Allpar Mod

To use a 12 volt tester, the clip goes to a ground point and the tip of the device touches positive. You might have to find a ground point like a screw or bolt by trial and error using a circuit that you know is hot to make sure you have a good ground point before actually testing the culprit circuit. Not all screws and the like are good ground points. If you have a multimeter, you can do exactly the same test by touching the black lead to ground and red to hot while having the meter setting to 20 volt or up DC. If you get a zero reading, the circuit is dead. Take a second before you go through the testing to check your fuses. It's entirely possible that when you were removing the radio that you accidentally blew a fuse and that's why the constant hot memory circuit is not functioning. Check the simplest and most obvious first always.

I have to agree with GD. I've actually found errors with Haynes when I did repairs to one of my Jeep Cherokees. I have to put Chiltons in second place after a factory shop manual. When we had Loyales, I bought a Chiltons and still have it. It was fairly accurate and helpful. None of the "aftermarket" manuals are as complete as one from the manufacturer.

If it feels like it is racheting, try cleaning the u-joints on your steering column shaft (under the hood near the firewall) and using a good penetrating oil copiously. There are two spaced about a foot apart. I had a similar issue and that was the problem. The penetrating oil freed them up and everything returned to normal after a bit of driving for a couple days.

What it sounds like is possibly an obstruction as one possibility. Have you looked closely at the power steering lines for damage or the like? The pump would be the most likely culprit, but there could also be an issue with the steering rack causing the problem. I've had a couple times with vehicles that the pump went and created hard steering, but no puking of fluid.

Electrical issues suck as I'm sure everyone will agree with. They can be very frustrating and time consuming to diagnose. That's why garages and dealers charge a lot for these problems. Very labor intensive, especially the intermittant ones. This is where I tell the OP to invest in a good digital multimeter. That way you can do some tests yourself. It's not hard to tell if you're getting charging voltage or not by just attaching the meter to the battery terminals and starting the car. I recently bought a new one at Sears for $29 to replace my old Radio Shack one that finally went bad after over 25 years. It would still be working if my nitwit brother in law hadn't dropped it doing what he shouldn't have been doing a while back. The gauges going nuts when the battery is low seems to be a common symptom with these cars. That's the first symptom I had when my alternator crapped the bed but the idiot light never came on. I have a voltimeter installed permanently now even though the light does, in fact, work. Never trusted them anyway. If the alternator is good, then you have to do the individual circuit tests. There is obviously a drain then somewhere. Charge the battery fully. Put your test leads at the battery and see your static reading. One by one remove a fuse and see what happens to the reading. Replace each fuse before you go on to the next. A couple circuits like the radio will cause a minor increase in the reading as they drain lightly constantly to power the memory. You are looking for a noticeable increase in the static reading to identify the culprit circuit. This is very time consuming, but will go quicker with an assistant pulling each fuse while you watch the meter. A common culprit are relays sticking open. This happened to my old truck once. The fuel pump relay stuck open draining the battery in a relatively short time span. Make sure you pull them to see if any are sticking open while having the meter in place. You might want to do this first before getting to the fuses. Might save you some time hopefully. Good luck!

At the dealer I was at recently, they quoted me $300, but no replacement pulleys or water pump. It did include a through inspection of those components. That was for an EJ 25. I can't imagine it different for a 2.2.

I bought my '99 Legacy OBW Limited with only 1,000 miles more on it than your's has. I've put nearly 20,000 miles on it with no tranny issues at all other than the usual delay from reverse to drive which improved with adding Trans-X. It's hard to completely diagnose a problem like your's here, but it would be prudent (and much cheaper) to do the steps outlined previously and try to see if that will resolve your issues. Slippage is usually a sign of problems with the bands but it is not beyond the realm of possibility that restricted hydraulic pressure due to clogs could be mimicing the same symptoms. By flushing the tranny yourself with a fliter change as stated and adding a bottle of Trans-X while being careful not to overfill it, hopefully it will take care of the problem. Next step if not would be to locate a used tranny. I wouldn't invest in a rebuild with selling the car as it's unlikely you would see the money back.

After you either confirm or rule out the ignitor and ground issues, I'd still check the alternator then again. 12.4 volts at idle still sounds a bit low to me even with a load, though the 85 amp models do drop off at idle normally. I did a thread earlier about alternator issues dimming performance, from experience.

