90legacywagon

I just took my 2005 OBW (57,000 miles) into the dealer today. I started hearing low humming sounds from the rear, and over the course of a month it slowly progressed to the sound a truck makes with aggressive oversized tires. I also started noticing it was a little harder to keep the car straight...almost like a strong wind blowing perpendicular to the car while on the highway at all times. Today the dealer replaced both rear wheel bearings, at no charge, covered under a 100k extended warranty Subaru is offering specifically for the wheel bearing issue. It was also idling rough/noisy...so they re-flashed the computer. I'll pick it up tomorrow and see if what they did solves the issues.

That is my dilemma...If I pull the torque converter out with the engine, won't I still have the same problem? How will I get the engine off of the torque converter if it doesn't turn? If I pull out the engine and transmission, I guess I could save the transmission, and then reinstall it with a different torque converter and engine....?

the pawn shop is the way to go. i picked up a junky little ryobi sawzall at a pawn shop last year for 30-40 bucks. the battery was toast so i picked up two new batteries and its been working great ever since.

thanks for the tips on the ej22's...I saw that one in Craigslist as well. I've been trying to buy an engine from Subex off this forum but I'm a little more concerned at this point that I will not be able to get the engine out.

to take out the spark plugs and suck out the fuel when you let fuel go into your cylinder while changing fuel injectors...see the hole in the block? This is an update to a thread I posted last year, although last year I thought it was the intake manifold and was less concerned. I have a question related to this problem...I cannot get the engine out. It is seized up, and I cannot turn the crankshaft to get to the bolts in the torque converter service hole. I have taken the spark plugs out, filled the cylinders will PB blaster. It will not turn. I thought it was starting to turn the other day, so I gave it a pull and broke the bolt head off of the crankshaft. I then tried using a giant pipe wrench to turn the crankshaft sprocket gear and it broke off. I can still get a grip on the slick bare crankshaft but do y'all think it is possible that whatever happened to cause the block to explode like that jammed something up inside so much that I will never be able to turn the crankshaft? Any suggestions?

thanks--

so if i put a 95 2.2 in a 90, and plan on using the old intake manifold and sensors from the 90 model engine, my speedo should still read the same?

yesterday i could swear I removed two bolts from the exhaust manifold on the 90 ej22. maybe i'm not remembering correctly. it was a long day. thanks for your input 360. i will look again.

The 90 is dual. I finally talked to the guy selling the 95 ej22..he says its dual but has a three bolt pattern. My 90 only has two bolts.

i just noticed subieman posted this about a similar question: "The intake manifold may be able to be swapped over to the "new block, but depending of the port layout of the heads, you may not be able to. The exhaust ports chaned in 1995. the earlier EJ22's had dual exhaust ports feeding the Y pipe headers. Post-95 EJ22's had single port headers. a bit of cutting, flaring and welding may let you adapt the headers." Why would I need to change over the intake manifold? I guess I will need to look at the 95 EJ22 to see if it has dual exhaust ports, as my 90 does.

thanks for the input john. yes, they are both automatics.

So I blew up my pristine 1990 EJ22 with less than 100k through a very, very stupid 3 second mistake which I posted on this forum about a year ago. I have finally pulled the engine, and will post pics of the destruction soon. Subaru engines this old aren't easy come by on a Texas island, but I have found a 1995 2.2 liter up in Dallas. I do not have time for rebuilds, modifications, etc. Can anyone tell me--Will I be able to drop the 1995 engine in, no problem? Are all bolt positions/wiring the same? Thanks in advance for any feedback.

What is a JL Cleansweep option? I was just thinking about this issue a couple of days ago. I have a 2005 outback and the radio and a/c controls all fit into and behind a single panel. Outfitting this thing with an aftermarket radio does not appear to be an option. There's no aux jack, and no tape deck. I would be interested in learning how a satellite radio adapter would work for this car.

I didn't notice it on my test drives. Of course, I am used to older cars with problems and this newer car is like a dream-ride compared to anything else I've driven in a while. I'm starting to think this car is just LOUD at idle. It performs very well and smooth at high RPMs. It does seem to idle at low RPM's for a 4 cylinder though..idles at about 500 RPMs, sometimes less with the a/c kicks on. Like I said, that 2002ish baja sounded just like my car. The weird diesel-ish knock occurs at any time, whether the car is cold or not. From what I have read, the piston slap subaru problem should not be an issue with this year model. The "knock" is not so loud that it would be easily noticeable at first. That's why I didn't notice it before I bought the car. Overall though, the car perform like new.

