nhdiesel

I'll second the cleaning & lubing. In our shop we don't do ANY brake job without removing the bracket (when possible) and glass blasting where the pads ride, or cleaning/filing non-removable brackets. Lube up the sliding surfaces with high temp brake grease, and make sure the pads fit nicely and can move easily. If they stick, file the pads slightly to let them move easier. The shouldn't be really loose, but should move freely. I really hate to see cars that have brake work done at the large major chains (in our town the worse offender is Midas). They never clean anything, never lube anything, and just slap things back together. I have even seen cars come into our shop with actual hammer marks on the pads because they went into the slides hard, and the other shop just pounded them in! Jim

As a mechanic who has worked on a few Subaru suspensions, I know that if the camber is out (and its very common up here with our rough roads) the inside of the tires will wear. But, as has been mentioned, check for worn bushings, struts, or other parts first. For the bolts, in our road-salt area, the bolts are a PAIN to get loose on Subarus!!! Usually heat is required. I have seen a few come with adjustable bolts in the rear, but I think they have been aftermarket replacements. Most just have straight bolts. You can buy the cam bolts, but I don't like them because in order to make the cam, the bolt has to have a very small diameter- making them weak. And as I mentioned, our roads are very rough. I prefer to use a die grinder and slot the strut holes to make them adjustable, then set the camber. This has always worked for me, and one of our best customers has a postal route and uses his old Legacy wagon for a route with over 400 stops, on very rough roads. The car is approaching 240k miles and still going strong. He has broken several rear springs though, with the load of the mail. Jim (the new guy)

So as long as I stay within this engine family, I should be fine. The used engines sold up here typically come complete, with all external parts except possibly the accessories (alternator, etc.), so I would have the parts from both engines I could use, depending on what is different. The plan is to use the replacement engine as complete as possible, only using parts from the original that are necessary to make it match up to the car properly. I'm just looking to make this as simple as I can without spending huge amounts of dollars. About the only thing I would be doing to the replacement engine are cam seals, just because its so much easier while the engine is out anyway, and of course timing belt and water pump (unless the replacement looks fairly new). If anyone else has more info to add, please jump in! Jim

Hi, new member here, I'm trying to get info for my stepson's girlfriends car. She's blonde (sorry to other blondes, but it applies here...) and apparently for several weeks she's had to add "a little" oil to her car. She had a small leak I guess, most likely cam seal(s), but no problem, when the red oil light would come on, she would add "a quart". Yea. I'm a mechanic...maybe a phone call would have saved her an engine. Well now there are internal things on the outside of the engine (the way I summed it up to her). And when I looked up a used engine, apparently the interchange books show that it HAS to be a 2000 engine, and the price for these is quite high. The car is in very good shape otherwise, but does have around 200k miles, which is alot for even a Subaru in our northern climate (far northern New Hampshire). Now...my question is, can any other year 2.5 work by swapping parts, such as intake or other things? From the research I did, it looks like the same engine family was used from around 2000-2004. I'm just curious about what is different about a 2000. I had the same issue with a '97 Jeep Wrangler with a 2.5, which the interchange books showed had to be a '97+ engine. But by swapping oil pickup and pan, a '91 2.5 dropped right in and worked perfectly. I'm hoping I can do something similar here. Jim