stephenw22

Your car's computer has an LED embedded on the front that will flash different codes depending on what has failed. You can check the Ultimate Subaru Repair Manual for more information.

If the oil light is on, there are two possible reasons: 1. You have very low (or zero) oil pressure. 2. The pressure switch is broken. If your car is running without making all kinds of horrible sounds, I'd guess that the switch is broken. The switch is located down where the oil filter is. It's a round thing that threads into the oil pump. There will be 1 wire that connects to it. The wire goes up the engine and then joins up into the main wiring harness (eventually). To find oil leaks, the best thing to do is wash the engine bay very thoroughly. Get everything nice and clean. Then, drive the car a little bit, and check for leaks. Another option is to have a dye tracer put into the engine oil, and then to check the car out with a UV light. Not every shop has dye paks though, so you might have to call around.

There will be a vacuum line that actuates the gas pedal and throttle linkage through a big vacuum diaphragm under the dash.

The shop looked at the car again on Monday. All of the deficiencies have been taken care of. YAY! Now I just have to take care of the smaller stuff - getting the defroster working, installing a block heater, and fixing up the carb/vacuum hoses for winter.

I'd replace the valve cover gaskets and valve cover bolt grommets for sure. Cost is small, and it's a quick job to do. My guideline is that if I leak more than a quart every 1000 miles, I start thinking about MAYBE doing a re-seal. If it leaks a quart every 500 miles, then I start planning for it. If you have the space and the desire to see the guts of an engine, it might not be a bad idea to pick up a used engine, re-seal that one, and then swap them. You can pick your pace then. You won't have to rush and try to get the car back up and running the same day.

I think it might be for securing a full-size spare. On my turbo wagon, you couldn't (according to the manual) fit the 185/70R13 tire under the hood. Instead, you put it in the back and used the hold-down.

There is no ecu. The battery was disconnected for a month while I had the engine out, and nothing was reset. I guess I'll have to keep looking.

When I did mine (just a few weeks ago now) I used a 1" putty knife with a soft blade to get the big stuff off, and then a green scotchbrite pad (synthetic steel wool) to get the small stuff off. It took a little while, but I was able to get the head surfaces looking pretty dang good. I had a razor blade scraper handy just in case, but I never really needed it. The putty knife had a bit of a bevel built-in, and it worked just fine. Take your time (if you can) and enjoy the process. It was nice to also take before-and-after photos, so I can really remember the difference.

With 5 bolts in your hand, and triple-checking that they're the 5 correct bolts (all 10mm), it should come off fairly easily. A rubber mallet should be able to break it loose. If a rubber mallet doesn't work, and you plan on replacing the water pump anyways, you can stick a pry bar into the inlet and give it a good yank. If you're going to do this, be ABSOLUTELY SURE that every bolt is out.

My parts guy also sells two grades of thermostats - regular and 'heavy-duty'. The heavy-duty variety is the Stant Superstat. It's what I've been using for a couple of years now, and they seem to hold up really well. They're a lot more expensive than the cheap brand (I don't even know the brand name of those ones), but they're WAY better built. I'd put them on the same level as an OEM stat.

The Hornet's EGR light is on and I'd like to shut it off for good, since I've disconnected my EGR system completely. I searched through the board and it seems like there's a connector somewhere under the dash to do this. I looked last night, and I don't want to just start pulling random stuff until something works. What does the connector look like? How many wires on each side? I'm just tempted to drill a small hole through the plastic lens and smash the bulb, but I don't want to accidentally short-circuit the wires.

Well, I got everything back on, topped up all the fluids, and took it for a spin. It runs well, but I'm going to have to adjust the carb a little bit, and maybe re-do some of the vacuum lines. It doesn't seem like the choke is working when it's cold. I'm going to drive it as much as I can today, hoping that the oil will all burn off the exhaust. I might pull the transmission pan off and re-seal it tonight. I think that's the next biggest leak. Anyways, it goes back for re-inspection tomorrow. Hopefully it passes this time, I'm getting sick of the high gas prices with my 1/2 ton.

^ | | Engineer here I hate both TLAs and FOLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms and FOur-Letter Acronyms). It's almost impossible to talk with other departments at work without carrying around a glossary. Anyways, refurbishing them yourself is probably the best bet. There was a thread not too long ago about stretching the spring in the cam case (for better oil pressure and therefore flow). It might be an alternative, but I'm not sure if doing that might cause problems somewhere else.

Who to the what now? HVLA? High-Velocity Legs & Arms? High-Voltage Lightning Arrestors?

After a few days off, I finally finished the final connections to the Hornet. I spun the oil pump with a drill to prime the system, installed timing belts, and made sure everything was hooked up. The engine runs nice! It's idling really smooth now. The only problem is that my oil pressure sender isn't working anymore. I know I have oil flow in the system, so I'm going to try another sender from a wreck. If that doesn't work, I also have a mechanical oil pressure gauge that I could install.

