100% normal, and does not imply anything wrong, modified or otherwise. You're charging the capacitors in every electronic module, including the radio, ECU, fuel pump controller (I can't remember if that year has one or not), cruise control module, etc etc.

2.2 swap. Runs for ever.

My sincere thanks to all of you. I followed all your suggestions and it ended up being the relay. What a nightmare to get access to! Ended up getting it out eventually and replaced it, and success, the blower fan is now working again! Thank you again everyone.

I agree 100%. Still haven’t started it. My daughter’s car, so I’m not in a big hurry.

OK, Mr. McBRAT, you owe us an update on the life this beast has been living

Well, I got the crossmember bolted in late yesterday afternoon/early evening. Looks like my measurements for the holes and slots were close enough to make it work - I did have to knock the passenger-side/right-side stud out of the stock rubber transmission mount to get things to bolt on properly. This is temporary, again due to the offset of the stud pattern on the mount. I'll most likely install a replacement stud in parallel with the existing one for this build, and if/when it comes time to put in a new mount i'll adjust the crossmember to suit. (The CAD file has already been updated to match so other future builds should be just bolt-on.) I'd be very interested to get in touch with one or two more individuals doing Gen 1 builds like this so that I can further beta-test this crossmember design. If you're looking to do similar, get at me! Once I've got the *new* new camber plates on hand it's going to be a hard charge forward to put the impreza suspension in and the front wheels back on the ground so I can start cutting out the impreza transmission tunnel, rear suspension, and anything else I might need so I can reclaim its current parking spot. Truckin' right along! Thanks for following!

B and I pulled the dash out of the Impreza and worked on some wiring. The neutral and clutch switches (for canceling the cruise control) haven't been registering on the Haltech in a while. I had them wired 12VDC to one side, signal wire to Haltech on the other side. B suggested trying to ground them and that made them turn on and off at the Haltech. Still don't understand that, had them wired to power and they worked for a while. I think they stopped working when I replaced the expansion module or updated the firmware. Regardless, they work now. B installed the cabin air filter kit. Slammo turned me on to this. Very simple install/upgrade. B also cleaned out the HVAC box and blower motor. B wired in a retained accessory power module from timers.shop. Set that up to keep the power to the family band radio and two cigarette lighter outlets after the ignition is turned off. Will set that to 99 minutes I think. Been meaning to do that for years. He also made a little panel and added a switch so we can turn on one fuel pump or the other once the extra fuel tank is done. He replaced the backlight bulb in the gauge cluster so the clock shows up now. I wired all four EGR solenoid grounds to one of the outputs of the Haltech so we can see if that does anything. Wanted to get it working before we tune the car on a dyno. I got the horn working. Since the cruise inputs for the Haltech need a 5VDC power supply I had to separate that out (they're normally powered by the 12VDC horn circuit) and run the horn power through one of the airbag wires. The main reason for pulling the dash was to try to get the speedo working. After some trial and error and back and forth with Dakota Digital, I seem to have it working now. Will update the EZ36 swap thread with details. On that topic, I plan on just putting a swap guide and base map on my website soon too. Not sure how to share files on here.

B's Forester continues to run well, isn't consuming much oil. We started work on some rear strut tower braces for my Impreza. Didn't have couplers or enough tubing for a crossbar but we probably have over half the work done. Still have to space the seat latches and relocate the seat belts and add a spare tire mount too. I've been fixated on carrying more fuel since our last trip out west. Would have allowed us to get even farther off the beaten path before having to return to civilization for fuel. I looked into rectangular off the shelf gas tanks but none of them seem to fit well in the spare tire well. My latest idea is to just make one. Two pieces of aluminum, fairly simply cut and bent. Can keep the floor flat this way, should hold 10-12 gallons. Thinking I'll just make the flat flaps wide enough to bolt in under the strut tower braces. Fairly easy/simple mounting and might stiffen the chassis a bit without adding a lot of weight. Thinking 1/8" thick aluminum, two ports in the front, one high, one low. Already have some of the parts. Took the Impreza down to southern IL over the weekend. Drove on a lot of icy/snowy back roads on our way to various hiking trails. A few that were dirt but nothing real crazy. One time we stopped on an icy uphill grade because there was another car parked off to the side and I decided to ask them if they needed anything. They didn't but at first I was getting just some rear wheel spin trying to drive back up the hill. Locked the center diff and drove up without any drama, after about ten or twenty seconds of that I unlocked it, never had to use it the rest of the weekend.

