WoodsWagon

You will annihilate front tires in FWD. It's bad enough with a 130hp 2.2l on a wet day, give it more power and there's no way to put it to the ground. So you'd have to drive in 4wd all the time which is hard on the drivetrain. That's why they went to AWD.

The handle is cheap and easy to replace, the plate is best left alone. It's rediculously expensive for a piece of stamped sheet metal. You also have to get the screws that hold the plate lights out of the rusted piece of metal and it ends up turning into a mess. The handle is 2 10mm nuts from the inside and one plastic clip.

If you had a car you were only going to keep for 30k before you sent it to the junkyard. would you change the oil?

Since the airbags didn't pop, the frame rail is probably still in OK shape. It also doesn't look like the hit went far enough back to start shifting strut towers. Honestly I'd accept that the car will never look the same, get a hood, quarter panel, lights, and bumper off a junk car and beat the inner fender back enough so you can get the new quarter panel to bolt to it. Yank ************ around using a hook tied to a strap around a tree and backing the car away, and a sledgehammer for the finer adjustments. Take a good look at the brake lines going to the ABS pump in that corner, you don't want any kinked or crushed ones.

The problem with using a subaru A/C compressor for air is that it depends on the oil mixed in with the refrigerant for lubrication. When you're using it as an air compressor, it has no oil and will get hot/seize if used for extended periods. Will it work for filling a tire now and then, yes, possibly even all 4 if you give it breaks inbetween. But running air tools off of it will kill it quick. You need to filter the air going into it at a minumum, and should filter the air coming out of it. The right A/C compressor to use is a York built one. They have a separate sump for the oil and are able to run as air compressors without damage. Some early subarus were equipped with them as a dealer installed air package, but the best place to find them is older vans and cars from the 70's.

How about you keep to the thread you already started about this same issue instead of starting a new one? Check for plugs in the hoses, hose attachment points, possibly clogged radiator, siezed water pump, or stuck thermostat. It's not rocket science.

The 2.5 iron duke is gutless but fun in the wind the ************ out of it, hammer the drive train as much as you want, and never have enough power to break anything kind of way. We had a lot of fun with an 88 wrangler back in the day. Even kinked both front springs... The 2.8 v6 is a good engine, not a lemon. Sure, they leak oil from every pore, but as long as you keep them full you can't kill them. A friend had one in a S-10, and it saw valve float all the time. Multiple sets of tires smoked off that truck, no rev limiter and a 5spd manual. The drivetrain was a bit "loose" when he finally got rid of the truck, there would be a pause and then a clang as all the slack was taken up when you shifted from forward to reverse. 2 years of vicious abuse and not even a hiccup.

I ran across a subaru that had really bad overheating issues and wouldn't circulate coolant right after a 2.2l was swapped into it. The engine came with plastic plugs in the upper and lower radiator hose hookups on the engine, they had left the lower plug in and put the hose over it. So it might be good to think back on when you put the engine in and if it had plugs like that.

Another thing to check is the strut rod bushings. The strut rod is the 3/4" diameter steel rod that bolts to the lower control arm and goes back at an angle to the body right under the front footwells. If those bushings start cracking and getting loose, the wheel will move forward and back in the wheelwell under braking and acceleration. That changes the suspension geometry, which changes the toe setting, and you get a pull.

Vacuum leaks will cause the greatest issues at idle, under load they don't factor in much. That many codes means you either turned the key on with a bunch of sensors unplugged or you have a ground issue. I'm betting you had a bunch of stuff unplugged and most of those codes won't come back. If it completely falls on it's face when you try to accelarate, you either have a faulty knock sensor causing the ECU to pull all the timing, or you have low fuel pressure. Fuel pumps are easy to get to, there's an access panel in the back. Plum a fuel pressure gauge into the hoses between the fuel filter and the engine. Read the pressure with it idling. Then remove the vacuum hose from the fuel pressure regulator on the rear passenger side of the engine, the pressure should jump up a few pounds. Re hook that line, then use a pair of pliers to gently clamp down on the return line going back parallel to the feed line you tapped into for the gauge. The pressure should really spike up if you do that. I've seen fuel pumps that could only muster 20psi, enough to idle, but not accelerate.

There was a news story about an EA81 wagon that started a forest fire a few years back. I think it came up here, there was impressive pictures of the river of aluminum flowing downhill from the burned out shell of the car. Supposedly they got it high centered in the grass and the cat lit the grass on fire. They had no fire equipment, so they just ran away from the burning car. It took out a bunch of forest before the fire was controlled.

