porcupine73

Floppy shifter is probably the shifter rubber bushings are shot. The slight 'knock' could be a faulty HLA. For $800 it's hard to be too picky; cars are worth $300 in some places right now just as scrap. Small exhaust leaks I've had good results just patching them over with jbweld or even RTV.

You could just take the a/c belt off to see if that makes a difference. No need for a shorter belt, the a/c has it's own belt separate from the other belt for the alt and p/s. If you don't care about the belt you could just cut it to not have to remove the alt p/s belt to get the a/c belt off. Sometimes it is the a/c belt idler pulley that goes faulty with age and will make a creaky squeaking noise. On the flip side of course if you get the a/c belt off and the noise persists that can be helpful in troubleshooting.

In recent years Subaru has been using a T70 on there.

I installed the remote shift kit for my '94 Legacy AT. So now I can shift it right from the driver's seat, rather than having to pop the hood and flip the lever on the side of the trans. the cable had broken.

I got the harbor freight one some years back, but I didn't like it, at least not with the stone wheel. It could have just been my technique though. It seemed the bits would not drill straight after using it. I have been playing with filing the edges by hand, that seems to work pretty good, a few passes of a file, seems kind of liking sharpening a chainsaw chain but a little trickier.

Hm neat. I remember wanting a Neon really badly around 1993 but fortunately I didn't want to make a car payment. Done! Downloaded: 11660 files, 15G in 1h 8m 13s

Good point....in before the crash! Woohoo 1999 Dodge Neon manuals!!!!! hm...are there any of those things still around?

Hmm??? Their server is pretty fast. Ok I should have skipped some of these...like /1967-1976 Pontiac Firebird Parts Manuals/FIREBIRDPM.zip is about half a gig....

Nice! Working on it. Some of those files are big!!!!

And in the rust belt, lots of penetrating oil and a torch

That sounds good! The valve cover kit from a dealer is around $53 but no free shipping so probably more like $65 shipped. That kit on Amazon, I wonder what those gaskets in the center are for? Maybe the turbo vehicles? I thought maybe cam cap o-rings but that's not what they look like. This thread is turning out well. It went from I got this piece of junk lemon Subaru to ok I'm willing to put some effort into fixing some of this stuff myself.

What some people do is swap two of the plug wires, like take a wire from a non misfiring cylinder, and swap that with the one on the misfiring cylinder (at both ends, plug and coil), then see if the misfire follows the wire. If so the wire is likely faulty. Also that year likes to get oil in the spark plug tubes, if there is a lot of oil in there that wasn't cleaned out when the plugs were replaced, that could cause it.

Well, that's cylinder #4 misfire, common causes of it on only a single cylinder are the plug, the plug wire, oil in the spark plug hole, or sometimes valve adjustments. Gas cap would have nothing to do with that code.

^^ Hi Dave, you mean with that tool you can extract the ball joint without doing anything with the pinch bolt? That sounds very useful if that is the case! NY must be spending all the extra tax money on road salt.

If it went to 18 volts at any point that is not good, definitely sounds like something flaky going on with the alternator. The clicking noise, was that maybe the A/c cycling on and off?

What is the COO / country of origin for this product? Just curious, didn't see it on the web site. Thanks.

You can kind of blank out the thermostat by cutting the guts out with a dremel or similar tool. That leaves you with the empty metal disc so you can keep the gasket in place. I'm trying to think if it might be better to just run it with water and maybe water wetter instead of glycol (assuming there is no freeze risk where you are), so if it gets in the oil or through the exhaust that would be not as bad as if coolant is in there.

Well it is a sticky situation. There was a recent post on another board about K&N air filters, and someone was saying they knew it was good because their RPM's at 55mph dropped a few hundred rpm's. It's possible they had a newer soob with the CVT I suppose....

Autozone might have copper sealing washers that are that size, they seem to have a pretty good selection. Sometimes the sealing washers will do that if reused, though I've reused them before and not had a problem. Another thing I saw, at least with the copper sealing washers, is someone showed putting them on a brick, and using a torch to heat them good and hot, then reusing them. Something about the torch anneals the copper once again so that it will seal.

The FWD fuse on the MT does not do anything. Your year might have had the 4eat phase II (if it were an auto trans), where they moved the fuse into the main fuse box under the hood (instead of a separate holder by the strut) then it probably has the spot for the FWD fuse but to no function. Even on the auto trans, putting in the FWD fuse makes no discernible difference in fuel economy, because all the friction and windage losses are still there (axles turning, rear differential turning, propeller shaft turning).

Supposedly you can use Dexron 6 it but in my opinion it is not the optimal fluid for that application. For one reason Dexron 6 is thinner to improve fuel economy.

There's probably an o-ring in there. Even just cleaned up and RTV smeared around it might be enough to stop it, though that's probably not the preferred fix. Though I didn't think the fluid in the AT was high enough for it to leak out the dipstick tube hole like that. Are you sure it isn't coming from the banjo bolt for the cooler line or something like that maybe and just dribbling down to that spot?

Sometimes if the offset is too much different it isn't the best for the wheel bearings. Subaru is usually between +48mm and +55mm on the offset. Of course the bore on the wheel must be equal to or greater than your hub. If it is larger, some people don't like that because they claim it doesn't keep the wheel centered on the hub (or use a centering ring). There's some other makes/models that had the same pattern too, such as some Chevy Cavaliers and others.

The cv boots don't discriminate when the spew the grease. It goes everywhere. Put a floor fan on the highest setting, and slowly pour a bottle of coke into the top of it. That's about the same effect.

Another question is...why did Subaru change to 5W30 from 10W30 as the recommendation in 1996? It is interesting. They mentioned once on Endwrench "Engine oil viscosity for all 1996 Subaru Legacy and Subaru Legacy Outback vehicles is specified as 5W-30 to improve fuel economy."