Scoobaroo

A fiberglass reinforced belt hardly stretches at all during it's life. Exact cam timing is maintained with a belt, even up to the moment it strips or breaks. A chain starts off well when new, but stretches quite a bit during it's useful life. You could lose 10 or more degrees of cam timing with a worn chain. A chain tensioner does nothing to maintain proper chain timing since it only takes up slack on the "slack" side. I like timing belts. Easy to change and bulletproof when replaced properly.

Double hype. Probably has extra viscosity improvers and seal conditioners added. Remember, the more additives, the less oil per quart.

I used the thick metal deck of a table saw to lay the glass on. While my brother held the glass in place, I ran the head over the glass/emery cloth in a figure 8 motion. The last time I tried this, I used a thick piece of glass like they use for storefront windows (probably 1/2 inch thick). It's been awhile since I did the Toyota head, but I remember that I had to glue several large strips of emery cloth together. As long as you resurface in a figure 8 pattern, it's not a big deal. Subie heads are kind of small, so less area is required. I'll try to get some pics posted. Auto repair on a working man's budget.

When you say "pinging" do you mean a cold engine tick? The "ticking" is still there even when the engine is warm? I doubt that the 15w-50 did any harm to your engine even though it is too thick. Mobile 1 is great stuff. Stick to the 10w- 30, though. You may have some valve train noises due to the Mobile 1 cleaning out old deposits. Did they over/underfill the oil? "Quick Lube" joints are notoriously bad at working on Subarus. What kind of oil filter did they install?

Hi all. I'm working on a project ea81 engine out of an old GL. One of the heads is warped a bit; probably 3 thousanths of an inch or so. In the past, I had luck doing a "ghetto" resurface job on an aluminum Toyota 22R cylinder head by attaching 300 grit emery cloth to a sheet of perfectly flat glass with spray trim adhesive. When that was dry, I soaked the emery cloth with WD40 and worked the head on the emery cloth in a figure 8 pattern for about 10 minutes. The head came out perfectly flat with a nice random finish on it. Never had a problem with that engine ever again after I did this. Anyone ever try this with a Subie head? I know that a machine shop would laugh at this procedure, but it does work. I think I'll give it a try on this head and post some pics of the procedure. Driveway engineering at its best.

With a smaller punch, try to drive the torx screwdriver out from the opposite end. A cheap set of Chinese punches can be had at a discount auto parts store for a few bucks. If you have a grinder, you can make a punch out of anything metal that is larger than the drift pin you are trying to remove. Let us know how it goes.

Yeah, that rocks! Never do today what you can put off 'till tomorrow!

Japaneese cars don't have a lock and key on reliability. Lots of ranchers around here will argue that their 90's something Chevy pickups with a 350 TBI injected V8 and a 5 speed tranny is the most reliable thing going. I hardly see one of these trucks that doesn't have 300,000 to 400,000 miles on them (and they've been WORKED); seats worn down to the bare wire frames, 5th wheel hitches and beds dented and beaten beyond recognition but little to no rust. I don't care what "Consumer Reports" says, those early to mid 90's Chevy trucks are friggin' tough as nails. Chevy went down the crapper in the late 90's, though when they changed engine platforms. For the DIY'er, an older Subaru will always be better. Parts are still plenty easy to scrounge and anyone with a functioning brain can do a ghetto engine rebuild in a weekend. There's a conspiracy (IMO) amongst ALL car manufacturers to increase the electronic complexity of cars and to cut off the supply of specialized electronic parts after about 10 years in order to force the previous generation of vehicles into obsolescence. Driving ancient, old iron with huge aftermarket support is the only way to avoid this.

I'm with you on that. The last "good" year for Volvo was around '96. (the last year that you could get a "red brick" 4 cyl.) The bean counters at Ford have now turned Volvos into cheap, plastic, electronic dispose-a-cars. Stick with Toyota, Subaru or Honda. They give you the most for the least $$. I think it's safe to say that head gaskets are no longer an issue with Subaru.

6's don't have the slap. (longer piston skirts, smaller bore, etc.) A 2.5 4 cyl. will almost always have the slap with 20k+ miles. Don't worry about it as long as it goes away within a few minutes. Engine noises are fatal in a Ford or a Chevy. Japaneese engines just seem to make noises happily for hundreds of thousands of miles.

On an '02, it should have just had the "goop" added to the cooling system for a minor, external head gasket seep. Glad they replaced the gasket for you, though. Drive your OB with confidence, now. There aren't many known issues with an '02 Outback other than the problem that you've already had.

True. When engines run almost continuously (taxi cab / police car duty) the engine internals develop a sort of "case hardening" from the constant, even heat. The engines' rate of wear slows to almost zero. And remember, even the cheapest dino oil sold today is better than any premium oil sold 5 or 10 years ago. That .88 cent per quart "Super Tech" stuff sold at Walmart is all you need in an engine that's run continuously. I wouldn't be surprised if this Forester sees at least 600k. Subie engines have a very short stroke which equals a relatively slow piston-to-cylinder-wall speed compared to other longer stroke engines. This explains why the Forester has little or no cylinder or piston ring wear and thus little to no oil consumption. Go Subaru!!