I had a similar issue on my 35th anniversary car (2004). Critters had gotten into the left rear quarter panel and chewed the wiring harness. Shorting the turn signal circuit to the LR light, and damaging the wiring to the antenna (I think your 2000 will have a conventional antenna on the roof over the driver's door). Every time I used the Left turn signal, the gauge cluster would go dead. As long as I remembered not to use that signal, things were cool. If you can't think of a more specific correlation between using a function like that and the failure, I'd buy a breaker for that fuse so it could be reset and continue on. Hope that helps!

Sure thing! Brief run-down: My parents bought this car new in 1981, been in the family ever since. It was handed down to my brother and then me, both our first cars. I drove it for a couple years then took it off the road more than 10 years ago for a full bare shell restoration with upgrades. Been back on the road close to 4 years. It's now got a 2" lift kit + 27" tires, touring wagon dash/center console, power steer/air con/power windows, entirely new wiring loom designed and made by me, L series 5 spd, air adjustable rear shocks, 5ch sound system with sat-nav. The list could go on...I'm constantly working at improving and upgrading things. The front suspension will be next as its way too stiff. New gearbox coming soon etc. Here's from a recent camping/fishing trip with the 4WD club It's my daily driver and gets pushed into service for vaious jobs... Right after I got the new 15" wheels

I did change the auto trans fluid in the white Outback. It seems to be driving as normally as a 4EAT can. Got B's car back in the garage. Timing belt is shredded into a few pieces. All the idlers spin free and the tensioner was extended. Removed the engine, took off the intake and heads. All(?) the valves were bent. You can see where a few of them hit the pistons. Since he's had a few of these engines start to burn a lot of oil and we're assuming those were due to stuck rings, while we had the heads off we removed the pistons and replaced the rings. First pin came out fairly easily but we made a tool for the slide hammer to remove the rest. After we made and used this tool B noticed the Subaru FSM recommends using their tool which looks just like it. The old oil control rings barely floated. None of the rings stuck very far beyond the piston either and had about double the gap specified. Bores were within .001" round and taper which amazed me for an engine with about 150k miles on it. Gapped the new rings (they were all good out of the box) and put the pistons back in. B had lapped all the valves and replaced the valve stem seals in a better used pair of heads he had. New head gaskets, head bolts, seals, timing set, etc. Tried the old packing with grease and hammering in a pin to push the pilot bearing out trick. That didn't work. So we replaced the pilot bearing in the conventional manner. When I was tightening down the longest bolt for the PS pump it stripped out of the block. Not enough room between engine and condenser to fit a drill and drill bit so I could install a thread repair. Fortunately I was able to tap the hole deeper and use a longer bolt. Cranked a few times for about ten seconds each with the coil pack unplugged so we could get some oil circulating. Once we plugged that back in it fired right up. Seems to idle a little low and rough to me but I don't know what's normal. Runs smooth when you rev it up a little to 1000-2000RPM. No noticeable leaks or smoke. Just drove it out of the garage and back in the driveway but seems to be ready for another off road adventure.

Easy fix. I've done several of them. While you can pull out the support, if you have a self serve yard and you can cut out the parts you need from a undamaged car that's the way to go. You can cut out the damage and weld in the new parts. Cutout more than you need and then trim back.

