Scoobydoo

I'll chime in that replacing the neutral switch seems to have resolved misfire codes that have been going on for years and recently more serious stumbling and loss of power. We even replaced the engine (for head gasket reasons) and the misfires were still happening. That was frustrating. Thanks to the USMB community for saving me a pile of money at the mechanic (and I bet he would never have solved it either. He's not going to spend hours reading USMB just to fix my car). Donation made. Car is 98 Outback with 340,000km.

I notice you're in Canada too. Where did you pick the links up?

Hi all, Can anyone tell me if the bushings for the front stabilizer link (short dogbone style link off the stabilizer bar) are available and replaceable individually or if a new link is needed? Noticed the old bushing has some freeplay in it, which makes some clunking noise over bumps. Are new ones a tight fit on the bolt that connects it to the suspension arm? Not a performance problem, but would like to get rid of the noise. Thanks!

I just fixed this on my car on the weekend. Couldn't find a used subaru solenoid valve (over $100 new) so took one out of a honda at the junkyard, soldered the Subaru connector on, and it works fine. Hoses even fit. To find one on other cars, just find the fuel vapor canister and follow the hoses out of that. As long as the resistance is between about 30 and 100 ohms it should do the job.

I just fixed this problem on my wife's 98 outback a couple weeks ago. Interestingly, I had to fix the same thing on an 83 GL I had years ago. In these instances, the spindle on the motor eventually got gummed up and jammed where it passes out of the gear housing for the wiper motor. If you remove the motor and take it apart you can push out the spindle, clean it up and put some fresh grease on it. Disassembly is fairly straightforward, just keep track of all the little washers and snaprings.

Yeah, it's a legacy of course, not loyale. I was thinking one thing and typing another... I just assumed it would have a substantial metal guard. I don't think I'll bother getting a replacement if it's just plastic though. Thanks guys.

I was working on my girlfriends 98 Legacy Outback for the first time (I guess we are at a new level in our relationship!) and notice the sump guard plate was missing. Maybe it interfered with someone's oil changing . Before I head off to the wrecker to find a donor, does anyone know if any/all other models and years will fit? The hole pattern looks about the same as both my 91 Loyale and my deceased (but not forgotten) 83 GL. Thanks.

Update: After searching around and not being able to even find a 2-core that would fit, I got fed up and just put in a new, regular single core. Temperature is fine now, and sits solidly at 1/3 on the gauge even up steep hills in hot weather.

Thought I'd add a follow-up here. I tried bigjim's recommendation, John & Murray motors, and found them to be very good. They said it was the first online recommendation they have had, and all their business is pretty much word of mouth. They even offered to pick the car up from my home, since it is on their way. I'll definitely go back to them and recommend them to friends. Before going to John & Murray for the wheel bearing, I had an axle replaced at CV Specialists in Richmond. They did a good job at a reasonable price, although I think the axle is binding slightly sometimes. Hard to tell which side it is. They have a 3 year warranty though, so I'll see if it gets worse and easier to tell if it's on the side they replaced.

Thanks EmmCeeBee. One other thing, from what I gather reading here, the 91 Loyale Turbo uses a 2-core (which is what I got a quote for). Can I just drop in the turbo one? Do the turbos also use an electic fan with a thermoswitch?

Hi All, I've been reading all the radiator related threads lately, since I've got some overheating issues myself, and have a couple questions. Symptoms: when going uphill with a full load temperature climbs to about 2/3 up scale (it's normally at 1/3 or so). At this point coolant bubbles into and out of the overflow tank and engine starts to knock more (timing is already retarded a bit to go easy on a worn main bearing). Electric fan works fine. 1) I have a 2-core rad in right now, but I think it might be plugged. About 10% of the foil fins are starting to fall out too. I priced out a 2-core and it's 50% more than a normal replacement ($290 vs $180 cdn). I'm wondering if the normal one would be adequate and better than my current 2-core. Anyone have a comment on the performance of a stock radiator with a fully loaded car in 85'F weather? 2) Is it worth my time to bother trying a chemical flush? I've heard it's a band-aid solution at best. 3) is the popular online shop radiators.com or radiator.com? Has anyone from Canada tried them? Their toll-free numbers don't work from here. Thanks!

http://www.omega.com/pptst/NI80.html The higher resistance/foot the less you'll need, but the thinner stuff is hard to work with (doesn't hold it's coil shape and is more delicate). Or you could dig it out of an old toaster, space heater etc. Pretty much the same stuff, you just need the right resistance.

