CNY_Dave

The throttle position sensor won't throw any codes until it is completey shot. It tests easily with an ohmmeter, or it might be cheap enough to just try it on a lark.

Put in my '03 transfer duty solenoid, transfer valve, and transfer valve plate. Seems to be working just fine. No leaks. Yet. Do I dare try the FWD fuse?

All back together. Nothing seems to be leaking (yet). AWD appears to be working perfectly (whole point of the job was to swap out the 2004 AWD solenoid, valve, and plate for my 2003 pieces).

Went to pick up the headpipe(s) with the 3 cats to put it back on- one pipe moved relative to the other. One of the nuts holding the bolt-on front cat disintegrated. Found some exhaust nuts at the parts store, got it replaced and tapped the other corroded and half-missing nut off, and replaced that one too. Some metal simply flaked off the flanges when I tightened the nuts, oh man, I hope that holds.

Housing in place and 'torqued' (don't have one that goes much below 25, I set it for 20 and checked against it, and the dang thing is too big to really fit under the car). Time to start sipping a brew as I continue.

I have started the solenoid-valve swap process. Compared to the '03 the trans case and extension case of the '04 look identical, the solenoid, valve, and plate are visibly different upon close inspection. Work so far has been delayed by a snapped case bolt (drilled and heli-coiled) and the wrong case gasket. Am crossing fingers the valve swap will work out. Heck, right now am crossing fingers it all goes back together

Parts goob gave me the trans pump housing gasket.

Well, I'm boned for the next couple days. dealer gave me the wrong gasket, and it took them 2 days top get that one. Resisting the temptation to reuse it...

Helicoil in, now back to the original job.

I tested the threads and they won't hold, I don't want to rely on the last few so I picked up a heli-coil kit. No drill bit, and it's 30 bucks! ouch! About to start drilling...

I figure with 2 subes I'm going to be doing jobs more than once, I bought ther harbor freight ball-joint popper that has a fork and presses on the stud when you tighten a bolt. Pops tie-rod ends loose too.

Supporting the weight of it so it's not cocked in the bore (even just a bIt) helps. Some have resorted to tipping the trans up vertical, but thaT'S NOT NECESSARY (oops).

Drilled it to tap it the orig size, some of the bolt then fell out. Ran a tap through it. Fit is a little loose, I think I may try the liquid thread repair.

Got through it with a pilot drill,. Lotsa pressure, very low rpm. Now I know what I did wrong- I carried some parts into the garage today and placed them on the only flat surface- the drill case. I LITERALLY said to myself "I'll put these here since I WON'T BE NEEDING ANY DRILLS TODAY". Moron.

Or maybe vice grips and heat, what the heck. Haven't used ther blue wrench in awhile.

There is a little bit of bolt sticking out of the trans housing (I got the tailshaft off), and I have a MIG welder, but since the threads are ripped out I'm not sure even the heating/cooling of the welding will break it free. It broke loose, started threading out, bound, would move a little in and out and then bound solid. I will probably try drilling first.

Well, now I've done it- broken tail housing bolt Pulling the tail housing on my 4EAT, the lower right bolt broke off. It's not in a good spot for just leaving it out, and I've never ever had luck drilling a broken bolt in aluminum. I hope these bolts are really soft...

Not sure you, I, and your mechanic are all on the same page... There is a bearing unit that presses into the knuckle. Hub gets yanked out of the bearing after removing the big nut. Bearing unit gets pressed out of the knuckle (several steps skipped) The new bearing unit gets pressed into the knuckle, and your hub gets pulled out of the old bearing and pressed into the new bearing after the bearing is installed in the knuckle. A new hub must be used if the old one shows any sign of damage or spinning in the bearing.

I have seen lots a pics of inner basket wear, haven't seen any of the outer basket.

I'm going to swap the AWD solenoid in my '04 trans for an '03 solenoid to make the AWD compatable with my '03 TCU. That is assuming the passages in the trans case are the same. If the valve and/or valve plate is different I can swap the whole valve/plate. Long story short, in '04 the signal to the solenoid was reversed. To 'get by' I built a small circuit that would invert the signal to get my AWD working. It doesn't work quite right, and I do not know if the sudden late engagement clunk (heh, BANG) engagement and the surging I feel during periods of near full throttle are because a merely inverted signal is not quite right, or if the clutch basket(s) is/are grooved. I recall reading a late heavy engagement as a symptom of grooving, but not of having the AWD surge while at heavy throttle. (goes away with the FWD fuse so I know it's the MPT clutch). ANYWAY, is it normally the inner or outer basket that grooves? Can I swap over my other whole AWD clutch assembly without having measure the assembly and tailcase and adjusting/buying shims? If just the inner basket wears and mine is grooved, am I better off swapping just the front shaft or the entire assembly? Is the shimming done to account for just the tailhousing machining, or that and the clutch disks, or all the components?

I got lucky on our '05 forester, the bolt would wiggle, I hit it with lotsa kroil and 5 minutes with the electric impact, eventually it spun and i could get it out. Screwy arrangement for a 'serviceable' assembly.

Drain and replace 3x is just 3 fluid changes (drain and fill) with some driving in between the changes. On the H6 the filter is above the drivers-side fog light, inside the fenderwell. It really doesn't need to be changed. I had just shy 200k on mine and changed it when I swapped the trans due to a bad front diff. I cut it open and there was no 'crud' in it.

My 2003 LL Bean (BTW it has to be a beaner or a VDC, can't be both for 01) had it on the passenger side just behind the wheel hump, I had to pull the styrofoam pads on the hatch floor in order to find it.

Junkyard TCU would be a better option. Diagnosis would be visual, a component or a trace will be cooked. There is a thread somewhere where someone repaired their TCU. If you can have the car out of service for a bit I would say pull the TCU and open it up and start taking pics for us distant viewers. Or, just wire up the right switches to give front-wheel-drive or locked all-wheel-drive.

I would not have been so willing to trust the grease had it been from NAPA...