B and I moved most of the rest of my business inventory to my machine shop across town. We took one trip with his Forester and my white Outback loaded with parts. Then while he was working on his car I loaded the white Outback up with another literal ton of parts. Almost as soon as we started driving the transmission acted like it was slipping. Got to the shop and unloaded everything, still slipping on the way back and has been ever since. I tried adding some brake fluid since my brother knows some people who've had temporary success with it but it didn't really seem to help. Plan to get a lower mileage replacement trans from a junkyard and hopefully a tan leather driver's seat while I'm at it. The Impreza has been taking a while to start fairly often since the swap after it sits overnight or longer. Sometimes it takes two or three tries before it starts. A while back I discovered this was because the crank position sensor wasn't generating enough voltage while cranking. Voltage signal on the Haltech oscilloscope looked decent but it wasn't enough. I lowered the threshold voltage and also added a column for 0RPM which seemed to help but still wasn't a complete fix. Then it just wouldn't start, was giving crank position and throttle body codes. I took apart the engine harness connector as that's been the source of most of my problems and the wire pulled out of the pin for the crank position sensor. I repinned that and checked the throttle body connections and it started and no longer had those errors but it was running rough, probably on five cylinders. I decided I'd had enough and ordered some closed barrel pin connectors and a tool from JR Ready. I'm not a huge fan as they're made in China and I don't like how closed barrel pins don't crimp on the insulation but M says they're the best thing they've found for wiring airplanes so I figure it might be good enough for trail riding in a Subaru. The week before we left I rewired the engine harness plug on the Impreza with some help from B. Shortened up the wires with a couple feet of excess length in the process. Directly wired the throttle body and MAP sensors to the ECU as they're pretty easy to unplug and then I'd have one less connection in line and fewer things to run through the connectors I added. Added four Deutsch connectors with closed barrel pins. I did zip tie them away from that bracket after I took that picture. Labeled and checked wires, pinned out the connectors, double checked wire color matches and tried to start the car Thursday. Only cranked but didn't fire. I checked various things, sensors seemed to be reading except the cam and crank position sensors. Then I realized I hadn't plugged that connector in. Then it fired up. Overall pretty happy with how that turned out, should be much easier to repin those connectors and the reduced wiring under the dash makes it cleaner and allows the glovebox to fit better. Bit of a last minute fix finishing that the day before we left but I'm glad I did it.

Yep, lots of good information That page is included in this whole "Subaru of the 80s" page. https://www.indysworld.com/subaru/index.html Check the "Original Ultimate Subaru Repair Manual" on there. Lots of good writeups there. I think this stuff is basically all 15-20 years old, but great place to start

I keep a bad ebay seller list on my laptop. All kinds of past misery in that list. That thread oughta be put in the off topic section.

Brat winter

We wanted to check out some areas we saw on our way home from the last Vegas to Reno so we headed south on 93 (alt) and then bailed off on a dirt road to the west. Went up through some old mining ruins in the hills. I tried this hillclimb but didn't make it to the left turn. Saw some wild horses and went through some pine forests. Continued southwest and wound up along a big flat wash. Drove up another one which was a long narrow trail up a wooded valley with quite a few cattle but most of the trees were burned. There was a big hillclimb we drove to the top of. Well, it looked like the top at first but just turned out to be a flatish spot maybe 1/3 of the way to the top. In the picture below you can see the part of the hillclimb we didn't reach. I drove up somewhat farther but was running out of power and traction and came back down. We camped along the trail that night. The main trail seemed to end at a high point overlooking the burned out valley. We drove up another valley but the trail kept getting steeper and looser so we turned around. Also by this time the Impreza's temp gauge would start rising with any sustained climbing or driving on soft ground, I'd have to run the heater to keep that under control. Drove through the town of Cherry Creek, B wondered whether they'd ever seen a Subaru. Went west through a cool canyon, some mine ruins, and through an area with various side trails and some pine forest. Continued south on some mountain trails, hit a few side trails and hillclimbs with some great views. Yes we did the hillclimb pictured below. View from the top. Near the bottom the canyon narrowed up with some fairly steep cliffs alongside us. Continued south to Ely to buy gas. Next we went to a nearby section of National Forest we'd seen on the way home from the last Vegas to Reno and drove into the mountains off the highway. Trail didn't seem too bad and then came to a big grade which looked fine from the side. When I made the turn to get on the grade I could see there was a big rut full of rocks on the downhill side of the off camber trail. I was able to stay out of the rut for a while but dropped in it a few times. The last time I dropped in it blew out my LR tire. I was able to back down to the corner but unfortunately I was stuck in the rut and it pulled me against the bank on the inside of the turn. After some trial and error and head scratching and with some tension on the winch cable we were able to jack the LR up and sideways out of the rut and away from the bank. While we were in the middle of this 2+ hour recovery operation I noticed oil dripping out one of the exhaust welds near the back of the car and something dripping off the LF control arm into the wheel. We replaced the tire in this position which was scary but seemed like our best option. Don't worry though we had a towel on the winch cable. Before I started the engine I turned it a few revolutions by hand to make sure some cylinders weren't full of oil. With four good tires and three of them on (over) the road I was fairly easily able to back across the road to the semi flat spot outside the switchback. The oil leak was probably past the rings down into the exhaust. The other leak was power steering fluid, maybe from turning the wheel without the engine running? Neither leak continued after this incident but it did take a while to burn all the oil out of the exhaust. \ Body damage wasn't as bad as I expected. After that excitement we decided to find a campsite.

