Fairtax4me

I don't know if I heard it or not honestly, but I've got a few ideas. Have you check the brake pads? When was the last time new brakes were put on and what brand of pads and rotors (if they were replaced) were installed? Can you still hear the noise with the windows closed? Could it be something in the glove box or under the dash loose or rubbing on something only when a certain frequency of vibration is reached? A vibration or shimmy at speed could be due to several causes such as tire balance, worn U joints, or a worn drive shaft carrier/support bearing and or bushing. A worn carrier bearing/bushing will often clunk repeatedly or give a wobbling feeling during hard acceleration from a stop. This can also be a sign of a bad U joint. It could also be a half axle out of balance, or a worn cv joint. Usually a bad cv joint is accompanied by a clicking or knocking sound under acceleration in tight turns. These may not cause the squeaking you are trying to track down directly, but may be causing it through vibration traveling through the framework of the car.

Possibly the ignition switch. What all turn on when this happens? Radio? Any lights?

Turn the cam back to where it's supposed to be. It didn't go far, maybe 1/4 turn at most, so it shouldn't be hard to turn it back to the proper position and then put the belt back on so you can turn everything at the same time. Valve damage is a possibility, but you won't know until you get it put back together and start it, or do a leak down test.

Charge the battery. There is not much in the vicinity of the EGR valve that will prevent the car from starting unless you disconnected one of the large vacuum lines on the intake box, or the vacuum line for the brake booster. You should also make sure that the EGR valve is not jammed open by the chunks carbon crud that you picked loose with the screwdriver.

I see these cars in the junkyard almost every time I go. There is bound to be a pickapart somewhere near you (within an hour away) that has one of these with a good cylinder head you can use.

Glad to hear you got it running. I would suspect that one would rarely see this type of failure, glad you got to be the guinea pig instead of me. Jk, congrats on fixing a very uncommon problem.

The crank pulley you probably want to use one, though a lot of people have gotten away without one, it sometimes comes at a price. You also want to use blue threadlock on that one. A torque wrench is not necessary, but it does help to know just how much force is being applied to the crank bolt so you don't run the risk of it coming loose in 3 months. Little tip: Before you take the old timing belt off, even before you loosen the tensioner or any other pulley or idler for that matter, grab a whiteout pen or a grease pencil or something, and make your own marks on the crank sprocket, cam pulleys, and timing covers. This way you know exactly where each pulley was set before you took the belt off, and there is no guess work as to which mark to use, or how many teeth to count. You line up YOUR marks and put the belt on. Be sure to pull it tight all the way around so that all of the slack is in the area between the crank sprocket and drivers side cam sprocket where the tensioner pulley is.

When you consider that a decent inch-pound measurement torque wrench costs ~$80+ it becomes less of a necessity unless you will be doing a LOT of work on smaller bolts that need proper torque. Most things that require such little force, if you break the bolt you did too much, if it leaks then you didn't do enough. If you manage to break the part (not all that hard to do with aluminum parts actually) then you need to pay attention to the proper tightening sequence. Generally it starts towards the middle and works outward.

No sealer is needed on rubber gaskets. The rubber makes the seal, it doesn't need any help.

No, You'd be more likely to start a fire. The catalytic converter doesn't "burn" "crud". It changes the chemical composition of the exhaust gases leaving the engine, into different gases that are more pleasant for the environment. It does this through heat and a reaction with the catalyst material used in the converter (mostly platinum). A "hotter" plug won't burn more "crud" either. Hot vs cold in spark plugs is the plugs ability to transfer the heat that builds up in the plug into the cylinder head. A hot plug simply doesn't transfer heat as quickly as a cold plug. It has nothing to do with the temperature of the spark or the temperature of the combustion. With a hotter plug the engine is more likely to ping which will cause the ECU to enrich the A/F mixture, if it can't get rid of the ping through retarding the spark timing. Both of which will lose power and lower fuel efficiency, further complicating your perceived P0420 problem.

Low charge.

Take it off and blow through it? I've tested brake hoses that way before, not sure how well it would work in this case.