Hi all, My 91 Loyale is eating front wheel bearings at about twice the rate I would expect. They last maybe three years before they start to make noise. I think I am on the third set in 250,000km which maybe isn't so bad, but this last one is gone after only 20,000km. After reading a bit about the problems with Forester bearings, and how people are replacing them with roller bearings from Outback models, I was wondering if there are roller bearings that will fit in the Loyale and maybe have a more durable life. Alignment and such on the car seems fine, although poking around I noticed that the inboard seal on the bearing was slightly damaged, so maybe water got in there and ended its life prematurely. Thanks.

Sorry for the late response. Haven't been on the board for awhile and can't keep up with the volume anyway, so finding these posts depends on what my search impulses are. This is a great idea. I don't have wrenching facilities (apartment with surface parking) so I don't think I can offer much for actual work, but I've got a factory shop manual and a bit of knowledge (I hope) which I'll share freely. I think the real benefit is to have more people on the lookout for good mechanics, help with diagnostics etc. Actually, I'm just about to call John & Murray Auto ,which bigjim recommended, to get my wheelbearings looked at. This thing eats bearings at an alarming rate. Does anyone know if a Legacy bearing is more durable (ball vs roller?) and will fit in the Loyale?

in my shop manual it says the flasher unit is behind the instrument display, although from the lousy picture I can't tell exactly where. Maybe you can get at it from underneath. It's clustered with relays for the lights and rear defroster. Hope that helps.

I just did exactly what Jelly Man is considering, replacing the burnt out coils with new nichrome wire. Each of the coils is around 1 ohm. I think I measured the originals around 0.8, 1.2 and 1.3 ohms from thickest wire to thinist (some were thrashed though, so that may not be what they originally were when new). The two smallest wires on mine were broken and I just replaced them both with 1.2ohm coils, which gave a decent range of fan speeds.. Anything from 0.8 to 1.4 would probably be fine. Nichrome doesn't solder very well, so it's a good idea to put a bit of a bend in the end of the wire and then 'encase' it in the solder puddle so even if the bond isn't great it won't fall out.

Thanks Rob, I'll keep that place in mind. The shops I listed are good, but generally not cheap. You pay for convenience, which is fair I guess. I'm sure they cost more also because of the outragous property values in the area. Having a BCAA Gold membership is a good idea, as they'll tow you anywhere. I'm tending to go to several specialty shops rather than one general mechanic (of course, that requires that you know what the problem is, and your regular mechanic will probably resent not getting the gravy jobs like exhaust and brakes and not do you any special favours.) If your friend just needs stuff like brakes, shocks, tune-ups etc then Nic's is a good place. I'd be a little wary of them on larger jobs that require more judgement and experience though. I need an axle replaced right now and was resigned to doing it myself rather than pay $300-$400, but I came across a shop in Richmond, CV Joint Specialists, that just does axles. They quoted around $150 installed ($75 for the loose axle if you want to do it yourself.) I'd be very happy to pay that. They are even open on saturday. As other people have said on this board, you can change an axle in 20minutes if you know what you're doing and have the right tools, so even at that price they could still be making $225/hr. Anyway, I'll let people know how it goes....

Actually, it was an EA81 engine that the shaft was boring it's way down into the body. The aluminum body was worn away at the bottom, and even the plastic on hall sensor that circles the shaft had been worn down a bit. It looked like it dropped maybe 2-3mm over the years. At the time, I looked around a lot for a replacement, but could only find ones from the dealership with prices to match. Maybe the distributor was slightly different on canadian models? I was hesitant to mess with the air gap, but considering the shaft was already flopping around so much I figured I might as well. It performed adaquately that way for awhile until I was able to find a replacement. Like Qman says, get a replacement. My car was a beater, so "performance" just meant "running."

Can anyone recommend a mechanic in the Vancouver area for an EA82 loyale? Nothing major, just driveline work like CV joints, wheelbearings etc. Looking for someone who charges reasonable rates and understands ways to get longer life out of an old car other than just replacing everything with new (expensive) parts until the problem disappears. For other people interested in this topic, I'll give a rundown of the shops I've tried. (of course, these opinions are entirely that, opinions, so hopefully nobody will sue!) Nic's - dead honest and good for basic work, but not great with diagnostics. Not especially familiar with Subarus and they may tell you it's about to die when it's still got lots of life in it. I went in to get my wheel bearings done and they told me the engine was about to die and I shouldn't bother. Nice of them to be honest, but the engine is still going fine with a bit heavier oil. Just a matter of different opinions on 'dead' I guess. Varsity - great work but premium rates. I paid $400 to replace a front half-axle and a lower balljoint on the same side. Maybe I'm out of touch, but I thought that was about $150 too much. They are near where I live though, so sometimes I'm willing to pay the premium. Mackenzie Heights - pretty much same as varsity, but further away. No reason to choose them over vasity in my case. All-Import (N.Van) - Although a real pain to get to, this used to be the shop I recommended to everyone. It was a one man shop and Bernie was a whiz at keeping old cars running and his prices were very fair too. Sadly, Bernie sold the shop and moved away. Don't know anything about the new owners, as it's too far to go without a recommendation.