From there we took pavement to the golden spike. Asked a few questions at the visitor center and filled up our water jugs. Followed the original transcontinental railroad route/Massey trail as best we could but there are quite a few bypasses now. For instance the road in the picture below is closed to motorized traffic. It follows the northern edge of the salt lake basin and crosses roughly the western third of Utah. There are a lot of mountains/rock formations along the way. We drove up to the top of Crocodile Mountain and Loco(?) mountain and camped near that peak. Wednesday morning we finished the railroad route. For the most part it's an easy gravel road. All of the former trestles are blocked though, they were all fairly small so the trail just makes little jogs down and across and back up out of little washes. Most of these are smooth, many of them are fun, but a few are washed out badly enough to cause a challenge for something with lower clearance. We then headed south on Massey northern #10. The start of this has some fun sections and a lot of cross ditches and some good scenery. We drove around and through Silver and Crater islands. Both fun and scenic. The northern end of Silver island was part of the ill fated Donner party's route. The southern end of Silver island has a lot of campsites and side trails and some traffic. This was a consistent sign we were getting close to pavement. We got food and gas in Wendover. Introduced myself to a French man at the grocery store who'd shipped their RV to the eastern US/Canada and had driven across to UT, heading to the west coast, then back across the southern US and Mexico on a yearlong trip with his wife and daughter.

Trip report, going to break this up into a few posts. Our first destination was the Killpecker sand dunes in SW Wyoming so we got off the interstate a little ways east of there and headed for some routes I downloaded off gravelmap.com. Site is mainly for mountain bikers to share unpaved routes but most of them seem to be gravel roads, figured it was at least a starting point to finding an unpaved through route to the dunes, can easily download GPX files off the site. Not long after leaving the interstate we stopped to make PB&Js and an old man in a Toyota pickup rolled up. At first we assumed he was mad at us for some reason but eventually realized he was just bored and wanted to chat and possibly help us figure out where we were going, which we didn't want to plan too closely. Told us the nearest paved road was 80 miles north and one 50 miles west or something which sounded good to us. Had the Wyoming gazeteer and some other ancient falling apart Wyoming map he was referencing. Noticed there was a switch on the dash to bypass the clutch safety switch, apparently this is a common thing on Toyotas, pretty cool. Saw some antelope and wild horses. Eventually made it to the campground at the dunes around sunset and decided it'd be best to camp the night first and test out the dunes in the morning. We'd forgotten flags for the dunes but fortunately B had a couple of just the orange flags he'd picked up off some trail. We zip tied those to tent poles closed in the windows along the B pillars. There were some big hill climbs on the back side of the campground B had noticed the night before but we decided to hit the dunes first. Most of the dunes were fairly solid but there were definitely some soft areas. Some variety of surfaces too, some rocky parts, quite a bit of grass and brush growing in the low flat areas, even some ponds. Some interesting rock formations along the northern edge. Saw some small rodents running around on them, would see a lot more throughout the week. I did eventually get the Impreza stuck in some soft sand driving too slow. I was able to lock the center diff but all that did was get all four tires spinning and sink the front in. The folding sand ladders got sucked in by the tires but started wrapping around them in the wheel wells. We jacked the car up, pushed some sand and the ramps under the tires, let it back down, and I got back on the move. Having the easy install square foot base for the high lift was a big plus here. The dunes cover 10,000 acres, in three or four hours we maybe covered a quarter of them. Definitely our favorite dunes we've visited but we haven't driven Glamis yet. We headed down behind the campground and checked out Crookston Ranch. I tried a couple of the big hillclimbs. Started in second gear high and then downshifted to first but that was still slowly losing speed so I tried low range and that just spun the tires. I think with a better power to weight ratio it probably could have held first gear high range and powered to the top. Fairly impressed it almost made it to the top though, those were some big loose hillclimbs. Next we drove to Boar's Tusk. B's Viair compressor fuse was still conducting but had melted itself and the little protective rubber cap. Made some PB&Js and hiked up to the base of the rock. Cool view from up there, walked around to the SW side which had a little easier path down and better view of the rock formation. Checked out a couple of groups of petroglyphs. White Mountain petroglyphs was easy to find. As we pulled up, a couple was walking back to their truck. When I got out of my car the guy says “USMB?”. We laughed and chatted a bit. He said he tested the original SJR lift kits on his Brat. Cedar Canyon petroglyphs took quite a while to reach, we knew where it was but none of our GPS maps was completely accurate. This is a common occurrence everywhere we go off pavement, disappointing sometimes but also adds to the adventure. Before we found the petroglyphs we found a cool little slot canyon. At the petroglyphs we were running low on fuel and far from any civilization so we dumped our gerry cans in our tanks. B has a three gallon can and I recently got a five gallon can. Then we decided to head west. There was a large north south ridge blocking our way west of Killpecker creek. A couple maps showed a road that went over it so we tried that and it completely disappeared when it got to the base of the bluffs. We then took some more major roads southwest. Dropped into the Alkali creek valley and then back out via a short but steep hillclimb, not sure B appreciated this detour since we were both running low on fuel but it worked out. Drove down to Green River, Impreza's low fuel light was on, so I guess that works. I had seen a bridge on the map over the Green River along a minor road so we decided to see if we could cross there. Headed back north and camped for the night because it was starting to get dark. B noticed some faint streaks of red in the sky and our phones captured some grossly exaggerated images of the northern lights. Tuesday morning we drove around the ODI plant and got to the Green River. Took at least one road/trail that was two track and eventually zero tracks. Followed it on the GPS for a while just basically driving through scrub desert until we found it again. Some other trails that weren't on our maps linked up with it. The whole time we were getting closer to the ODI plant which had a huge fire burning next to the main plant. Apparently this is just a Tuesday at the ODI plant, no one appeared to be trying to put it out. Made it up to the bridge, which still exists, but has been closed for a while. We went south to the bridge near the ODI plant and took I80 to 30 and headed for some Massey trails in Utah.

