Fairtax4me

If engine load affects your sound, yours is something different from what I have. My noise has no correlation to engine speed or load. Wheel speed is the only factor. Load on the diff due to acceleration/deceleration change the pitch very slightly, but the noise is constant whether in gear or not, at any speed over ~ 20 mph. I'm going to stick a chassis ear on the side of the trans and see if it picks up the noise. I can try to record it and let you listen to see if it's the same kind of noise you have.

These guys are killin' me with this wrong part stuff!!! Got the new idlers yesterday, one of the smooth idlers is the wrong kind. The boxes that the two smooth idlers were packaged in have the same stock number printed on the outside. Just different brand parts inside. Double-yoo tee eff. They're shipping me the correct part, along with a pre-paid return label for the incorrect one. I'm starting to wonder now if this is an omen of things to come with this car!?!?! I'll have to try that. I did try to compare the TIE belt with the old belt. Couldn't really tell a difference by feel. I didn't try too hard though.

I'm not familiar with the Loyale suspension, but the Legacy and Impreza have a large grease filled bushing at the rear of the control arms that will clunk when acceleration/braking and when turning if the bushing splits and all the grease leaks out. A wheel bearing will generally not make a clunking noise unless it's in really bad shape. It would have been obvious if it was bad. Inner cv axle joints can clunk, but it's not common. I'd almost bet on it being a bad replacement axle though. What brand did you get?

I have a loose bushing in the rack that clunks from time to time. I've also had an inner end loosen up and clunk around. The boots are not hard to remove to check the condition of the inner end. Clean the tie rod off and hit it with some silicone spray and the boot will slide right over it. A shot of silicone spray helps with getting the boot back over the lip on the rack as well.

Through the drain plug hole no less. I wouldn't mind rebuilding mine for fun sometime, but the parts would cost more than the car is worth... through Subaru anyway.

Shouldn't be foreign. They're both made in Japan. The sunroof assembly is a PITA to work on in any car. It sounds like one of the cables broke, which is not possible to fix. Sunroofs are not sealed though. They always leak, even when brand new. They have a drain tray around the edge of the track assembly that catches the water and routes it to drain hoses that are at each corner of the sunroof. You can see where they are if you look from above the car. It's just a small hole, maybe 1/4" across in each corner. If there are any leaves/sticks/dirt in there it should be cleaned out to keep it form clogging the holes. Those hoses can clog or slip off and the water will leak into the headliner. The front hoses can be accessed by removing the A pillar trim, and the sun visor, and the door jamb edge moulding. You can then pull down the corner of the head liner enough to get hands in there to pop the drain hose back on if it has slipped off. Put it back on with a zip tie to hold it. If the hoses are clogged a piece of stiff wire or an old cable such as a brake cable can be run through them to push dirt out the other end. Then a good flush with water should get them flowing freely again.

Good to hear you fixed it!

Subaru axles rarely fail unless the boots are ripped and the joints get full of rocks/debris from the road. If you bought cheap axles the replacement may be faulty. Check all the bushings and joints on the front end for play. As TC suggested the control arm bushing will clunk if it goes bad. There will be grey grease all over the bushing if it is bad.

That's cheap. But it's probably a cheap part too. A new cat from Subaru is anywhere from 6 - 900 depending. A bad cat can rattle. More of a knocking sound than your typical tinny heat shield rattle though. Here's a good example:

Maybe he tested it? Good useful info in this thread guys.

Might be a bad replacement. Did you check the front suspension for anything loose? Tie rod, ball joint, wheel bearing, lug nuts?

No the seals are pressed into the inside of the bearing retainer rings. The rings screw into the side of the case. The rings apparently have to be removed to get the seals out. Funny what changes in a matter of just a few months. For the past two months or so I've been getting a growling/whining sound from the front differential. I believe it is the carrier bearings going bad. The trans is also giving me other trouble, it's hard to get into 2nd gear when cold, it grabs/clunks into 3rd when hot. The clutch I put in last year is just a cheap POS that kicks and bucks the car all over the place when it gets hot. I'm almost convinced it has caused or at the least made worse the bearing issue. Live and learn right? Anyway, because of that I decided it just isn't worth the time to replace the axle seals, as they only leak about 2 ounces of fluid between engine oil changes.

One of our well versed members in Subaru repair, Davebugs is in/near Pittsburgh. I'm sure he could help you find a great car, with all maintenance done, well within your budget. But to answer your question. Every car is prone to head gasket failure... at some point. The Subaru 2.5 is just a special case. Properly repaired and cared for the 2.5 will make it to 300k miles and beyond.

