93Newbaru

I picked up two OEM head gaskets for this 97 Outback with EJ25 yesterday. Part number 11044AA610. I don't have the proper felpro gasket any more, but from what I can remember it looks exactly like the oem gasket I purchased from the Subaru dealership.

I briefly tried to find out what the blue actually was but haven't found the info. Quote from their website is "The Fel-Pro brand by Federal-Mogul is a leader in multi-layer steel (MLS) head gasket design, the current leading-edge technology in sealing today’s lightweight engine castings with a long-term, leakproof seal called PermaTorqueMLS®." They sound good, but no blue info. Since the first gasket I installed had no coating, I'm just going to remove it and take both back to the store. I'm not opposed to buying felpro head gaskets again, but I just don't really see a reason to even bother with them.

I just purchased a set of felpro head gaskets for my 1997 Outback 2.5 from Advance Auto. They had one in stock and had to order the other. Part numbers matched on the packages. I installed one tonight, then began reading the package of the second gasket. It mentioned a "blue coating", which I didn't remember the first gasket having. I opened the package and removed the header card which had the part number on it. Underneath that packaging it was factory packaged again, with a different header card and part number. This second gasket was blue, completely different, and was the thinner than the first gasket. These gaskets might be as good as oem, maybe even oem gaskets packaged with the felpro name, but I'm probably just going to stick to buying them from the dealer from now on!

Two days ago I started installing the motor. It has been a little too warm here for me to be comfortable doing anything, and I was having a hell of a time lining the bottom studs up to the trans. I even logged on to usmb later that night to try to read some tips on how to do this (although I have installed quite a few motors and none had ever gone this rough). Tried again yesterday and immediately removed the motor mounts because I figured they were getting in the way (I had never had to do this before) but thought it would slide right in. Nothing changed, it was still fighting me. I was making up new swear words, throwing and kicking things, soaked with sweat..... With both studs started I could get one to slide in but the other would pop out, and vice versa. Any pushing, tugging, slamming the crane around wouldn't do anything. I even one time had the engine lined up exact perfectly with the trans and it wouldn't go. I took one more break to cool down, and went back at it. I thought all the slamming around maybe the bolts had created a lip inside the transmission which wasn't allowing them to slide all the way in. I grabbed a bolt and stuck it clean through one hole, tried the other hole but the bolt didn't go in all the way. My first thought was wtf, and then I looked down and saw the stud from the previous motor had unthreaded from the motor and was sitting against the CV shaft. Disgust, hate, anger quickly turned into pure joy. I guess that's what I get for trying to work on a car that I haven't touched for 6 months! All it needs now is coolant, and to steal some brake parts off of the parts wagon and it should have a new lease on life!

I used "mnwolftrack" 's technique that johneggleston posted here http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=81925&highlight=torque+clip Installing the conver was very easy, it took me about 4 times and it went all the way in. Hook finger under nub on trans, slide it on and rotate, then rotate other direction, if it's not going pull out slightly and try again. Awesome. I should have replaced the seal but I was all about getting the TC on the trans today and now that it's on I don't really want to remove it again:eek: I was lucky unbolting the exhaust, every stud came out clean and I just ordered new studs and exhaust gaskets from Subaru. Going to take a week for the parts which will let me examine the rest of the car and order whatever it needs. Since I never drove this car I am crossing my fingers on everything else being in good shape, trans, axles....everything!

That's what I'm hoping for, to sell 3 decent cars. The best car has only 150,000 on it, while the motors I have are 240,000 and 200,000, so I figured I would wait to find something with lower mileage for that car. For today though I really need to know about the torque converter clip, I plan on installing the 240,000 motor into one of the cars but the TQ isn't installed on the trans. I'm going to go work on it in a little bit here and might be able to figure it out but it would be nice to know exactly what to do. Thanks!