The VC bolts to the cam case, so that's what you'd need from your spare engine. Once upon a time, I had some VC bolts that wouldn't tighten (see long story below for full info). What held (temporarily) was to do the following: Take VC off. Thoroughly clean the VC, gasket, and mating surface of the cam case. Get ALL the oil off the surfaces. Use RTV silicone and apply a bead in the VC gasket groove. Squish the gasket into the RTV and make sure that it is holding well. Apply another bead of RTV to the VC gasket. Install the VC gasket on the engine and tighten up all of the bolts that you can. If a whole section of the VC won't tighten, use whatever you can to put some pressure on the joint. Let the car sit for a day or 2 to let the RTV cure. This type of fix lasted me 6 months until I had a chance to repair it right. Long Story (I think it's a cool one) On my first car, 2 of the passenger side valve cover bolts wouldn't tighten up. When I finally got around to taking the cover off, I found that the mounting points in the cam case had been snapped off! I can only guess that someone was trying to pry/lift the engine up, using only the valve cover for a grab point. The metal was snapped where the threads were (i.e. 180 degrees of thread was still on the cam case, the other 180 degrees was on the broken chunk of metal). The mechanic had tried to epoxy the pieces together, and then silicone over everything. It was horrible. Before giving me the car, my dad had said that the mechanic told him there was a valve problem with the engine, and that it was a $1500 fix. I had owned the car for about 1 year before I took the VC off and saw the damage. It was about 6 more months before I found the USMB and realized it was something I could fix myself. This repair (new cam case) was the first "major" repair I had ever done to my car. Now, it's not even scary when I think about pulling an engine or swapping a transmission. LONG LIVE THE USMB!

For tie-rods going into the knuckle, here's one thing I've done in the past: I stick the end of the tie rod into the knuckle as far as I can. Then, I get a jack underneath the tie rod and give it some pressure. Finally, I find an old chunk of pipe, an old socket, or some kind of spacer w/ a hole in the middle. I slip it over the exposed threads and pound the knuckle down onto the tie rod. As far as the ball joint goes, I've never had any problems getting it into the control arm. Usually, it's a pain to get out (I need to use a gear puller, usually), but the new one just slides right in.

I've tried doing the ATF thing, and it worked for a little while. I drained the oil, filled with ATF, and idled it for about 30 min. Tick stayed away for about 6 months. I've never noticed any performance hit from ticking, though, and it doesn't seem to affect the engine longevity either.

I'll have to store this in my memory bank for future reference. No matter what, it would save tons of time to be able to use an o-ring instead of a liquid sealant. Even if it didn't last quite as long, it would make it almost as easy as changing a valve cover gasket.

I was just wondering if anyone has ever thought about trying this. Instead of using RTV or something else out of a tube, getting a large o-ring w/ rectangular cross-section and installing it into the groove of the cam case, kind of like the VC gasket. Even if it is a little too small to go the whole way around the case, I don't think it would hurt to leave a gap at the top. It might be tricky finding the right cross-section to give you the right compression on the o-ring. Maybe that's why Subaru never ended up doing it. Do the newer Subarus (Legacy/Outback/Forester) use the same cam case setup as DL/GL/Loyale? EDIT:spelling

All I've done is re-seal the engine, and replaced worn-out stuff. Head gaskets, cam seals, front and rear main seals, intake and exhaust gaskets. I had to replace the water pump, it was leaking out of the weep hole. I've replaced every coolant hose that I could. I'm also replacing as much of the pcv hose and vacuum hoses as I can. There were a ton of stripped out bolts that I helicoil'ed back in. There were 2 on the passenger side cam case, 1 oil pump bolt, 2 cam seal bolts, and I also did all of the exhaust threads. I installed new exhaust studs. I've also plugged off the egr and the air passages that go into the exhaust. An oil catch can will be happening right away. I'm going to try and keep the cruise intact, and get it working if I can. I still need to fix the ventilation system as well. Priority 1 is getting the car running. Oil goes in tomorrow, and I'll spin the pump with a drill to prime the system and flow a little oil to the bearings, etc. For now, I'm going to re-use the old radiator and just install a working thermo-switch from another car. The plan is to get this car running by the weekend, and then I can get it re-inspected for once and for all.

Well, last night I finally got the engine back into the Hornet. I was looking over the vacuum diagrams and wondering about what is really necessary. I've already blocked off the egr and air suction valves. I know I can live without them. Also, I plan on putting my PCV system through a catch can. Am I right to think that all I really need are connections for spark advance and the vacuum modulator? Or, are there more ones that are important?

Every Accel coil I've bought has lasted longer than the car I installed it into. Maybe Canada uses a different manufacturer... These days, I tend to just stick with the stock coil. It seems like it does the job well enough. Maybe if I had a turbo car again, things might be different.

It could also be that there is something in there that is preventing the flap from closing completely. Courtesy of little brothers and sisters, I've had everything from peanuts to pencils jammed into my air vents, blocking those doors from closing. If you're careful, you can pry the vent louvres out of the dash, and then you'd be able to get a better look at what might be blocking it (if anything)

So there's no "ECS" light along the row with all of the other dummy lights? Are you sure it's just not burned out, or disabled? The light didn't work on my '88, but it was still there. EDIT: Check the USRM (Ultimate Subaru Repair Manual) for details on codes.