porcupine73

Thanks for the info Shawn. Yes I don't know why this one is so rusty. My other soobs the pan isn't rusting like this. But based on what I see on the underside (and sides!) of this soob, I can tell the previous owner wasn't too picky about going 'over' things. The pan isn't dented but it might have gotten the paint scraped off pretty good. I'm trying to stave off what rust damage I can with various treatments each fall, since, at this rate, rust is going to eat these poor soobs wayyy before they reach the useful end of life.

So going through my '94 I noticed the automatic transmission pan is really pitted and rusty. Do these pans rust through often? It still seems fairly solid all over but in some spots it's about half the thickness it was originally. I slathered it with some eastwood 2 part rust converter I had left to try to stop the carnage for now.

Thee auto really shouldn't rotate the crank when rolled since there's no line pressure to activate any of the clutches anyway. If you can find the access cover for the flywheel you might be able to jam a small prybar or something in there just to be on the safe side. Here's a pic of something jammed in there but it is on a 2.2L:

Not sure if this comparison will help for your year/model, but I did King Springs lift springs on an '00 Outback and it gained around 1 to 1.25". I am thinking they are good for a solid 1" lift. It may give a little more if the original springs were sagging very much. I put them on a '96 Legacy too, along with Outback struts, and that gave it probably 3" or maybe even a little more.

Cleaning, maybe, I guess it couldn't hurt, if done correctly. Correctly doesn't mean using a q-tip anywhere in there. Like the Dr says for my ears, don't go sticking anything smaller than your elbow in there. The hot wire MAF's apparantly do have a finite lifespan to them. It tries to burn the junk off the wire each startup I think but eventually the wire degrades, the film degrades, etc.

Someone was posting an issue about an intermittent dying problem in right hand turns I think it was, and a member suggested the pickup for the fuel pump had fallen off.

Possibly. Maybe there's an intermittent connection in there somewhere. Sometimes with the vehicle idling a person will 'disturb' the wiring harnesses with a stick (Being careful to avoid moving parts of course), to see if they can duplicate the issue. If it's a sensor, it might be getting faulty information from the sensor, i.e. the sensor is telling lies to the ECU, but the ECU can't tell that the part is faulty so no CEL/MIL.

Those 'diagnosis' terminals are grounded so you can use those to 'ground' the required terminal. I thought the phase I 4eat's were different, since I think I had those diagrams for my '00 obw which is a phase II 4eat. Some other pins on there I think were for reading and resetting ABS codes.

Ok here's the B22 that can cause some sort of wierd problem I would have to look at what the reported issue was:

It would be unplugging the MAF. Not sure it's a good idea to drive it like that on purpose but was just thinking that next time it happens of trying it or doing it as a troubleshooting step. The other thread about the MAF sounds promising, as it does sound just like what you are describing. Also on '96 2.2L there is supposed to be a couple harnesses/ground points with known issues. I've seen them on endwrench. Subaru publishes stuff like that if they get more than a couple reports from dealers of it happening. The first was connector B22, and the other was about losing one or two grounds for the ignitor at the ECU. Let's see what I can dig up.

MWE's e-mails say if you need an axle nut to let him know when you order the axle and he'll send one. I just ordered an axle for my '94. One benefit in reusing the old nut is that then it matches the rest of the car. A nice shiny new axle nut on an otherwise how should we say 'well weathered' soob sometimes just doesn't look right.

Is the engine still in the vehicle? If it's still mated to the trans I don't think there's much risk in moving it a few feet. Esp if it's an MT just have her in neutral. An AT can be rolled a short distance. If the engine is removed I'd just make sure there's no components that could drop off during the rolling, like having say the torque converter fall off would be bad just as an example. Not that it would just fall off but it's those little details that always bit us. The risk in rolling if the engine is still installed I'm thinking would be if for some reason the crank rotates you might end up bumping the pistons into the valves.