Just like @idosubaru says; Turn the bolt a little bit, spray the bolt head with PB Blaster or other penetrant fluid. Then torch the area of the head where the bolt is stuck with a map gas torch (handheld) Turn the bolt back and forth just a couple degrees again. Torch the area, spray with PB Blaster or dab on some candle wax while it's still hot. It will make the lubricant soak down to where it's needed. Keep repeating the process until the bolt frees up

Finally, after LOADS of work then tidy up and packing we’re off to Subinats in Sydney on Saturday. Left earlier to do some other stuff while up here but left almost two days later than planned. If you ever come to Australia and want to experience a wild time, come in October and do the Deni Ute Muster! It’s a loose weekend that’s for sure. This is one of the landmarks of the host town of Deniliquin - the ute on a pole (because why not?): Redback Brumby is loving the cruise so far. I’m sure she’ll keep the same attitude all the way home too. Cheers Bennie

Hello from Northern Cal. I was given two Subarus & each came with free car problems, so the inner-web led me here. One is a ‘99 Outback & the other an ‘02 Forester. So far, I’ve been impressed with how easy they are to work on as well as how capable they are off road. Cheers

Also changed out the downstream O2 sensor earlier today, runs a lot better now, no sputtering! The old sensor was carboned up/black soot. New one does not have an opening that I can see.

From your title, I thought "Tow" was referencing towing the car not "Toe" 😀

More than a couple times I’d run into a young DMV employee or such and they’d just be amazed and say things like “this isn’t right” or “I think you’re missing some numbers” , silly kids.

A 93 22 intake manifold won’t plug into the EJ25. It could work if you bolt a 1995-1998 EJ22 intake manifold on it and figure out all the minor pvc and vacuum and other bits. 93 EJ22 block bolts to EJ25 trans and exhaust. Bolt 95-98 intake manifold onto 93 engine and it’ll plug into the EJ25. 1995 EJ22 from an automatic is the direct bolt in option. Manual 95 works too but just won’t have EGR which you can easily work around. 1996-1998 EJ22 are all bolt in and plug and play if you also get a single port EJ22 exhaust manifold. It bolts right in place. The EJ25 exhaust is dual port and won’t bolt to the 96+ EJ22. (95 EJ22 has dual port exhaust heads so it bolts right up to the ej25 exhaust

While you are in there tighten the oil pump back plate screws and replace the o-ring.

2006 Tribeca H6, 215k miles, Fixed my Cylinder 1 misfire by soldering IC608 as shown in the above post. First checked pin to board solder joint, then traced to this IC that grounds each injector. Please don't bake your entire board. There's also a video on youtube where Black Horse Repairs completely removes the chip to clean and install with new solder. Again, very risky, just use a fine solder tip and reflow only the pins of this chip. Post something after this if anyone even still works on these cars!

