Rooster2

Well, I guess that you could call a Subie dealer, and tell your story to them, and maybe get a freeby alternator out of the deal. However, let's face it, your alternator is 11 years old, and almost all alternators that old have failed by now. If it were me, I wouldn't feel bad about having to pay for a new one. It is a pretty simple do it yourself job, if you are handy with a wrench.

Does anyone have filter parts numbers if I were to purchase a Wix, Napa, or Carquest trany filter?

Agree with Alias.........it would be way too much work rebuilding the trany yourself. It is just so much easier to R&R with a used or rebuilt trany. Best to leave trany rebuilding to a rebuild shop.

Nice work. It is always satisfying to successfully repair your own car. With that success, you might consider a second career as a mechanic at you local Subie dealer. They alway need good mechanics!

Beyond adressing the other issues posted by others in doing the exchange, you may want to consider replacing the head gaskets on the replacement 2.5 motor before installing it in your '97. No easier time to do it, then when it is sitting on an engine stand.

Pull a plug wire, then ground the plug wire to verify that you are getting spark. Then I would pull the spark plugs and squirt some ether (starting fluid)inside each cylinder. Pulling plugs on your 2.2 motor is fairly easy to do. Start the motor, it will help clear out any flooding, and get gas flowing into the motor. Suggest changing the oil, using ether, flooding, and sitting causes the oil to go bad.

I bought my 99 Legacy OBW about 6 months ago. I had no records on ATF change, but the fluid on the dip stick did not look dirty. Anyway, I changed the ATF 2 times, by simply running the car up on ramps, then pulling the drain plug on the bottom of the AT pan. It is a very easy "do it yourself" project, since the drain plug screws in and out just like the drain plug for the motor oil. Now, I know for sure that my trany fluid is new and fresh.

Glad to have helped. Save that 4 foot length of pipe. You never know when that pipe will be the needed tool in the future. Good luck on finishing the rest of your repair project.

It is truly amazing the amount of extra leverage you can get by adding a 4foot bar to the end of your half inch drive handle. It is truly the next best thing to use if you don't have an impact wrench. Squirt on some PB Blaster if you see any rust around the nut. Even using a smaller 3/8" drive, I will add an 18" bar over the end of the handle to gain extra leverage. Makes all tight bolts/nuts a lot easier to remove.

Maybe not flood. Flood damaged cars usually don't require a complete repaint.......but wrecked with a lot of sheet metal damage, that a complete repaint was called for is hard to imagine. For an insurance company not to repair a 2006 model, the accident must have been severe. The only way to buy this car is on the cheap. A bid of $6K is beyond cheap in my opinion.

It may be something as a vibrating shroud around the exhaust system. Both my 98 and 99 Legacy OBWs developed this. It was almost like a "zzzing" sound that would resonate at only certain engine rpm. Mine would not do it at idle, unless I turned on the A/C, which slightly lowered the rpm to create the noise. I put the front end of my car up on ramps, then crawled underneath the car with a long screw driver. Using the screw driver, I pushed on the shroud at various points until I located the source of the noise by stopping the vibration. To cure the problem, I found a large bolt, and hammered it into position between the shroud and the exhaust pipe as a wedge to keep the shroud from vibrating. Sort of a really low tech fix for a low tech problem, but the fix still works perfectly after a couple years of driving. I don't know if your 92 and 93 have the exhaust shroud covers, but if they do, then I would bet the farm that the shrouds are the cause of your noise.

Just my 2 cents worth from here in Indy. I checked my receipt folder on my 99 Outback. Last February, I had the right front wheel bearing, and inner seal replaced. Cost out the door was $199.41. Labor to do the job was 1 hour at $70.00. This was done at a Big O Tire store, a big tire chain outfit. I don't know if they pressed in the bearing themselves, or sent it out to have it done. A labor time quote of more then 2 hours, sounds ridiculous to me.

Agree, Seafoam is good sh*t. You may want to put new sparkplugs in too.