Hello again Alliance. I am back up to 6 Subarus on my lot and have a question I'd like help with. One of the 4 97 Outbacks has the TQ removed from the trans, I see the clip inside which doesn't let me slip the TQ back on all the way. Upon reading a little, I see that I should try to remove the large hollow shaft and install it in the TQ before putting everything back together. Is this correct or is there a better way of doing this? Does the clip really need to be there? OBW #1 has been sitting with no motor for quite awhile OBW #2 has a motor issue that I haven't even looked at yet OBW #3 runs and drives but beat up body, awd doesnt function, recent timing and HG's with 240,000 OBW #4 purchased last night, 199,000 and blown head gasket First thought was to put the motor from #3 into #4, scrap 3 and sell 4 as a good car. Now I'm thinking put motor from #3 into #1, scrap 3 and sell 1 as a good car and fix HG on #4. Only problem with 3 is the TQ is off and I need to get it on. Then all I have to do is -Complete reseal, timing, fix stripped heads, install new brakes on 89 GL -Install brakes, maybe timing kit and reseal, replace broken lights and maybe body work on 95 Legacy -Find a motor to install in car #2 because it is super clean I'm sure I'll be back with a few more questions, I've actually been thinking of paying you all to come up here and bang out 4-5 good cars! Not sure I could do that but it would be pretty damn cool to move all of these!

It's possible. I think there were 2 of them around here, and the one on craigslist was rusty and had really crappy tinted windows. I believe that's why I didn't care to make much of an offer because it was rusted out pretty bad. If it had been the car at the junk yard things would have been different. I try to keep the cars I have, or at least fix and sell or use them for parts. I just can't stand having this many vehicles taking up space sometimes, and I'm really not supposed to be doing this in town whatsoever. Nobody is complaining yet though:lol: I can't pass up buying a car for scrap value or under scrap value especially if I could for any reason use parts from it or possibly fix it, so basically I would buy any Subaru that fits that criteria. I'd like to pay attention to the cars I have, but I keep getting overwhelmed with having too much stuff.

The last time I hauled scrap metal I saw this white car far in the distance as I headed towards their building. I immediately knew what it was and was pissed as this place sells absolutely nothing on their lot. I'd seen a few of these driving around town for awhile, I just can't believe it ended up at the scrap yard and not on my lot. Hopefully I'm not too guilty, this is the body of one of my 89 wagons hanging from the loader bucket. I kept most everything from the dash area, the entire front and rear ends, and all of the doors. Plan is to build the other wagon into something worth driving. I wanted to swap windshields but I royally screwed up when trying to remove the good one, instant huge crack so I bashed it with a hammer multiple times.

Your lifted wagon is very good looking, if only I could spend the time with something I own! That "lovin winter" license plate is cool too. As promised, I started tearing one of the white wagons apart yesterday. It had a blown head gasket when I bought it, stuck another motor in it and had head gasket issue with that motor after a few hundred miles, could be my fault. When I hacked the exhaust apart last night it poured water all over my trailer deck. :-\ Here is a picture of my fix on the center bearing mount. When I bought this car it had a wicked vibration. Months later I finally looked underneath it and the driveshaft was hanging on the exhaust. Figured that was the problem. Made this mount and test drove, still lots of vibration! It was the rear U joint in the driveshaft. Good to get the center bearing fixed though, when you'd go to put it in 4wd it would slam into the underbody with a big thud before.

Good points. I just have a hard time getting rid of things that I could use or that could be useful to somebody. There are a number of loyales/gl's around here. The main reason why I was going to scrap the one 89 wagon is that it's pretty rusty, I'd keep the DR trans, driveshaft, rear diff, axles, basically I was going to unbolt the undercarriage from the rust and haul the body in. The idea was to swap everything into the other car, much less rust, only 83,000 on the only EA82 motor that I have that is good, although the windshield is cracked. The rusty car is up on the trailer and hopefully I will have it torn apart soon.

All the cars I have right now are automatics, I haven't been lucky enough to find many with manuals.

I wanted to build one really sweet car out of it but was quickly realizing that I may never actually build it like I wanted to. Wanted 4" lift, repaint entire car, do all the EJ swap work, rebuild one of the EJ22's I had, have a set of my pugs blasted so I could paint them, buy good tires for them....im sure theres more. Couldn't see spending the time doing it all and was scared to start spending that much money I guess. I'm sure it's at a better home now that won't let it sit around forever!