No, GG, I haven't checked. The Chilton's book I have is from the '89 & '90 Loyales I had in the past but goes to '96 and includes Legacys. My OBW is a '99. The a/c section looks like a very similar compressor model (even though the exchange shows that only '98 & '99 are compatible) and the exploded diagram makes the swap look relatively easy with, as you said, no special tools or pullers/presses necessary. I still wanted to ask those that might have had more experience with this particular repair than I.

Has anyone replaced just the a/c clutch? I picked up a compressor complete from All Foreign for $35 the other day. I know my compressor is good and holding a full charge well as the a/c was cold before the clutch started going bad. Has anyone swapped a clutch before? Hints would be appreciated. I have done a lot of repairs on vehicles, but my a/c experience is limited. I already know not to lose the shims.

Do yourself a favor in the long run. Go to Sears and get your 3/4" drive stuff. It'll cost more but the quality is far above what you'll get at HF. The no-hassle warranty is worth the price alone. Also, you were using air gun. If it's a cheapo, they throw less torque than better ones. I had one that came with my first compressor (Campbell-Hausfield) and it wouldn't even break lug nuts sometime. I went to Home Depot and bought a Husky for about $100. It works excellently and never fails me no matter how I abuse it. There have been very few nuts or bolts that it didn't get off.

I called All Foreign and they'll give me the whole thing for $35. Risky but that may be my only option right now.

While putting on a new belt and repairing the tensioner for the a/c, I discovered, much to my chagrin, that the clutch is toast. It works fine at idle but as soon as it starts spinning faster, it sparks, smokes, and stalls. Fortunately, the compressor seems to be working ok. Now I know why the belt got glazed and stretched. Here's the rub. Nobody seems to sell just the clutch assembly. Subaru will..at a cost of over $200 for just the clutch!! The entire compressor assembly with a clutch is anywhere from high $300s aftermarket to nearly $600 from Subaru. Help!!

Have you checked the charging voltage? Sounds weird, I know, but I posted about this a couple of weeks ago. Weak charging voltage will effect the performance of these cars. The altertnator is only an 85 amp model which means that it is only putting out maybe 20 amps or so at idle. I'd look at the charging system as a whole..battery, terminals, cable connections and alternator output under various loads. This sounds like it may at least part of the problem with the post mentioning how the performance is effected by turning on electrical items like the radio, etc. Since I installed a voltimeter in a pillar pod, I can see exactly how the charging system reacts to load and driving conditions since I replaced the alternator and reconditioned the battery. It doesn't take much to pull down the charging voltage of these very limited alternators.

You did say that the problem is inside of the housings. It's possible that if the seal for the bulbs has gone bad that the inside of the housings have an accumulation of crud. If the glue that holds the covers to the housings has started to degrade, this can happen also. If so, you'd need to remove them and use a cleaner inside and clean them out. I have seen this happen on occassion to these euro-style lights. Now, which I have seen a few times also, if the reflective coating on the inside has dulled out because weather has gotten in, there's little one can do about that short of replacing the housings. If you're very good, it is possible to cut off the clear covers and spray a new reflective coating after cleaning the housing insides real well and then reglue the covers on. The trick is to remove the covers without breaking them. You'd have to get in between the cover and the housing where it is glued in place. That's the trick. If you try this and crack the covers, we hold no liability.

Here's one I haven't seen yet. My partner's (work partner that is) '02 Forester with an EJ25 shredded the a/c belt. He asked me to help him replace it as he was unfamiliar with how it goes on. I coached him in removing the belts and how the tensioners work. When I reached down to remove what I thought was some shredded belt, I was surprised to find something else....the idler pulley had shattered circumferentially along the center! I never saw an idler break like this before on any vehicle I have owned. The plastic attacher was intact. I surmise that the bearings seized and the belt pulling over it caused the stresses to get great at the weakest point, which was the center of the pulley in the V slots. Has anyone else seen an idler break like this?

Could be an issue with the fuel pick up in the tank. I've seen this happen in driving specific problems before. Often, it's because of way too much crud build up in the tank moving around during specific ways the vehicle is being driven. The only way to see for sure is to drop the tank, clean it out along with the pick up tube attached to the fuel pump. If you go this route, definately replace the fuel filter at the ame time.

+4. I'm having a minor issue with that now. It's not uncommon for this to show up at high speeds also and be mistaken for tire balance or belt issues.