The oil looks fine. It is still under their 30 day warranty so I am going to take it in to see if they'll give it a tune-up. The "diesel" sound is not really audible from outside the car, it is only when I am in the car that I hear a low, knocking sound like a diesel. However, outside the car, the engine noise just seems to be quite a bit louder than a car of this age should have. By the way I was next to a 2002ish Subaru Baja the other day at the gas station and it also sounded really loud at idle. Not like loud exhaust, but loud ENGINE noise. Could this be a Subaru characteristic?

Does anyone else have a Subaru with an the 4 cyl. EJ25 engine and thinks it idles loud? Sometimes I feel like I'm back in my Volkswagen TDI, because at idle my car sounds a little bit like a diesel. Are Subarus of this model known for loud injectors or something? Is this normal Subaru behavior or do I need a tune-up or worse? It only has 42000 miles on it, I just bought it from CARMAX and I love it. I noticed in the manual the plugs should be changed at 36000 miles. I kind of doubt that whoever got rid of this car about the same mileage time would bother to change the plugs. Maybe I should change the plugs. What do y'all think?

I just bought a 2005 outback wagon to replace the 90 legacy wagon i just blew up. it was 2wd, and of course my new one is AWD. I read in the manual that if I have a flat and use the spare tire to replace the full-size tire, that I should put a jumper fuse in the FWD spot to disengage the AWD. My concern is that my wife will have a flat one day and either not know how to do this or will not bother with it, or forget to do it..etc. In that case, how critical is this procedure? What will it to the AWD?

It did not want to start. The first attempt at starting it delivered a loud single "CLUNK!" Then I tried it a couple of more times, and it hesistated. A fourth attempt started the engine, and it idled roughly with a seriously loud banging noise. I gave it just a smidgen of gas, and the damn thing just blew up and will not crank at all now. There is a hole, with lots of shrapnel. It must have been the fuel causing it to hyrolock, or at least put it in a serious bind. It was not running too bad before that, with the exception of an intermittent misfire. Excellent mechanical condition overall, very clean, tight transmission. Or was.

I found one 2.2 in a junkyard in Houston. We have A LOT of salvage yards here, but Subarus, especially older ones, are nearly non-existent. We don't have much use for AWD cars here, but Subarus are popular with some of the eco-hippy types, myself included.

The engine has had a mysterious misfire for about a year. Two different mechanics have not been able to determine the cause. As a result, I have been slowly removing and replacing some of the more obvious parts. It has new plugs, wires, coil, fuel filter, and now--all new fuel injectors. It definitely hydrolocked. It literally blew a hole right through the top of the engine between the #1 and #2 cylinders. She didn't want to start, and that should've been my clue to stop, but I didn't suspect hydrolock, so I continued to try and start it, and just like the dependable Subaru it has always been, it started right up, with a loud knocking noise, and then promptly exploded. I'm going to take it apart today to see if I can determine the extent of the damage, but from what I've read, there is no middle ground on hydrolock. Either you don't do any damage at all (because you don't try to start it), or you start it and mangle the engine so bad that repair is not economically feasible. Does anyone know how hydrolock in one cylinder could tweak the entire engine though? Why could I not just replace the parts in the one cylinder where the stupid mistake was made? I guess if it was under enough pressure to actually blow a hole through the top of the engine, then it probably tweaked everything around it too. I'll try to take some pictures.

*UPDATE* On further inspection, and judging from the oil spray and metal shards in and around my engine compartment, I have done some major damage. Oh, there's also the matter of the very large crack/hole in my intake manifold...about 4" behind the EJ22 stamp, behind the alternator, which is brand new by the way. Great.

Today I replaced the #2 fuel injector on my 90 legacy wagon, 2.2L, 2wd, auto. I've done this 3-4 times on the same car. This time however, was different. After installing the new injector, I went to start the car, and I heard a loud "clunk" from the engine, and then all went still. I tried to start the car a couple of more times, and it finally started, only now it runs with a very loud knocking sound coming from the engine, and it also runs like crap. I suppose I should mention that I did not (and never do) relieve the pressure from the fuel pump, and some fuel went into the hole (cylinder) that the fuel injector sits in. But that's happened before and I didn't have any problem. Did I do some major damage here? I'm guessing the fuel went into the cylinder, and the piston couldn't compress it and I bent something?