porcupine73

Hi nipper. I don't think I hit anything, but it is possible. There was some snow and ice on the road. But this was loud, like explosion backfire loud; it didn't seem so much like hitting something though that is possible. I was ready to pull off to the side of the road when it happened but nothing seemed amiss afterward. The tune-up was this summer maybe 1000 miles ago (I don't drive the '94 a ton), with new ngk v-power, new oem spark plug wires, coolant change, engine oil and filter change, ATF change, front and rear diff oil change, etc.

My pic? Yah the bolts were so rusted that when I tried to loosen the nuts, the bolts just snapped in half with not too much effort.

Hm...okay good point! I'll give 'er a looksee this weekend. It is snowy and wet here right now. It does have new ngk v-powers and new oem wires. Coil pack condition = unknown! Thanks!

Those are the harbor freight nitrile gloves. When they're onsale for $5 a box in the XL size it's a bargain! Summitracing was also closing out their gloves for $5 a box last year. Oh yes we get ladybugs in NY. Hasn't been too bad the last couple years, but like four years ago there were literally hundreds of thousands of them around the garage and yard and stuff. I read they released a few million up in Toronto to try to combat something.

Ahoy mattejb! I went to RIT about 10 years ago. Your leak could be the donut connection. Here's some pics. You can get a kit from Subaru with the donut, springs, etc to fix this, it's pretty easy to do and the kit is maybe $25 I think. To add to Skip's already nice pic!!!

hehe, that's just a glove I put over the throttle intake to keep spiders, ladybugs, flies, bees, etc. from getting in there while I was doing the timing belt and some other work.

Hi all. I heard a loud gunshot like BANG from the front of the '94 Legacy on the drive home today. It was crusing ~60mph when it happened. It sounded like a misfire possibly and it was LOUD. It only did it that once; never heard it before. Didn't notice any smoke or anything afterward, no dash lights....not sure, looked under hood didn't see anything strange, no blown cv joints or anything like that. What do you think it might've been?

That'd be one way to do it! If you have a manual trans you can just put 'er in fifth to hold the crank while you torque up the bolt a little more. If you have an auto you can cram a small pry bar or brake adjuster tool or something like that in the flywheel plate. There's a little access hole right near the TPS. I would torque it to the 125 at least. There have been a number of horror picture posts about what happens when the bolt loosens up....

Also some good endwrench articles don't show up in their search because the article contains mis-spelled or oddly spelled words. Like 'axel' instead of 'axle' and I know I've seen a few others but I forgot what they were....

hahaa no kidding the salt and chloride states are absolutely brutal! Any class action suits against the municipalities for these vehilce destroying chemicals?

erm ok this vehilce is out 'o commission now until this leak is fixed. Yes yes it probably should have been out 'o commission as soon as I noticed the leak, but it got much worse today. It leaked out enough in today's trip to make the brake light come on and I could feel the pedal dropping in hard braking. Unforutnately this is my serious deep snow vehicle and right now we are getting serious deep snow, but the '94 will be up to the task I am sure! Some supplies are on order will probalby be until next weekend until I get them and get to the job. Dang local parts stores including autozone, carquest, and pepboys seem to be USELESS for this job.

Hm...well it does make sense, at least for soob which has the 'waste spark' setup of firing two cylinders at a time. For spark it only needs to know the position of the crank, however for fuel, it does need to know which cylinder to inject at any given time (hence fuel injection depending on cam angle sensor).

It's not necessarily the 'quality' but perhaps more so the specification it is built to. Now I love Subaru OEM parts are much as the next enthusiast, but I have used the bosch generic (wayyyy before i knew anything about soobs) on my '96. I ordered the OEM front o2 sensor for my '94, and it does say bosch on it. However, '00obw the front o2 sensor is a five wire sensor.........

Ditto that fnlyfnd! That soobs looks like brand new!

hehe ok thanks. Good point on the practicing first, especially before I try to cut and flare the existing line! Funny thing is Summit appears doesn't appear to sell regular steel brake line (only stainless), but the only double flare tool they sell says 'not for use on stainless'.

Thanks nipper, that c/kunifer was tempting but is too risky. I want something that will last. It seems steel line even aluminum or copper coated people say in super salt areas only lasts maybe 3-4 years? How about stainless steel brake line? I see summit has it: http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?part=SUM-220236

If the engine is mechanically sound you could consider an HDD oil (heavy duty diesel). They have more antiwear additives, better resistance to acidic combustion byproducts, etc. (This would _not_ be a good choice a gasoline vehicle under warranty though, it would have too much phosphorous for the current API/ILASC specs which can spoil the cats if the vehicle burns much oil).

Interesting article on brake lines and corrosion at http://www.copper.org/applications/automotive/hydraulic_brake_tube.html What do you guys think of the products at http://www.fedhillusa.com Their three questions are...and my answer in green. 1. What size and how long is your brake line. 3/16"/4.75mm od 2. What kind of flares are on each end of line. 45 deg. SAE double flare 3. What kind of brake line nut is on each end. 10mmx1.0 SAE nut So based on that info I need a double flare tool kit and supplies: The tube nuts will all be either 10mm x 1.0 male fully threaded steel nut, 16mm overall. SAE (double) flare. standard Asian style nut. or the longer: 10mm x 1.0 male fully threaded steel nut, 21mm overall. SAE (double) flare. standard Asian, long style nut. and then where I tap into the existing lines under the seat will be: 10mm x 1.0, SAE (double) flare, Asian, metric, female steel union, 26mm overall. Use with 10mmx1.0 male SAE nut and 3/16"/4.7mm SAE (double) flared brake line.

Nice! The rub strips are great for carrying stuff on the roof. erm...is it just me, or is that an airplane in your garage?

Oh yes wow sorry about that! This pic is of my '96 2.2L.

If it turns out to be engine coolant temp sensor causing cold start problems, it is actually probably not getting enough fuel when starting. i.e. if ECU thinks coolant temp is 130F and it's really 20F ECU will not be injecting enough fuel. Then you crank and crank and crank and eventually enough fuel starts to build up in the cylinders for it to start. You may smell raw fuel though as it is injecting fuel just not igniting and some will come out the exhaust, thus seeming like it is flooded.

It's hard to say how long it could go. If it's noisy it's probably the bearings. If the thing siezes up it will probably break or burn through the belt which means you will also lose power steering. Here's some pics of what your new alt will look like! I just put one of these alts in on my '96 last month. 23700AA34ARA

If it is not the viscous style lsd and needs the friction modifier, maybe you want to try the Subaru gear oil? Or maybe this stuff is for the STI's...

For daily driver use in a mechanically sound n/a engine where the engine oil reguarly gets up to operating temp (i.e. 180F) (not a lot of short trips or cold cold weather driving), you can probably get the 10-20k mile oil change interval on that oil. Generally the first time you try to do it you'd do oil analysis to make sure the oil is holding up in your application and not getting excessive wear metals (which could point to an engine issue), etc. I've been doing ~20k change intervals on the amsoil 5w-30 hdd diesel oil, but I am also running the engine oil bypass filter as well. The 18k mile uoa looked very good.

Could be a number of things; one to maybe check out is engine coolant temp sensor. If you can get a scangauge or some other scantool in the ODBII port, you can see what the ECU is reading as temp when engine is cold after sitting overnight. If it seems out of range (like it's 20F out and the thing is reading 70F) you know it's time to change 'er out. Knock sensors can cause odd power issues, maybe not only when cold though.... How many miles/months on the current timing belt?