porcupine73

Yes that is a nasty acrid smell. When mine ripped, I was at a gas station and I smelled it and I thought a truck tire was on fire or something. Then when I stopped at Home Despot I smelled it again and thought that can't be good, and people walking in front of my car were making sickly faces and wafting their hands in front of their noses.

hahaha that reminds me on Cops when the Cop finds something in the suspect's pockets, and the suspect promptly replies "but these aren't my pants!!! they're my cousin's pants!"

Sometimes people would say engine coolant temp sensor..but I can never remember if that normally causes cold start issues, or warm/hot start issues?

Hi. It is possible it is an issue of lubrication. If I were having this problem, I would get the front wheels off the ground, remove the wheels, and inspect and probably remove the pads. Clean the ALL mating surfaces where anything touches anything else, make sure the pads are not too loose in the clips and caliper mounts, and recoat everything with antisqueal grease, or I have been using Neo HP800 wheel bearing grease all summer and my breaks are dead silent...no squealing at all even when creeping forward slowly. Even if you had the brakes serviced recently, an inferior lube may have been used, or the pads may be too loose in the clips and caliper mount, etc.

Ok item arrived today. It does look promising. Here's some pics. I'll try this out on my '94, the next maintenance project I have involving cam seals this winter:

Hello Jacko and to the board! It being a 2.2L is a bonus because of the potential HG issue of the 2.5L. Of the issues posted with '99's, there seem to be some with a slow to engage into drive issue on the autos. Also some of the speedo heads went wacky. Definitely check it for torque bind and that the FWD (front wheel drive) fuse is not installed. edit: oh yes, it is also due for a timing belt, and I believe this an interference engine, so if the timing belt has not been done yet that should be done immediately if you get it, and there are several other maintenance items that are prudent to do at the same time.

GCK, chinese made I think they are, all new axles from the auto parts store are what some people are using. I think those are the ~$60 ones. Not sure who would carry them in Canada. MWE axles are ones many people use and are happy with.

I don't know of any shops, but I can tell you who does: Nile Jenkins. His Web site is http://www.thecarconnectionbusinessnetwork.com/ He deals with automotive questions and issues in the Buffalo and Ontario areas. He has some good shops listed on his site. He knows of others that might not necessarily be listed as well. You can search for shops in your area on his site, or you can e-mail him, or you can call him during his radio show. It's saturday mornings from 7-9am on 99.5FM (not sure if you can pick that up where you are; it's a 100,000 watt station in Buffalo I can pick it up even in Ohio).

haha yah that is funny. Can you take a peak at the boots to see if they really are split? Sometimes as the boots age they develop a lot of little cracks in the rubber but aren't yet split; not sure if that's what they're seeing or what. I mean this is what a split boot looks like:

The RH (passenger) side inner boot is the more common failure. Not sure why the others would then fail in such rapid succession. The rest probably aged similarly. Have you owned this vehicle since new and/or were any 'rebuilt' axles installed?

Sounds like what the inspection guy told you was correct. It can take several trips to get all the emissions inspection readiness I/M monitors set to 'ready'. Especially the 'evap' as it only does the fuel system integrity test on the enhanced evap vehicles under specific conditions, one of which is something like less than 9.6 gallons of fuel in the tank another is fuel temp. It took me a couple of days driving to get that one to go ready on my '00obw.

You can tee in at the oil pressure switch under the alternator. It can be a little tight under there to work. You probably also need adapters. The thread on the block for the pressure switch is 1/8" bspt (british standard pipe taper thread). 1/8" npt will start to thread in there but it is not the right fitting and could leak. You can get adapters from mcmaster.com or other places. That said, I know I saw on endwrench.com something about that kind of ticking and it said it could be a partially blocked oil passage which lets the HLA's then bleed down and takes a while for them to rebuild pressure.

