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Agree. My 96 OBW still has the factory muffler on with very little rust. There is some snow but not a lot where I live.

I've heard that many rebuilt calipers are of much less quality than Subaru's original. What do you folks think? http://allwheeldriveauto.com/subaru-repair-seattle-brake-caliper-woes/

I'm looking at Rockauto to buy rear caliper repair kit. They have several to choose from. Beck/Arnley's says it's for 38mm piston, Wagner's says it's for 35mm piston. My 96 OBW has 15 inch wheels. What size rear brake pistion do I have, 35mm or 38mm?

There are 2 coolant temp sending units. One feeds data to the gauge on the dash. The other feeds data to ECU. I think the one for the gauge won't affect if the car can start or not. It simply controls the gauge. The sending unit for the ECU will affect starting of the car, but won't affect the gauge. If the one you replaced indeed solved your starting problem, it shouldn't cause the gauge needle to stay so low after 7 miles of driving. Are you saying the gauge needle was higher before replacing the sending unit?

Sorry I don't have an answer for you. What happened to your muffler? My 96 with 142,000 miles still has the original muffler with very little rust. No holes, no cracks.

What that poster said was, when the brake fluid was a little over the full line, he had caliper piston problem. After he reduced the fluid level to about 3/4 full and pushed the piston back, the problem went away. His experience was that too much fluid was not a good thing.

Did you overfill the brake fluid reservoir? I remember a post here a while back saying too much fluid in his reservoir caused his caliper piston to stick without retracting. He took out some fluid and the piston worked fine afterward.

Bushwick, do you have snow tires on your car or just all season?

I have a 96 Outback with auto. The idle speed with a warm engine is 650-700 with AC off. Has been like this in the past 17 years. This is measured with a Scangauge II which gets its info from the car's ECU. The rpm needle on the gauge is in the middle between 0 and 1. If you need an alternator, many people suggest getting a remanufactured one from the dealer. They was a recall for your car's alternator many years ago (I had mine replaced under the recall around 2001). So the dealers have plenty of reman for a very reasonable price.

Can you share exactly how you found/confirmed the bad bearing? Front or rear?

I happen to use a Scangauge II on my 96 2.5 so I can provide some data as reference. My Outback has a well-functioning cooling system (3-year old OEM radiator, 1-year old OEM thermostat, OEM HG and water pump done 1 year ago). My Scangauge shows water temp 84-87 C when cruising on highway. Anywhere between 86 - 97C in stop-and-go traffic. It reaches 95-97 only when the car is idling for more than 2 minutes. Never reaches 95 when the car is moving faster than 30 MPH, both summer and winter. As soon as 95 C is reached, the radiator fans kick in and bring the temp down to 86-87 in about 1 minute, even in a hot 90 (F) degree day. I don't know how bad 105 C is but it's certainly not normal. Good luck in fixing your problem.

My 96 started life with red fluid. I know this because I bought mine new.

If you haven't cleaned the light/socket in the front, you should do so before tackling signal stalk. Just do the side that gives you trouble.

The power steering hoses are attached to the rack via the metal connections on the passenger side shown in the attached picture. If I need to disconnect these 2 hoses from the rack, which fitting/nut do I need to put a wrench on and turn while holding the other one? Do I turn 1 (red arrow) while holding 2 (green arrow), or vice versa? Is there an O-ring in there? OpposedForces shows an O-ring but no part #.

Don't remember how many cans I used. Probably 2 cans primer plus 2 cans paint on my 09 Camry I4 with single exhaust. I also painted the muffler. I still have a little left. If you don't use primer you only need half as many. But you'll get longer-lasting result with primer. I also did my 2004 Camry (earlier post was for 2009 Camry) with VHT back in 2004 when the car was new. I didn't use primer on the 04 and more rust developed than my 2009. I don't know how much the primer helps on an older car with rust already. The instruction on the can says a bottle covers 12-14 square feet.

I have experience with VHT spray paint on a 2009 Toyota. I put on 2 light coats of VHT primer first, then another 2 light coats of VHT flat aluminum paint. Followed by a curing process by driving the car according to the instrucdtions on the bottle. VHT is rated 1300 - 2000 degrees F. It's best to use it when the humidity is < 60%. Ambient temp is between 60 and 95 F. I did my Toyota within a week after purchasing the car new in 2008. I used a wire brush and wire wheel attached to a drill to remove some rust, especially on the flanges. New cars' exhausts have rust also. It's been 5 years and there is very little rust on the exhaust. The only area rust developed during these 5 years is near the muffler where the pipe has a curvature. I cleaned it out last month and put on VHT again. Don't know how well it works on older cars with plenty of rust already. You can get VHT from Advanced Auto or Amazon.com. It's about $10 a bottle.

