CNY_Dave

On some cars I think the 'stop' for auto-down is actually a current sensor, it senses the motor has stalled and it disconnects power, and unlatches the power. My '03 outback and '05 forester both had/have auto-down, with no sensors anywhere to detect window position. So auto-down weirdness in those cases could be abnormally high motor current.

If it is engaging too well it becomes harsher whenever anything changes in the drivetrain because it allows any 'windup' to suddenly dissipate. If it's really harsh you may have tires too far out of matching diameter/circumference spec. The solenoid itself won't damage anything else, but the binding can damage the CV joints and such. It puts a lot of strain on everything.

At the TCU is one place, another is at the firewall right behind the throttle body. There are pinout diagrams somewhere. Oh, it could also be the TCU itself, the drive transistor for that circuit could be failing.

Only good enough and at that moment. Measuring the resistance cold then hot can be informative.

These can be tricky, I had one that got quiet when on the outside of the turn, opposite the normal noise pattern.

The computer can only detect if the circuit has too much resistance, or too little. So either there's a bad connection, a developing short to ground, the solenoid is going 'open', or is shorting out. Clunk while going into park is a sign the AWD is engaged more fully than it should not be, the 'wind-up' in the system is released when in N or P. I'd at least check the connectors for tightness and pull them apart and check for corrosion. What year is it? Older cars, +12V to the solenoid signals no lockup so loss of connection causes 100% lock and bind. Newer cars, 0V causes no lockup, so a failure results in front wheel drive.

I just want to chime in and say that years ago I went from a '92 4.0L ranger with the bad mazda trans to a 2003 outback!

And that diagnostic mode can be quite useful!

That sounds like the shaft scraping against something.

Huh, link and video is gone, trying again. well strange can't even link to a youtube video. On youtube search with quotes "silverado bad u-joints"

If it is rythmic squeak like the video it's a U joint. Quite often they only make noise in reverse.

If it happens once per wheel rotation it's brakes or such. If it happens 4x per wheel rotation it's a u-joint. If it gets faster in rhythm much faster than you speed up, that is 4x wheel rotation, it's pretty noticeable.

The upside is every winter with good snows you have a superpower!

The south has kudzu, we have rust that grows almost as fast!

I think the fact it's dry means it would be scraped off areas with movement, allowing the rust to take hold again. The silicone does a lot of it's magic based on the way it will creep back into an area where it gets scraped off, and it's almost impossible to scrape it all off.

On the head gasket, my take would be even if leaking fix or not based on how much it leaks. On the oil cooler, here where it gets cold in winter, I think it serves a good purpose as an oil heater.

A while ago my hatch handle was starting to bind up for the 5th time or so, the handle bracket would rust a bit, 'swell' (rust takes up more space), grab the plastic handle. I took the handle off and cleaned the crap out of the bracket, then lubed the heck out of it with silicone dielectric grease. Nothing has come close to working this well for this long! The latch itself I cleaned and lubed with a mix of ATF and wheel bearing grease, that's doing better than usual too.

If it never recurs, I'll never know!

A thought on mystery electrical drains- I needed new dome/hatch bulbs in my forester, the setup is the same as on outbacks etc. I put in LED bulbs for brightness and to avoid worries about battery drain. I noticed the other night that in the 'off' and 'hatch' positions, the rear LED bulb was faintly illuminated. Opening and closing the hatch, and switching the switch back and forth would turn it on, but not get rid of the small current flow leading to the dim lighting up of the bulb. Did not get a chance to chase it, the phenomena disappeared on its own.

"He was having a non-mechanic work on it" yikes

The way I describe it to folks is the ATF dipstick goes into a metal pipe that disappears, the front diff gear lube dipstick does right into the top of the transmission case.

I hate to ask- are you sure you added fluid to the transmission and not the front differential?

On my outback I rebuilt the rear wiper assembly and had the exact same result (I think). The round gear in the motor/transmission assembly the wiper rack connected to had 2 holes, 180 degrees out. I picked one, and choose poorly! When I put the wiper on and tried it out, it went from normal park position to down across where the license plate sits. In that case, I just moved the wiper on the post to put park on the right side of the car instead of left. If that happened on the front wipers, they would park straight up and wipe down towards the bottom of the windshield when you turned them on (after adjusting their position on the posts)

You're only 4.5 hrs away, shove the bottom part of a shopping cart under there and bring it over! Serious thought- if you can clean the housing enough to run a welding bead on it, and do that around a lot of it, that will cause it to shrink a tiny bit and it might come free. Works on bearing races...

If you did slide hammer off the hub, then it would be even easier to make a tool to connect the slide hammer to the hub bolt holes. My slide hammer is a long large threaded rod with nuts on the ends that capture a) whatever or a hub puller, and I use cheap dumbell weights as the slide hammer part. I use 1, 2, or 3 10 lb weights zip-tied together, you do have to use some care to not drag the car across the garage though.