Just checked a 95 outback in the junkyard and a 99 L, both had big holes in the strut towers, both sides. They were in there for unrelated issues. It's a hidden spot, and not where anyone would normally check. With my now 100% failure rate off all my test sample of 5 cars so far I'd say it was pretty systemic. Mabe subaru will do a buyback like toyota did for the tacoma frames? Lol, right.

Check to see if the handle on the hatch is returning all the way. The hinge gets rusty and the handle will stick in the partway pulled postion. That then blocks the lock from working, even though the latch still catches.

I got my first subaru because of no fuel pump power, it was an 86 GL carbed. My dad had chased the no fuel pump power all through the car, gave up and gave the car to me. I found out that it had to have a tach signal to turn on the pump, checked the distributor and found the rotor wasn't turning. Drivers side timing belt had snapped. So make sure you've got spark before you spend too much time chasing the fuel pump power.

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1107352 Has some good pics of the drilled headgasket.

You also said you had the engine revved up to 5k rpms without the wheels moving? 5k rpms is way higher than the stall speed of the torque converter (the speed at which the engine can make the TC slip at will full power applied and the wheels held locked with the brakes), which means those extra 3k rpms were going somewhere. Most likely, a slipping forward clutch pack in the tranny. When you slip a clutch pack, the temperature skyrockets. Clutch packs are made of stacks of frictions and steels, when you heat steel, it warps. When you warp the steels in a clutchpack, it can no longer disengage. The classic symptoms of this is a tranny that's never in neutral, drives forward fine, and has difficulty or just plain can't reverse. Without a rebuild, that tranny is done. It was probably low on fluid already for it to have low hydraulic pressure clamping the forward clutch. When you feel an auto transmission slipping, the best thing is to let off, let it cool down (idle it in neutral with the parking brake on), and find out what the problem is, be it low fluid, a clogged filter, or a failing throttle pressure modulator valve. It's never the right answer to give it more throttle until it cooks its self into a solid lump. Putting in that spare manual with no 2nd will be more useful than what it's got in it, at least you will have forward and reverse.

Don't go pouring crap oil additives into the motor. If you need to clean ************ out, pour a quart of dextron/mercon ATF in, Drive it for 15 mins, then change the oil and filter. The detergents in the additive package for ATF will do more to clean the engine than any snakeoil miracle in a bottle could hope for.

The thread chasers are for if you crossthreaded a sparkplug and cranked it in partway bunging the threads up. What happened for you was the plug wasn't tight enough, it rattled back and forth in the threads until it pounded them straight out of the head. So there's a hole there but no threads. Helicoils work. They're the spring things that take the place of the threads. I personally don't like them for bolt holes where the bolt is going to be removed and installed a bunch of times, like spark plugs. They tend to partially unthread if things get sticky. Timeserts are better, they are a sleeve that's threaded on the inside and bigger threads on the outside to bite back into the block. Then you use a specialized punch to spread the locking nurled area at the top into the head. Use grease on the tap to catch the chips. Aluminum chips aren't so bad on an engine as steel chips, but still not good. Hooking a compressed air line to the vacuum brake booster hose and rotating the engine so it blows out the removed spark plug hole can be a good way of keeping the chips from falling into the cylinder. Wear eye protection, the chips can come out fast.

This isn't the common rot seen right at the rear edge of the wheel well above where the bumper attaches by the way, this is deeper in. So reach deep and higher when you check for it.

http://www.endwrench.com/current/Current6/03/WhBearRep.pdf Here's a good link for the measuring procedure for the bore of the knuckle where the wheel bearing goes. That checks if the knuckle is deformed. It also gives you the torque spec for the latteral link bolt and cautions not to use impact tools on it.

Check to see if the spring is broken on the side that sits lower. Then measure the distance between where the spring seat is welded to the strut body and where the clamp that bolts to the knuckle is welded to the body. It is possible that someone put one outback strut in on one side, which would account for the height difference. There would be a length difference in where the spring seat is attached if that was the case. This shouldn't cause wheel bearing failure though. Either someone is being too rough pounding the axles out of the old knuckles or pounding the drums or disks off the brakes, or the lateral link bolt is being overtightened.