Change the oil and filter before you leave. Check the fluid levels and the air pressure in the tires. Assuming the timing belt was replaced at 180k like John suggested. If it wasn't carry a 6 inch C-clamp with you so you can compress the timing belt tensioner in case the belt breaks.

Yellow wire at the coil is 12V + from the fuse panel. The Igniter gets it's power straight from the ECU. I don't know exactly which wire is power though off the top of my head, or what it should be. There is nothing in the car that should be getting 8v. It will be 12V from the battery, or ~5v if from the ECU. Check your battery connections and the lead wire that goes from the battery + to the bottom of the under hood fuse panel. There is a fusible link in there as well that may be partially burnt. Pull it out and tug on each end like you are trying to stretch it out. If it stretches and/or breaks it's bad and needs to be replaced. Crank and cam position sensors can be checked with an analog multimeter set to AC voltage. Look for the needle to jump in a pattern that corresponds with the teeth on the reluctor ring of the sprocket. There is also a resistance check that IIRC should be 3-4 ohms. Not 100% on that but it's a small number. If you get ∞ resistance obviously the sensor is bad.

Bad plug wires. People go to the parts store and buy the cheapest wires they can get, and they literally fall apart in 6 months. I just replaced the plug wires on my moms Camry. Original Toyota wires that were on the car for 12 years, and they still worked fine. It was $90 for a new set from Toyota, but they'll last until long after she owns the car.

This design would likely not be allowed in US market vehicles if it ever makes it into an automotive application. The EPA would ************ a brick because it. There is a reason 2 stroke engines are not allowed in highway use vehicles.

~300ish lbs. You at least caught the trouble early before it overheated badly. Have the heads re-surfaced, and put some Subaru gaskets on it I'd say it should be good to go. Sounds to me like the replacement gaskets just didn't hold.

I fixed it.

Unhook the negative battery cable for about ten minutes to reset the ECU. Or go down to your local parts store and have them read and erase the code.

If you have this type of boot clamp: You can squeeze it a bit tighter with a pair of end cutter pliers.

Good beans! Glad to hear it worked, and you're still in one beautiful piece. Now that airbag will work when you need it most.

Full size Subaru AWD SUV with twin turbo H8 and dual range trans with locking front, rear, and center diffs.

Because it's not misfiring would be my best guess. Sparks can arc out of the wires but still jump the gap in the plug well enough to initiate combustion. A misfire is only detected by the ECU when it notices a difference in crankshaft speed and it can tell exactly when the change occurs, such as the time between two cylinders firing. Plus as I like to say, It's OBD-1. OBD-1 is not exactly sensitive. The thing could be on fire and it wouldn't set a code. Hopefully your fix works longterm.

I have driven the car with the new belt and old idlers installed and it is quieter than it was with the original belt. Had I done this job before, I might have known something wasn't right when installing the belt. It fit the sprockets and idlers just fine, and the tension idler was able to be installed with a little persuasion. The problem arose when the tensioner was slid over the 2-3mm to it's proper position. I backed off the mounting bolts for the tensioner while the engine was running, and the noise subsided. It was still there, but it was much quieter. I tried this after speaking with the Subaru tech. After getting a definite result by relieving some of the tension on the belt, I installed the Subaru OE belt. The Subaru belt went on with no trouble at all. The tension idler slipped right into place, no elbow grease required. With the idlers installed, tensioner in proper position, there was almost no tension on the belt. I could move it all around, probably could have made it jump the crank sprocket if I tugged hard enough. With the tensioner released (pin removed) there was still some wiggle to the belt. It was taught, but I can still grab it and make it move. The other belt was sorta like a guitar string when the tensioner was in place and the pin pulled. I could actually remove the pin from the tensioner, then put it back in while it was still on the engine. I find it kinda hard to believe the belt might have shrunk while it was in the box for 5 or 6 or 8 months sitting on a shelf, between manufacturer, wholesaler, supplier, then my downstairs utility closet. Although, if it is a cheap enough belt, who knows, maybe it did shrink. I can't imagine it has anything to do with the engine. The same belt is supposed to fit 6 years worth of production. So it's either, A. The manufacturer made a whole production run of belts that were too small, (in which case there will be about another 3 or 4 thousand people, maybe more, who will have the same problem as I did) or B. The person that assembled the kit put the wrong belt in the box. Lots of timing belts out there, all of them have teeth. You have square teeth, or you have round teeth. Those are the only two I know of anyway, and for how many hundreds or even thousands of applications? There are bound to be similar belts that will be just ever so slightly different lengths. Maybe I ended up with a belt for a SOHC 2.5 or something, don't know. I just know it caused me a lot of damn headache, but I now know what to expect, and what to look out for, next time around.