tubaman

I just did the boot on my 02 Forester last week. It is not that hard. Here is my method: Raise the front side on jackstands. Cut away old boot. There is a ring just inside the housing for the joint where the large end of the boot clamp is, a flathead screwdriver will remove it. I took off the lower strut bolts to get enough play to slide the axle shaft out of the housing. There are three bearings that will fall off when you remove the axle, be ready to catch them. I marked them, kept track of them to make sure they got put back in the same place. On the end of the axle is a snap ring, once removed you can get the piece off the end of the axle, again marked so it gets installed the same way. After this, I just cleaned everything, re-greased and put back together. The dealer was nice enough to give me the clamp/grease kit with the boot. So far so good.... I put back one of the strut bolts to hold the axle up after removal to hold it. Hope this helps. Ralph

got there through a different link on the site. It is hard to beat the Subaru manuals for $20. (nothing like DSL)

I have been trying to buy a subscription to the tech info on the Subaru site but I just end up in a loop back to the main page. Tried turning off Norton firewall and a bunch of other things to no avail. I would really like a manual for my new baby (02 Forester S). Any advice? Ralph

I just purchased a 02 forester which has the auto dimming rear mirror. The car had been a Florida car and the PO had the windows tinted. I have yet to see a difference at night when a car is behind. How big should the change in the mirror be? Is the tint on the windows preventing it from changing and how can one test to see if the mirror is functioning. (it is turned on) Thanks, Ralph, new to the subies