I recently had an issue that I shared in a previous thread that regarded the alternator not putting out and poor driveability and malfunctioning radio/gauges. Definately check the alternator and battery condition. In my situation, the battery finally died on an off ramp stopping for a light and disabled the Soob after things got really weird. You haven't related that this has happened to you. The idiot light for undercharging never came on. It works again after replacing the alternator which I determined to be putting out 11 volts. The OBW now runs well after the swap. I installed a pillar mount voltimeter to monitor the charging system after all was said and done because I no longer trust the idiot light. Gauges are much better than lights anyway. Subaru could have done their customer base a big service by equippng their cars with full instrumentation like most other carmakers do these days. Way too often, by the time an idiot light comes on and you realize that something's amiss, there's more damage than if you see a change in a gauge reading and can get to the problem sooner. A Sunpro 2" voltimeter costs like $14 at Auto Zone and a universal pillar pod mounts up cleanly. Wiring is simple. I'd highly recommend doing this for all Subaru owners. I'd also recommend everyone not posessing one purchase a good quality hand held multimeter to do testing yourself. They are not difficult to learn to use and can be very helpful diagnosing several categories of problems. Just think of the money and aggrivation you'll save being able to find some problems yourself, and the satisfaction of being able to do it yourself also. I just replaced my digital readout Radio Shack one (much better than the old style analog meters) after over 20 years of faithful service. If my idiot brother in law hadn't dropped it a while back fiddling with what he shouldn't been while I was fixing my father in law's Chrysler, it still would be in service. Sears has good ones for under $30 and up in the tools department.

Thanks. After another soaking and time, the steering is back to normal so this pretty much confirms what was going on. I'll just keep an eye on it for now and look into replacement if it persists.

I bought my '99 OBW Limited, very clean with 68,000 for $4200 last fall. Everything worked and still does including the heated seats, mirrors, and wipers. It even had a factory 6 disc CD changer that works very well. The book did have it at $6500. The guy I bought it off of has an extremely clean 2002 for $5900 right now on his lot. They can be had at reasonable prices. $7k is over the top for a '99.

It seems like that this is the second time I'm having issues with the u-joints in the steering column. The first time, I soaked the one closest to the firewall in PB Blaster and the hesitation went away in 2 days. It has reoccurred and I soaked both joints, but it is still there. I'm going to try to clean the joints and do it again, but I'm not sure this time. I'm pretty sure that this is where the issue is and it's not torque bind. Now, I looked on Rock Auto's site and there is no listing for replacement joints. I had a surprise when I had a Loyale several years ago and found out that the drive shaft did not have user serviceable u-joints when one went bye-bye. Is this the same thing here? Where can I get the parts? I hope it isn't a dealer only part. What is involved with replacement of both joints? This is a real pain in the a$$ as I put a lot of miles on the Soob and depend on it every day. I lose 10mpg having to use my truck and the gas bills will rack up if I have to take this off the road for long because I cannot afford to fix it right now because of an expensive fix.

Have you checked any of the internet parts recyclers like carparts.com? Here's two local foreign parts yards with good stocks and good reps and plenty of Soobs. I don't know for sure if they ship, but it doesn't hurt to ask. If not and they have them, I could act as the intermediary to get them to you. All Foreign 412-782-5580 Wagner's 800-472-2830

The guys are right. Road noise can be the result of a number of things. You should make an effort to figure out from which wheel(s) the noise is originating from first. The type of noise can be telling, though often hard to describe in writing. Does the noise get worse during turns? Is it constant or rhythmic? Does anything make it worse or better? Is it only noticeable at higher speeds or all the time? Is it worse on braking? These are just some of the major questions that get asked during diagnosis. You cannot make a simple diagnosis without all the facts. I had an issue with my F-150 last year where it sounded like the differential was going while we were towing back our camper from North Carolina. The sound seemed like it was coming right from the pumpkin. Turned out an axle bearing went fubar and started chewing up the race on the axle. You gotta delve into it a bit to know for sure.

I was going to install an ampmeter I have in it today, but decided instead to install a voltimeter when I have a chance to pick one up. Easier to install and I believe more telling of what is going on at a glance. By the by, I just noticed that the idiot light is working again. I went outside to roll up my windows as it may rain and just turned on the ignition to roll up the power windows. The idiot light was staring me right in the face big as life as it should with the ignition on but not started. I thought that this car has had a gremlin or two in the past. Now, I'm convinced. Either that or the telltale is tied in directly with the alternator circuit rather than just reading the voltage and the bad alternator was faking the circuit out. Never seen anything like this before.