Well I just wanna finish up the story of this issue, in case it will help anyone else coming across the same questions! Long story short, it ended up being a problem with both the timing belt AND the camshaft sensor. I don't know exactly how those two things may have been related to each other in the moment, but here's the longer version of what happened: I checked the timing belt shortly after it was suggested I do so, and laughably, that definitely seemed to be the problem as when I opened up the covers, the timing belt sorta...flopped out. It had broken in half. Which frustrated and confused me, since I had changed it less than a year ago! This time, I ordered an actual Subaru brand timing belt (I *had* done my research to buy the last one, and decided on getting the whole kit from a brand - I can't remember it now but I'll look it up - that was recommended to me as being just as good as getting Subaru parts!), and a friend and I put that belt in and also discovered that the tensioner roller seemed to have seized. That bushing that the bolt goes through was just....stuck, somehow. Crappy part? We're not exactly sure, but luckily I had a new one waiting, and we put that in along with the belt. The piston tensioner and everything else was fine. So we put everything back together and presto! The car started, sounded fine and normal, and I was ecstatic! My friend went on her way and I drove to the store later that evening -- where, halfway there, the same thing happened as back when all this started. Very suddenly, the car died, no rough running, no weird noises, just noped out and the engine shut itself off. Luckily I was on an only mildly busy street and managed to pull to the side as it was happening. Tried to start it again and it was an absolute no-go. Starter motor tried, but no crank. So this time, I didn't sit there with my heat-addled brain trying to get it to start over and over, and just got a tow back home. Once there, I notice the check engine light is actually on (a rarity in this particular car), and I get the codes for coolant temp sensor, camshaft position sensor AGAIN, and knock sensor. So my friend comes back over the next morning with all her toolkit and we look at the sensors. The wiring looks fine, and suddenly, she's able to start the car and it runs at idle without dying. We poke and prod the wiring harness, can't kill it. Then we wonder about the signal getting to the ECU, whether it's just weak, or intermittent, or what have you. The harness FROM the ECU to the sensor tests good (thankfully - my car for whatever reason does not have that big harness connector at the firewall - the harness goes through and into the dash and there's not a damn thing you can do about it LOL). We test the sensor itself but we don't have an oscilloscope so the best we can do is see that it IS getting some voltage when we swing it past a large piece of metal. Then we look into the wiring order itself, since neither the sensor nor the cobbled-together connectors I put in have the original wiring color scheme (according to various manuals.) We decide to swap colors (in this case, the sensor has red, white, and black. We know the black is the shielded one so that goes to yellow on the harness, which, incidentally, goes back to a large black wire where it pins into the ECU). Just for funsies. Because the other two colors on the harness are white and black, and the other two colors on the sensor are white and red, so what if white goes to white, like...ya know...makes sense? So we do that and immediately get some new information - car does not like that AT ALL. It starts, it runs, but it makes angry noises and won't go above 3000 rpm. So, just to be scientific, we take the sensor all the way out to confirm that yes indeed, the car will not start without the camshaft sensor (I mean, ya gotta try, right? LOL) So luckily, on a whim, I had ordered another sensor off of EBay (because parts stores want to charge me $300 for it and at this moment I'm not exactly made of money, which is why I'm doing all this myself with the help of cool friends). We manage to find a wiring diagram that includes the SENSOR wiring (I wish I could tell you where, I think my friend still had access to some super-secret mechanics' manuals from when she worked at an auto shop) and discover that it goes like this, for anyone interested who has this particular setup: ECU big black wire (shield) --> harness yellow wire --> sensor black wire; ECU white wire --> harness white wire --> sensor RED wire; ECU small black wire --> harness black wire --> sensor WHITE wire. So with the new (used) sensor wired in like that, we start the car up again, everything runs peachy keen, I drive around town a bit with my friend following me in case anything else happens, and the car runs like a dream, except the check engine light comes on again! I drive home, check the CEL code, and it tells me it's the knock sensor...........which I had forgotten to tighten down way back at the beginning and it was completely loose 😂 That was that, for now, in this saga! As of this moment my car is running like a champ with no check engine lights and we're hoping it stays that way! Hope any of this info ends up being helpful and/or interesting to someone, thanks to everyone here for their help and suggestions!

One of these things is not like the others 🤣 Not much time lately but haven't forgotten about the thread. Just been driving her. Nearly 2k miles into my ownership. Put 2 new axles in up front. Riding in the back is terrifying. More updates when I can. Cheers and thank you for looking.