If you have to drive the car now, as a temporary measure, you can put in a big cotter pin or thick steel wire and tie the wire around and twist it tight. This is safer than having nothing in that hole.

I thoroughly checked for brake fluid leakage today, none was found. Axle nuts were tight. I also held the tire by both hands and tried to move it back and forth. For both rear tires, no movement. The front tires both had a little movement in the 3/9 o'clock position, but the movement is tiny, barely noticeable. None at the 12/6 o'clock position. Other than that, I don't know how to check for bad/loose bearings. Spinning the rear tires got me the brake pads friction noise. Can't hear anything else. Didn't bother removing the brake pads and then spin the tire. I definitely didn't hear any noise when driving the car (with the radio off). I'll drive the car tomorrow to see if the low pedal happens again. It's really odd if bad wheel bearings can give low brake pedal, it doesn't happen to most cars with bad bearings. I'm now thinking 50% master cylinder, 50% bad bearing. There is no leak I can see. The brake fluid level in the reservoir hasn't changed at all, remaining a tad above the max line.

Did this ever happen to you when you were driving at higher than parking lot speed? If it only happens at lower speed, I can take my time to get it fixed. Did you say both your front and rear bearings caused this low-pedal problem and once bad bearing is replaced, the problem is gone? Thanks.

Wow that's something new to me. I'm glad you replied. I haven't checked but I don't think my metal brake lines are rusted to the point of leaking. There is very little rust on my car's undercarriage. So your experience can help me. A few questions to follow up: 1. Was your loose bearing on the front wheel? 2. Why was your bearing loose, because the axle nut was loose? 3. At the moment you had this problem, were you turning the steering wheel at all, or were you pulling out of a parking lot straight without turning the wheel? When it happend to me yesterday, I was not turning the steering wheel at all. Simply slowly and straightly backing up in a parking lot. I'll put the car on jack stands and do a thorough check tomorrow: leakage and bearing. When I removed the snow tires a few months ago, I did grasp both sides of the front tire (off the ground) and tried to rock it. No movement. It's only been about 1000 miles since then.

96 Outback wagon, 139,xxx miles. After a 60-mile drive at highway speed today, I stopped at a bank parking lot. Started the car 5 minutes later, while backing out of the parking space, the brake pedal went unusually low. It happened twice within 30 seconds in the same parking lot but never happened again. This is the first time I've ever experienced this in this car in 17 years. I know this car's history and there has been no problems with the brakes. Brake fluid is full and was replaced (by flushing) last year by myself. I really don't think there is air trapped in the system. Is the master cylinder the only thing to blame? Could a faulty brake booster cause a low pedal like this? I know master cylinder is the #1 culprit but would like to know that for sure before buying the part. It's odd that it happened right after starting a hot engine. That's why I suspect the booster - might not have enough vacuum right after engine start.

Everything shown in the pic I posted is stock. The bolts are shoulder bolts.

Good observation. I had a rattling noise coming from the exhaust a couple of years ago. I thought it was coming from the loose flange because I can duplicate that noise by hitting the pipe near the rear cat with my hand. So I tightened that flange to compress the springs more. I tightened it as much as I could with an extension pipe on a ratchet. Way too much (torque spec is only 13 ft.lb). I'll use a torque wrench this time. Later found out that the hanger bracket shown in the lower diagram was broken in half (I think only cars with AT has that bracket). Noise gone after putting on a new bracket. I'll reuse the bolts and springs. No reason not to. I also thought about the temp limit on the rust coverter/reformer thing but this is the only type of product I know of that could help extend the life of the flange on the cat. In my case, that flange is still in good solid shape. No penetrating rust after nearly 17 years. It's worth a try in my opinion. I ordered this Rust-Oleum 7830730 8-Ounce Rust Reformer from Amazon.com yesterday for $9.1 together with some other stuff to get free shipping. Thanks to all for your info. I now know the springs won't give me problem during reinstallation.

Thanks for the quick reply. Do you mean on another model year Subaru?

I plan to remove the 2 bolts (each with a spring around them) to separate the rear cat and the rear exhaust pipe. I'd like to clean out the surface rust on the flanges and put some rust converter on the flanges so they'll last longer. Both flanges are still solid with only surface rust. I cleaned out as much rust as I can without removing the bolts. But would like to do more de-rusting by removing the bolts before putting on the rust converter. Question is: do I need a special tool to compress these 2 springs when I reinstall these 2 bolts? It seems that, without compressing the springs, the bolts might not be long enough to reach the nuts. Also, anyone knows what material is this donut gasket made of? I'll be using a new one. 96 Outback.