Thanks, I will take a look see per your instructions. I guess I am still a little confused, if I see the edge sticking out, then is that the indication that the HG has been replaced? If so, then I should infer that the original HG must not stick out? You are very lucky that you bought your last two used Subies with replaced HG replacements. Sure, no guarantees that they will hold up, but beets relying on the ones that came with the car new. My previous experience on bad HG was on my 91 Subie Legacy with the 2.2. The HG went bad, then excessive pressure caused the radiator to leak. The motor had about 175K miles on it, so I went the route of replacing the motor with a 2.2 from a wrecking yard out of a 92 Legacy with 112K miles on it. Overall cost came to about $1,000 to complete the swap. That was a great running motor for about 3 years, then traded in the car when the auto trany went south. Car would not shift into high gear.

I have two OBW, a 98 and a 99. Both were bought used, so don't know if PO replaced the HG. Remember someone posting earlier about looking for a corner of the HG sticking out to see if it is the new three layer type of metal HG, but, I am not clear about preciesely where to look around the edge of the heads, and exactly what to look for. Should I first power wash around the heads to produce a good clean view? Thanks for any advise.

If I were to ever own a Pilot............I would name it "Pontius."

I find the 200K list pretty ridiculous. With proper maintenace, like change the oil every 3 K miles, and driven with reasonable care, every car made today should easily be able to make at least 200K miles before hitting the wrecking yard. It is a real shame to go to a wrecking yard, and see cars that are there, not because they were wrecked, but because they were poorly maintained, or simply hard driven into the ground. What a waste of money!

Thanks for the advise. I think I will drain some trany fluid, and add some Lucas ATF additive. I have used this product in the past in an Audi that leaked ATF. It helped stem the leak, and the trany did seem to shift more smoothly. The Lucas product looks like ATF colored STP. It is really viscous. Maybe the added viscousity will help with the shifting to drive from reverse.

My 99 OBW with auto trany hesitates to engage in "Drive" to go forward after reversing to a stop. Gently hit the gas, the engine revs, then the trany kinda slams into the forward gear to move the car forward. This doesn't happen all the time, but enough that it is annoying. I have read posts here that the 99 and 00 models are known for doing this. I changed the ATF twice thinking this may cure the problem. It has helped some, but not cured it. What causes this? Will adding a trany additive from Lucas, or another manufacturer help? Other then this problem, the auto trany works fine. I checked old posts in the "search" area, but could not find any help.

Pretty cool, must be what Subie engineers first saw when they converted a Subie sedan to Outback status way back when. Keep this good work up, and you could get hired by those monster truck builders. Who knows, you could be the guy designing the next version of the "Grave Digger."

In buying a motor with a blown head gasket, you just won't ever know if the car was driven for an extended period of time, and experienced over heating. If so, that badly over heated motor can be more trouble then solution when you work at over hauling it. Just my 2 cents worth of thought. When I had a 92 motor installed in my 91 Legacy some years back, my mechanic had an easy time installing the replacement motor. What caused some difficulty, was that wiring connectors were different between the years. It took him some extra time redoing wiring to get the job done. Once done, the 92 engine ran flawlessly for a number of years.

I guess I would like to know what advantages a K & N filter offers....better milage, better performance? They seemed expensive when I have seen them for sale at auto parts stores. Have you written K & N to ask for their data on letting dirt thru?

Pulling on the tape real hard may have bent some of the internals of the tape player. The gibberish that you are now hearing is prolly because the tape is not being pulled through the machine at a constant speed. I think it is prolly more trouble then it is worth to try and fix it. Lots easier and prolly not much money to simply replace the unit with one from a wrecking yard. I hope you find a good unit.

I don't think adding some hi temp silicon sealant is going to help. The extreme heat plus the pressure of the exhaust gas will blow the sealant. Suggest that you install a new gasket, and make sure that all remnants of the old gasket are removed, that may have made for a poor seal when you installed the first seal. Attempt to torque the bolts down as evenly tight as possible, so one side is not pulled down tighter then the other side. Use a torque wrench if possible to do this. As far as the oil leak goes, go to an auto parts store and buy an oil additive that helps to swell up existing seals. Once added, it will take some time to work, but it should help slow down your oil leakage, but prolly won't stop the leak entirely. Since your car is a '93, it doesn't make sense to do a major expensive motor tear down just to replace a leaky seal. Also on high milage cars (over 100,000) miles my mechanic recommended using 20w50 weight oil in the summer time, then using 10w40 weight in the winter to improve oil pressure. Using a heavier weight oil also slows down an oil leak. I have been doing that with my two Subies for years with good results.

Since it is still under factory warranty, I would suggest taking it back to the Subie dealer. See what they have to say.