That's correct. The clutch safety switch prevents operation of the starter motor unless the clutch pedal is depressed. But the safety switch is not the switch Gloyale is talking about.

If they drove it for 6 months and it didn't throw a rod through the block then it's probably the lifters. A half quart of MMO or ATF in the next oil change, or switching to synthetic oil might cure it. If not they're not hard to replace. It could also be an exhaust leak up next to the heads.

I wonder if there is some obstruction in one of the lines. Maybe one of the hoses is collapsing internally?

They haven't really been out long enough for the major problems to show up. It "shifts" smoothly when in manual shift mode. If left in plain auto it doesn't actually shift. The beauty of the CVT is that it constantly changes the reduction ratio for maximum efficiency. If you floor the accelerator from a stop, the engine revs up to around where it creates its peak power (about 4200 rpm in this case), and stays there as long as you keep the accelerator down. The engine speed doesn't change, yet the car continues to accelerate. That doesn't mean the engine is going to run at 4000+ rpm every time you put your right foot on the pedal. The ECU manages throttle input and transmission ratio to make the best use of the power being created by the engine. It's "different" to drive one. They don't drive anything like a regular car as far as shifting is concerned. You give it gas, the car goes, you don't feel any change in RPM between gears because there are none. As for reliability, time will only tell.

Doesn't seem like it would make that much difference but the different fluids can react differently with the materials used in the system (hoses, metal components, bearing protection) I think I'd be looking at other sources of binding before replacing the rack. How about the U joints in the steering shaft? Are they well greased?

Different clutch switch. There are two. The one in question is at the top of the pedal and is actuated with only about 1/2" of pedal travel. Generally it's only used for the cruise control but it seems Subaru found another way to utilize it.

I always figured that clutch switch was just for the cruise control. I'm also interested to know if disconnecting that switch will adversely affect engine operation if the switch is known to be good. I'll have to try it tomorrow after work and see what I get.

If you would rather do it the transmission way it takes a few less tools, but you still need very large jack stands and a large floor jack. You need about 19" of clearance under the car to be able to slide the transmission out of the way. It also helps when you install the clutch disc and pressure plate to be able to sit under the car.

Two ways to go about it. You can pull the engine out the top with an engine crane, or drop the transmission out the bottom with a large floor jack. This guy has a writeup with pics for how to remove the engine, as well as a pictorial for replacing the clutch with the engine out. http://beergarage.com/Subaru.aspx

What's your definition of round? Besides, the brakes are probably the last thing to worry about in this situation.

Do some searching on how to change the timing belt here on the site. Tons of info here and several writeups with pics. Btw what year is the car? You have to put the crank pulley back on before starting the engine otherwise the crank sprocket will "walk" on the crankshaft and damage the new belt.

Might just be the lock is jammed. Try pulling the belt up towards the reel, and see if the lock releases. If you can't get it loose that way, pull the bottom seat cushion up and unbolt the belt from the floor pan.

Don't waste your time. You'll have electrical gremlins out the wazoo. Even if you can get the car cleaned up well enough to keep the mildew out, the wire harnesses are still full of water and they'll corrode and create more headaches than you really want to deal with. Basically, you'll have to scrap half the car and find a wrecked or rusted out donor for cheap to take all the wires and electronics out of. If you just start writing down all the parts of the car that are electronic, even if it's an older vehicle, you just don't realize how much of the car is electronic. Only to a certain degree. There is a vent in the cap that water can get in through, though there is a rubber diaphragm, there's no guarantee that water won't get past that and into the reservoir. Even if it hasn't been contaminated, probably still a good idea to flush it. But speaking of fluid contamination. Motor oil, power steering, differentials, transmission, antifreeze (yes, antifreeze can be contaminated by water getting into the overflow reservoir) gasoline, could be others depenging on the other equipment on the car. The big one here, possibly the worst, is if the car has an automatic transmission. The clutch packs in automatic transmissions DO NOT react well to water. Basically they fall apart and leave you with a dead transmission. Water has to be flushed out of the transmission ASAP in order to avoid failure.