I've discovered a manufacturing defect in the 95-99 legacys and outbacks. In the rear wheel wells, if you reach up into the strut tower box the wall of the box on the outer side disentegrates. It may be held together with a thin film of undercoating but the metal rusts to the point that it crumbles. All the other panels holdign the strut tower together seem to be fine, so just this one panel wasn't treated properly. All 3 legacys and outback's I checked today had the same problem, from a 95 legacy, 98 outback, and 97 outback. So if you have one of these and you live in the rust belt, go out and check. You just reach in above the rear wheel well with your palm facing upwards, run your fingers up to the top of the spring, hook your fingers in and pull your hand towards the outside of the car. You'll feel a flat vertical surface. Poke it and see if it crumbles. Or if it's even still there, it may be just a hole at this point. Or don't and live in de-nile, just watch out for crocodiles. I'm not sure how big of a structural issue this is yet. There's 3 different layers of metal in there, the outer quarter panel skin, a formed brace layer, and then the vertical inner wall, which is what rusts out. The rest of the strut tower box and the horizontal surface that the strut cap bolts too seem to be OK, and are still welded to the rest of the body. The doghouse arch of the wheelwell seems to stay intact. I'm thinking of just cleaning the surrounding area off enough to goober a ***************ethane roofing patch over the inside there. That would keep salt slush and water spray from getting into the interior of the quarter panel and rusting out the rest of the body. It's a whore of a spot to get into to clean well enough to weld to, even with the strut removed, so a real patch isn't happening.

Well knowing what engine you have would help a lot to start with. )Phase 1 EJ22's and EJ18's are easy to pop the valvecovers off and pull the rocker arms off of. The lifters are contained in the tip of each rocker where it contacts the valve stem. EJ25's only had hydro lash adjusters in 96. 97-99 are all shim in bucket design, and it's a PITA to adjust or even check them. What they do have is a lot of piston slap, which can sound like noisy lifters. So what engine do you have? Either way, replacing an engine to get rid of noisy lifters is a waste of effort and money. Phase 1 EJ SOHC valvetrains are super-easy to work on. Heck, you can even pull the heads off in car if you want, and it's really not hard. DOHC are a pain in the rump roast.

As you may or may not be aware, early 90's SVX's came with a power mode button in Japan. US models didn't get it, probably for EPA fuel milage reasons. But the pin on the Transmission Control Unit was still there and the programming code still existed in the US TCU's. So it's popular in the 91-94 legacys to move the female pin on the 20 pin connector from postion 6 to position 4. This then makes the "manual" button on the shifter turn on the "power mode". Power mode is the equivalent of a sport shift button on a newer car. The TCU uses a different shift map so that it holds gears longer, downshifts sooner, and won't lock the torque converter clutch. It makes the transmission much more responsive and fun to drive. There is a small gas milage penalty, around town it's only a MPG or 2, but on the highway it is more because of the torque converter not locking up. So in 95 subaru switched to OBD-II. This required a complete redesign of the ECU (engine control unit), wiring harness, and TCU. All the pins on the TCU that used to control the "power" and "manual" lights on the dash and the input for the manual mode button have been redesignated as communications lines for the OBDII systems. The TCU case and board have also been redesigned with the plugs on the side instead of the bottom. But through this all, pin 4 on the 20 pin connector was still left unused. I pulled a pin and pigtail of wire from a 20 pin TCU connector on a spare harness and put it in postion 4, which is the only unpopulated pin on the latching tab side of the 20 pin connector, which is the higest connector up on the TCU. The TCU is to the left of the brake pedal above the drivers feet by the way, big gold box with 3 connectors. You have to release the locking bar on the back of the connector, push the pin in until it clicks, fold the locking bar back into postion and plug the connector back in. Power mode is activated by grounding pin 4 on the early TCU's. I grounded pin 4 on the 97 OBDII TCU and while it can no longer light up an indicator of power mode being activated you can tell by driving. At part throttle at 45mph it was holding 3rd gear with the engine up around 3k rpms. Unground pin 4, it would shift to 4th and lock the TC dropping the RPMS down in the same driving conditions. It downshifts as soon as you roll into the throttle, rather than having to stab the throttle to WOT to getting it to downshift like you normally do. Much more responsive and fun to drive. All you need for the mod is a small switch, some wire, and a TCU pin and pigtail. Set up the switch to ground pin 4 of the 20pin TCU connector to a chassis ground and you will have sport mode on command. This should work for a 95-98 TCU, outback or legacy. I'm not sure about the 99's as they changed some things with the bellhousing pattern and ABS sensors among other things and I don't have a 99 handy to test with. I'll try out a 98 outback tomorrow. Here's a picture borrowed from "Nomake Wan" on subaru-svx.net

I'm sure you can do a better job than I did, but it fit the wheel well arch pretty good and covered the tops of the wheels to make it legal. After some black spray paint on the flares it looked good. The arches were out of an early 90's chevy cavalier. I just kept an eye out for cars with decent flares on them. The 80's vw jetta flares are reasonable too, if you can find them.