RTV is not required on the gasket; I guess you could use it but it is not needed. I use edelbrock gasginch on stuff like that to mount the water pump gasket to the water pump before install. Makes it a lot easier than trying to keep the gasket in place while installing. gasginch is basically just rubber cement with a nastier faster drying solvent I think. There's lots of types of it at the auto parts stores. Note that when torquing the water pump bolts, you start with the bolt at apprx the 2 o'clock position, then go tightening them, move to the next bolt clockwise, then go around again to reach the final torque which I think was like 7.2 ft*lb. Resealing the oil pump isn't too hard if you get the crank pulley off. Sometimes the crank spocket can be tough to pull off if it got corrosion underneath it. There's two types of o-rings, one for EJ22s I think which just looks like a normal o-ring, and one for EJ25's which is more like a discus looking thing.

Hi. That'd be the ABS 5.3i setup. Look for a white connector under the dash on the driver's side. On my '00obw, this white connector was sort of above the brake pedal. It was a 7 or 8 position connector, though only 2 or 3 had wires in them. It was sort of taped up (if it hasn't been used before). There are two blackish 'test wires' taped with the connector. I put one of those wires into position '8' I think it was, which was the lower right pin when looking at the connector. Then when you put the key to run it flashes out the trouble codes.

Well if you can pull the front and rear struts assemblies (struts, springs, mounts, etc) from a 96 to say 98 (maybe 99) Outback, those should be 'bolt&play'.

Yes, I have an Optima with a bad cell, and it reads ~10+ volts, starts the vehicle OK, but obviously it ain't right.

It might not be to others, but I don't know much about doing it.

Hm.....upper spring seat sizes are sure to be different, so if it works I would guess you would need to run the Legacy springs and Legacy upper spring seats together, or the Forester upper spring seats and Forester springs together. Can do some part # checks and such if desired....

What year and model Subaru? Not sure if this is your issue, but some of these had screws, some had rivets holding the little tabs that latch into the body to hold it taught, and some of them tended to back out or break off. This happened to me, and the screw got caught up in the roller mechanism and was making it not completely retract. I was wondering where that screw came from, then the right tab came off. That was the screw. There is an article on endwrench.com about it.

The word I heard about those is they do go on pretty easy but they just aren't durable enough to hold up for a long period of time.

Other threads have stated that yes some Subaru OEM struts are made by KYB, but they are not KYB GR-2's, and that the GR-2's are a little stiffer valving than stock. If the GR-2's received did not have the tab for the ABS wire, they were probably the wrong part #. The KYB Web site has their 'passenger car catalog' and will tell you the part #'s for abs, no abs, etc, so you can double check that it is correct vs. what the seller says.

If you want a set of four struts, ebay vendor jdmwerks13 has pretty good prices. Don't expect any e-mails or shipping confirmations but I got mine in good shape in about a week I think it was. Also ordered from performancepeddler on eBay but got one wrong strut; they did take it back though. http://www.SummitRacing.com and http://www.TireRack.com also have the KYB's, ship fast, and have excellent customer service. I didn't order from them because they were out of stock on at least one of the struts I needed each time. I am very happy with the GR-2's on my '00obw. People also like Bilstein's but they don't make struts for many Subaru's. The only other struts I ever replaced though were with Monroe's on my '91 Escort years ago, then it felt like I was riding in a boat.

Sorry here's a bigger pic of the label. I was just freaked out because I assumed I had an oem alternator, then spotted this label out of site on the bottom......I was just in a little bit of shock. I ordered an oem reman because the bearings seem loose and squeaky on this one. This napa alternator must've been put in shortly before I got the vehicle, since I did get it summer of '04...

Oh when you recharge your battery with a charger, you should SLOW charge it, like 2 amps or less rate; it may take a day or two to recharge it. Fast charging on a dead starter battery is not good for it and it may not even recover. You would find that alternator as an OEM reman (or possibly even new but you're talking $$$$$ then) from any Subaru dealer. Subaru dealers who sell parts online are generally a lot less price than the walk-in price at a local dealer. Some examples include http://www.subarupartsforyou.com and http://www.subarugenuineparts.com and there are dozens of others.

8-10V idling no accessories on is an alternator or wiring issue. You can remove the alternator to get it tested; the parts stores normally have this motor/pulley thing to drive the alt off the vehicle to test it. If/when you install a new alternator, you should FIRST recharge your battery with a battery charger before starting so as to not put excessive load on the new (hopefully OEM ream) alt with a dead battery.