hb_kim

Got an estimate of $3440 for replacing head gasket and all - timing belt, water pump, seals, etc. Seems reasonable.

$1000 seems to be a fair price for me. If any fellow member can refer a decent subaru mechanic in south bay area, I would much appreciate.

Few days ago, while driving home from work, I saw the engine temperature climbed above half mark. By the time I parked in front of my house, the coolant was overflowing from the reservoir. After a quick search on the board, I am certain that my EJ25 engine is now history. Car is still drivable when the engine is cold but it starts burping after 4-5 miles. With 99k miles on the odometer, I am torn between fixing the car and getting rid of it. It is 14 year old car but it has been fairly reliable otherwise and been serving me and my family well. Fixing it would mean finding an used EJ22 engine and doing the engine transplant. I heard that 95 EJ22 from automatic is the easiest for transplanting into 97 with automatic. Obviously I cannot do it so I need to find someone who can do it. I live in south bay area, California. If any member around the area knows a mechanic who is capable of such job & is willing, I would appreciate a referral. On the other hand, if you think the cost of engine transplant is prohibitively high for such an old car, I would appreciate such advice too. In such case, I will post another thread to sell my OBW. What would be a good price for 97 OBW limited, automatic with 99k miles, with broken engine?

Could you please ellaborate a bit? Would 45mm offset make the wheel stick out and put more strain?

Updates: The seller was on my way back home and he agreed that I can test fit one of the wheels on my Outback. Sure enough, the centor bore size for Scion Tc wheel was to small to fit to Outback. Not knowing how to enlarge the centor bore (and also the concern about structural rigidity if it was done), I passed this deal.

Hi, I am thinking about replacing the alloy wheels on my 97 Outback Limited, mainly to save some weight. I think 97 OB limited wagon has 15&7, 5X100 bolt pattern with 50mm offset. I am thinking about buying a set of used wheels from Scion Tc with following spec. (PCD/Size: 5x100 / 17x7 +45) With only 5mm difference in offset, it seems that they would work. I would like to hear what more knowledgible members have to say. Thanks in advance, Hackbin

I have replaced rotors and pads myself. Are those used brake parts considered as environmental harzards? Can I safely dump in a garbage can? Thanks!

Is it possible to do this without a lot of mess? ie) Hot ATF pouring on your clothes when you reconnect the return line.

I heard that air pocket in cooling system does bad things to heat transfer, causing the engine to partially overheat. Partial overheat will make the head *temporarily* warp, gives head gasket a chance to blow. There is a tool that purges air while coolant gets into the cooling system. Here is one example. http://www.sjdiscounttools.com/mit4700.html I will either get my car serviced at a shop that has such tool or buy the tool and do it myself. Or even install air purge kit in my car, if someone tells me how to do it. (Search the forum with 'aircraft' for this information) But that's just me. A lot of people believe that there's something wrong with the water path/head gasket design in subaru engine. Question: Where did you get your last cooling system service (or any service that requires cooling system bleed/refill) done? If it was a dealer, shouldn't this failure get covered under warranty?

In fact, the most effective preventive maintenance would be bleeding air properly from cooling system. This may not be as easy as it sounds. Very small amount of air in cooling system can cause the cooling system malfunction. So I was hoping for someone to develop a permanent cure for this and I think this is it. http://www.maddyhome.com/canardpages/pages/alwick/engine.html At the last part of the article, there is a mention about air purge valve or something like that to solve this problem. I asked the author of the site about detailed pictures and how-tos. Right now, he has some trouble updating his web site but he will give me an update when he is able to upload the information. I will never touch my cooling system (which was serviced by dealer recently) thus introducing air, until I get this modification done to my car. Or, could someone more mechanically intelligent figure this out and post how-to for dummy? I'd be much obliged.

Because we've been there so many times. And I think I know why. They don't care about our cars as much as we do. How many times did you let quicky lube guys change oil/ATF/gear lube and later find the all levels are correct? Or do they ever bleed & replace old brake fluid while they change your pads like you would do if you did it yourself? I am totally dumb at car stuffs. But I try to DIY as much as possible because of that reason .They simply don't care as much as we do. On the other hand, I think we care too much about our cars. But that's another subject.

Thought this is interesting and couldn't find in archive. http://www.maddyhome.com/canardpages/pages/alwick/engine.html One thing I noticed is that the author did many 'injected cooling system overheating' tests on EJ25 by getting small amount of air trapped in the cooling system. And succeeded to warp the head after few tries. And addition of a small air vent on top of block pretty much fixed everything and made the engine bulletproof to overheating (and head gasket failure, warped head, etc.). I was wondering whether most head gasket failures in EJ25 engines were due to similar reason. ie. Small amount of air got trapped after coolant change, caused bad heat transfer under heavy load, engine got overheat and head gasket blew... OK. I was daydreaming but I hope someone more knowledgible can comment on this thought.

After spending(or should I say wasting) some time under the hood, I realized that I could not find where the IAT is in my 97 OBW engine. So... Looking through some manuals and schematics for earlier model, I found that there is no pin for IAT sensor in ECM connector. At this point, my guess is that MAF sensor does not need to air temperature information (thus no IAT sensor) while both MAP sensor and flap type AFM need air temperature calibration. Those 2 hot wires in MAF are temperature sensors themselves anyway. By the way, thanks for answering my rather personal question! I had done DSP and microcontroller programming for a decade, but it was for small consumer electronics products and not something anywhere big as a car engine. For the past 4-5 years, I've been writing device drivers for a living.

Thanks everyone. Now I even know where the oil pressure sensor is!!! By the way, I am wondering what you guys do for a living. Perhaps automotive design engineers?

Are you sure leather seats are more comfortable? They look nice & are resilient to stain but I don't think they are more comfortable, if that's what you want. The only reason I opted for leather seats was that I collect so much static with fabric one, getting zapped when closing door.