Skid542

Have you tried probing yet? Have you pulled off the passenger valve cover (it's three low torque screws)? Is the sound a clacking, like two pieces of metal hitting, or does it sound like a piston is misfiring, much deepr and throatier? Do you notice any excessive engine vibration when it starts makeing this noise? Is your friend sure the smoke was black? Unburnt gas doesn't come out as black smoke. Does your engine hold steady oil levels? New plugs and wires are always going to help on an old engine that hasn't been touched in a while although I still don't think that's going to fix your problem unless the sound is the sound of a missing piston. Changing the oil and filter won't do anything either if your oil levels are correct and you still have the problem.

Two potential explanations, both common with first gens Legacy's. One, it's the fuel injectors just clacking away. They are noisy and sometimes get exessively. Two, your HLA's need bleeding. Your engine has hydralic valve lash adjusters that will get air in them if your oil got too low at some point. Sometimes they just die. Either way it makes a heck of a racket. Often times replacing the oil will take of them but sometimes you have to take them out and manually 'refill' them. This is a simple process and you can leave the engine in the car. Just take off your valve covers, push on the various valves until you find the loose ones, push hard and if they're dead you'll know it. From there it's 8 bolts to pull off the rocker assembly and then the HLA's will pull out. Have you taken a screwdriver to probe to find the noise? If it's coming from under the valve covers then I'd put my money on the HLA's.

My bet is on the throwout bearing as well. And to answer your current ^^^ question. I don't think so. If your clutch is fully engaged then your clutch is fully engaged. Not to highjack - Anybody have experience with letting one go for a long time? What ultimately fails and gets damaged in the process?

Any piece of steel will fatigue when flexed beyond a minimum loading. I would bet a large sum that if the car is driven moderately hard or on rough roads the sway bar is being stressed beyond this minimum. Even if this fatigue is small, after enough miles it will eventually break. Whether or not other things on the car die first and so the sway bar never breaks is another story. But I don't see any reason to believe they don't occasionally fail. In response to the issue of does excessive body roll mean the bar is going to break? Likely your bushings are suspect one and replacing those will yield the most benefit but 280Mm that bar is likely to be weaker and softer. So how much do you want to spend to replace things that get old :-/?

Do you have keyless entry? My 96' LO started making some bad clicking noises from under the dash as soon as I'd put the key in, eventually would do it without the key. It turned out to be the keyless entry control box, little square flat black box. I unplugged it and all has been well. Just throwing out an idea.

If you're looking for straight OE replacements you should check out - http://www.subaruparts.com/ , I've heard good things about them. If you have the money and go new OE rotors I would also recommend cyrotreatment but I can't tell you offhand where to go for that :-/. I also sent you a PM with regards to some great condition but used stuff. Lee