Good tip, GD. A rebushing is the best solution. I should add to my earlier comments that adding more thrust washers won't help with the side to side play, but like GD says you can get away with a lot of slop on a Hitachi distributor. When you have it out just spin it by hand and make sure nothing hits (I forget the proper terms, but the star shaped piece just under the rotor will often collide with the, uh, 'prongs' that it spins between. You can bend the prongs out a bit so they clear. Not a perfect solution, but it'll probably get you around.)

ahh, the classic jittery tach. What's happening (I'm betting) is that the lower spinning bits in the distributor are occasionally hitting the sides of the distributor body. How does this happen? Glad you asked! The distributor shaft has some flutes machined into it that draw a small amount of oil up to where the distributor shaft rests the distributor body. Unfortunately the shaft does not ride on bearings, but just sits on thin washers. Anyway, the flutes can get clogged, eliminating any lubrication of the washers, and the distributor shaft assembly eventually wears it's way lower and lower in the housing, eventually hitting the sides of the housing (why this makes the tach jump, I don't know, but it does). You can get a set of "distributor thrust washers" from a Subaru dealership for a few bucks and add them to the stack to raise the shaft assembly (add some grease while you're there). You'll have to tweak the timing a bit too. If not fixed it will get worse, but at a very slow rate. I drove mine for six or seven years with a jumping tach. If you get a distributor assembly from a wrecker, you'd be wise to take the lower gear off, remove the shaft, and make sure the lubrication flutes are clean.

I had similar symptoms on my old car. I took the carb apart several times and the problem would go away and just when I thought I had solved it it would die again. I took it to a shop for a carb tune up and it died on the way home. Finally out of frustration I took it to the dealership and (suprisingly) they properly diagnosed it as an air leak around the axle that the butterfly valve turns on in the carb. Seems the car was so old and worn that there was no longer a tight fit, and air would leak in around the axle and screw up the mix once in a while. Talk about obscure! You could probably test for this by putting heavy grease around the ends of the butterfly axle where they protrude from the carb body. Being a cheap student at the time, I carefully wrapped the axle ends with teflon tape to take up the slop, and it ran like that for awhile until I got another carb. I used to have an '83 GL that I took to 330k km before the underbody rusted to the point of it sagging when being put on the lift. Loved that car....

I just joined this message board, so this is a bit late, but I also had concerns about the turn signal visibility on my 91 loyale. The situation where it is a problem is when you are in bumper to bumper traffic and trying to merge into another lane. If a car is beside and slightly behind you, they will not see any signal on your car, and so won't let you merge in (being polite Canadians, we always let people merge if we know that's what they want, haha). I figured people were just being jerks until I realized how invisible the signals are from that position. I performed the modification described on this page http://www.kersur.net/~btillman/bob/garage/vw/side_marker/ and it worked great. I can't say for sure, but merging seems a lot easier now as people let me in more often than before. Oh, and every new car sold in europe is required to have signals on the quarter panels (and many new cars here have them, but I don't think it's required) so there must be a good reason for them.

I just finished fixing the blower resistor block in my car. When I measured the resistance with a multimeter each resistor was around 1 ohm, although they were all of different wire diameter. To answer Milesfox's question about which resistor controls which setting: When the fan is on low, the current goes through all three resistors (for around 3 ohms total resistance) so a break in any of the resistors will keep the fan from working. When the fan is on setting 2, the current only goes through the two heavier resistors (2 ohms), so a break in the small coil will not matter, but the other two have to be ok. You can guess setting 3 (only depends on the thickest resistor) Setting 4 goes through none of the resistors, so even if they are all broken you will still have a blower. In my case settings 1 and 2 didn't work. I didn't want to trek out to the wrecker for a new unit, so I managed to twist the broken ends of the coils together (the nickel-chromium wire won't solder very well). Pretty delicate work. Should've just gotten a replacement. Anyway, it works now.