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the interior looks well taken care of...

chances are its your P/S cam seal....if your going to be doing the timing belt soon...it takes all of about an extra 15 minutes when your in there to remove the cam sproket and pull the seal out and replace....Or you could always go the other route and clean off the entire underside of the engine and give it a few days, hop back under there and see if its still coming from the same spot....the only other thing i can think of in that location is like the corner of the valve cover gasket..but my guess would def. be a cam seal...and if your going to be replacing one than i would do the other side also,and the crank seal, and the timing belt idler pulleys, and possibly the t-belt tensioner....do a search on this forum...there are tons of threads here about this......also take a look here... http://endwrench.com/images/pdfs/StepEWAug07.pdf

Definately....There are so many smart people and sooo much info. on Subies here....as well as the so many other forums....

check your axle boots and make sure they arent torn/ have a bad joint...Ive seen some weird problems resulting from a torn outer CV boot...but you would usually hear that also...

Well from what i understand interference engines give you more power (in Subarus case at least)...I would not go off of soley this factor when purchasing a vehicle....especially an EJ22 Subaru....as long as proper maintaince is/has been done nothing should happen...

I have single port heads on my 96 EJ22...Its not an interference engine....ive had my t-belt slip before....

thats good....im 99% sure 97 EJ22 IS an interference engine...do some searching I've talked about this before with people on here....I also dont beat on my legacy...i think im like the 4th or 5th owner though and i knew most of the previous owners and my car did not have an easy life at all....i think now that i own it its happy to get a break and get taken good care of...lol... here we are... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_EJ_engine#EJ22_Enhancements_and_Improvements some good info....also might want to check out http://www.cars101.com and http://www.endwrench.com for some more good Subie Info....

I believe 97' was the first year of the interference EJ22......overall though the 2.2 is a MUCH better engine in my opinion than any 2.5...190k is alot of miles....do you have an maintaince history on the vehicle?...do a search on here...you will find tons of info on such things as what to check for when purchasing, common problems, and general info....personally i have a 96' EJ22 5 speed and ive only owned the car for like 30k miles but the original engine is still running along at 198k....i did have to replace the trans at 180k though....

Ive had wheel bearings cause this before....but you usually hear them....

+1^ based off of the info youve given i would also suspect the coil pack first....when was your last tuneup?...if you havent had one in a while than it might be worth it to do that....also prob. unlikely but possibly the cam/crank sensor is slowly dying....how sure are you that its running on 2 cylinders...is the CEL on? have you had the codes read?..what codes are they? how many miles are on the car?

I would replace the starter...unless of course your technical savy and can tear it down and rebuild it....

Personally I like the look of the Gen. 4 Legacys (05-up)...Ive seen quite a few like 05-06 Legacy GT's with upgrades...there quick and stylish.....plus ive noticed alot of aftermarket manufacturers have started selling parts for them as well as the Forester XT's....(just off the top of my head ive seen the LGT with FMIC's, CAI's, Full exhausts) from what im starting to see there are just as many aftermarket parts for them as there are for the WRX....

+1...We've gotten at least a dozen of these in the past few weeks with the cold weather in this area....what happens is the rubber fuel line between the #2 and #4 intake runners tends to crank/shirk/harden a little bit and lets fuel seep a little bit (usually just enough to make it wet and smell it)...customer complains of fuel smell obviously...The WRX is pretty much the same deal except the fuel line in question is usually under the Passanger side intake runners....and requires removal of the intake manifold to properly repair.....anyways if you are a little technical savy and you have a decent pair of long-nose pliers replacing that little rubber line on your OBW isnt that bad....i could be off a little here but i believe we charge either 1 hour or 1 1/2 hours labor for that job which comes out in the neighborhood of $100....parts are almost nil obviously because all you need is that little rubber fuel line....i believe its 5/16.....

despite what some people may believe i believe it can..I also had this the other day on my 96' Leg. 198K miles...as soon as i started it it sounded like a sewing machine..lol...after a few minutes it went away....besides that i havent had a noise from my HLA's in thousands of miles....i wouldnt put to much thought into it unless of course you contine to hear them....i could be mistaken but i believe they went to solid lifters in 97...

yeah give it a whirl its the last thing i was going to check also..but our master tech came over and told me it happens quite often so sure i enough i checked the speakers and vola....we replace with the stock speakers unless the customer requests otherwise....personally (despite what most people think about Sony speakers) I have sony xplod's in my legacy (i have had them for about a year or two) and i havent been gentle on them and they still work very well...of course you could always go the big money route and buy some nice Alpines or Rockfords....

Stereo problem....We get a fair number of these complaints about the stereo....ALOT of the time surprisingly all the speakers are blown/inop...i just replaced 3 speakers the other day in a 2002 OBW all blown....If i was in your position...if you have a working test speaker i would pull one of the door panels and hook it up to see if it works.... ( i know it seems like an unlikely problem but its more common than people think...at least from what ive seen)

Man am i glad you grabbed this before me!... I would of went to town on that...

Nice! my 96' just hit 198,000...GO EJ22!

I could be mistaken but i believe the 91's had it also....is the little spring that goes between the shift rod and the stay rod.....they get corroded so easily and break...i had tons of slop in the shifter in my 96' and a new spring took care of my problem... (although i think the main function of the spring is to center the shifter)...

sounds like a great deal! How many miles?

Is this the first time this has happened? Isnt it like ungodly cold up there....like below zero? prob. not related but the cold can do some seriously werid things sometimes....

$100! Whats wrong with it? 5 Speed?

I just picked them up from our MAC guy....$80.00!..

Well According to my service manager and the parts manager there is a lifetime warranty on all subaru seatbelts that fray....apparently its some type of federal mandate or something....i believe its limited to 15 years from date of purchase though....

wow thats a good point...that would be pretty dangerous in a wreck...lol...i just remember one of the techs i worked with a while ago told me about the mercury switch....i remember picking up a good used seatbelt out of a Legacy a while ago and for the life of me i couldnt get it out until i bolted the thing in...lol...this was before i knew that subaru seatbelts have a lifetime warranty against fraying and such.....lol