MAF could be bad; but at this point there are probably a lot of possibilities. It not throwing any codes is interesting since it means the ECU isn't detecting any issues; she's just dying. I've heard but not tried that if you tap the MAF housing with the butt of a screwdriver and the vehicle stumbles it means the MAF is faulty. I believe she'll still run with the MAF unplugged, maybe not quite as well since it's calculation of airflow into the engine won't be very good, but might be something to try. That's an excellent idea. I keep a box of stuff like that too, sensors, hoses, belts, etc., all the used stuff I took off to replace on previous jobs. Just by carrying that stuff with you it decreases your chances of having a problem with any part you're carrying by at least 50%. I don't know if you remember MadMike from that car show on MTV, but on this one episode they showed the cast's 'rides'. He had a small motorhome he claimed was his daily driver. Then inside in one of the storage areas he showed his spare parts. The guy had everything, a power steering pump, alternator, belts, and lots of other major components in there.

Yes do you have a CEL/MIL at all? Not saying this is your issue, but yes I too have a '96 Legacy 2.2L and had the crank position sensor go bad on me. One time at a traffic light it just stalled out and it would not restart. Then people started honking at me because they thought I wasn't paying attention to the green light even though I put the flashers on. I kept fiddling around with it and it eventually restarted. But it did throw some code for crank angle sensor circuit. After that sometimes it would refuse to start and throw that code. Fortunately the thing never died like say in the middle of making a left turn in heavy traffic, that would be 'bad' as they say. I replaced with a new genuine sensor.

The plate needs to be the metal plate. it gets sealed with RTV. The new screws are required to go with it.

Hello. For just normal passenger car stop and go rotors I think the parts store rotors are acceptable. The Subaru rotors seem to work well and when ordered based on VIN# they always fit right the first time. One thing I like about the cheaper say $25 rotors is that if I have problems with them such as rust (sometimes my soobs sit for a while), then it's not too expensive to just replace them. It's hardly worth the price of getting rotors turned at that price. The tricky part with parts store rotors seems to be getting them to give you the right size (since soob changed them around a lot and would use up their old stock and then mid model year change to a different size etc).

The '03 shouldn't really have the HG issues of the earlier phase II 2.5L sohc engines. The issue was fixed around '03. I'll include the campaign with the VIN #'s from the campaign below; now there could be vehicles outside this range that were impacted, it's just the 'official' list. Note that at 107k miles, she's due for a timing belt, and it needs to be done if it hasn't been since it's an interference engine that may bend valves if it breaks. At the same time there's a number of other smart things to do such as the timing idlers, water pump, cam seals, etc. Ok now let me look for the VIN list.....one moment please...

I know some people are running them, but I have also seen posts of problems with misfire and cracking on the +4's in soobs. Granted that was a few years back so maybe they have fixed that issue now. That all said, soobs are very happy with pretty much any of the NGK plugs in the lineup. The good 'ol copper V-power's are the best in my opinion. The other plugs, platinum, iridium, etc. are really for increased service life.

Yes you can swap in a 2.2L, it has been done, there are various details that have to be paid attention to such as EGR, manual vs auto trans, some differences on the intake manifold, etc. but it can be done. The 2.5L is reliable if the head gaskets are replaced properly with the new Subaru genuine HG's. There are about five key points in HG replacement, heads milled/level, cleaned and proper surface finish, proper HG's, proper tightenning sequence and torque, etc.

Hello and welcome to the board! Can you give a few more details, such as what kinds of mods you are looking for? Such as a 6" lift and super swampers, we can probably hook you up with that. Or in general for mods one can do a lot with a chop saw and steel tube and channel.

Ah ok so maybe you don't need the fancy procedure, that might have been for earlier vehicles. I had these images in the library but I thought these were for the 4eat phase II:

Ok. I'm not real familiar with that engine. But there are a lot of experienced members who are that will probably have ideas of other things to check. I'm assuming she also has cam position and crank position sensors, are those good and hooked up? Unless it had a distributor in that engine.....

I picked up a 3/8" and 7/16" grade 8 bolt from Ace to try in this application. I'm a little nervous as to how long it's been this way, I'm thinking probably 60,000 miles or so. I was reading in a thread on dirtyimpreza that the a weak dogbone puts extra stress and wear on the engine mounts.

Hello and welcome to the board. The Vanagons are cool. How's the timing belt? Did it fail or any idlers fail etc?