Not very well. I miss the simplicity of older Subarus. Our '02 Outback has been ok except for the slight piston slap thing (normal, really). Plenty of lemon horror stories out there that you never used to hear about older Subarus. Avoid the late 90's "phase 1" 2.5 cars like the plague unless you're willing to transplant a more reliable 2.2 engine into it.

Welcome, Richard. Good luck with the lawsuit. Yes, the 1st generation 2.5's were junk. Subaru isn't really owning up to the problem past the original powertrain warranty. To me (and probably you) a '98 vehicle is practically brand new. To Subaru, a '98 vehicle is ancient history. Car companies are experts at jerking people around with high dollar attorneys 'till they get tired (or broke) and go away. Since this is a reliability issue and not really a safety issue, there is slim to no chance that the government will step in. Also, piston slap doesn't really cause the head gaskets to blow. The gaskets blow because the crankcase is under-engineered causing the head gasket surfaces to "slip and slide" around on a microscopic level little by little with each temperature cycle until the gasket gets weakened and worn away causing a leak. The head gasket issue is complex. Too little sealing surface. Not enough cylinder block rigidity. Too little gasket clamping force. All in all, the "Phase 1" is just a cheesy design. You can only shave and scrimp so much material from an engine block. Subaru hit the lower limits of engineering with the phase 1. Gimme the old pushrod ea81.

Vane type sensors have a "clock spring" return spring. Very little resistance at low speeds, more resistance at higher speeds. Under high flow conditions, the vane is slammed wide open anyway. Almost zero airflow resistance under wide open throttle.

For those that have had the crosses and joints apart, are the crosses hollow or solid inside? A hollow cross could have a zerk hole drilled into it for greasing. A solid cross can't. My wife's '02 obw has the same pos peened joints. (planned obsolescence) Seems the original u-joints would last forever if only one could GREASE them. As a side note, my '87 4X4 'Yota pickup has grease fittings on every u-joint from the factory. The original joints are still happy with 223k miles on them. (fresh grease every 6 mos.) At least somebody at Toyota has a clue!

Nice. How much $ to have those piston skirts coated? Were the valve seats cracked in the heads as well, or were my eyes just playin' tricks on me? A cracked head is usually harmless, but a cracked seat might cause a problem later. Nice engine, though. ea82's are bulletproof except for that funky head cracking thing.

Subaru and other manufacturers are engineering pistons with ridiculously short skirts in an attempt to boost fuel economy and HP by a slight amount. The SLIGHTEST amount of skirt wear will cause piston slap. (#4 cylinder seems to be the most problematic) Piston slap is usually fatal in domestic cars. Japaneese cars seem to slap happily for hundreds of thousands of miles. Try different kinds of oils if you want to. Once the noise starts, it's there to stay regardless of oil type. The problem is well documented in 2.5 liter engines. I just turn up my radio volume.

Piston slap.

If the CV joint is quiet now, chances are that it will stay quiet with fresh grease and a new boot. As for the steering rack boot, mark the lock nut on the threaded inner tie rod with a felt tip marker and make sure that it gets back to that exact spot upon reassembly. The toe setting will be so close that its not even worth discussing. Deposit the remaining $450 into your IRA. Tape measure wheel alignments can be highly accurate, too.

The hardest thing for people to understand is that premium fuel acutally has LESS energy per gallon in it than regular or mid grade because it has additives in it that make it less likely to ignite. Premium fuel does, however, allow a high compression / high performance engine to run a more aggressive fuel and timing program making more horsepower as an end result.

It would be nice except that noboby in Japan wastes money maintaining an engine that they know must be tossed at a certain mileage. Most of these engines are worn out at replacement time. Would you waste money maintaining an engine that you knew the government was going to force you to replace at 60,000 miles??

This is fine for most conditions. Things get a bit tricky when electrical wiring faults and ground faults start showing up. For example, if Autozone scans your codes and there is a code stored for a throttle position sensor, it doesn't necessarily mean that the sensor is bad. High resistance in grounds and ecectrical connectors can make it appear to the ECU that the sensor is bad when it is in fact ok. Of course, by saving the $125 stealership charge, you can afford to throw a few parts at a problem and hope it cures it and still be money ahead.

Sorry if this is a repost, but here's an excellent article on Mobile 1. http://neptune.spacebears.com/cars/stories/mobil1.html#samples Interesting that engine wear actually DECREASES as oil ages meaning that it's a bad thing to change your Mobile 1 too frequently.

A stand-alone code reader is all you need. All of them can clear codes as far as I know. Disconnecting the batery won't work anymore on newer cars since all ECU's now have a backup memory that doesn't depend on the car's battery. If it's an OBD II reader, it will work on all makes of cars, since things were standardized around 1996.More expensive readers can link to PC's and monitor data streams, freeze / record data, etc. All of those features are usually unnecessary, though. Depends on how much you want to spend, really.