cnc

Haven't gotten any guff from neighbors for some time, now.

It does climb like a tank, and I should know. I also have a tank. :-0 The Subie gets better mileage, though.

I second that. On a boxer engine, you don't have access to the head bolts to retorque them. With NeverTorques, you don't have to, because they don't relax over time. When they relax, there's less clamping action and they get blow-by and fail. cnc

I had a dual range 5 speed installed in place of my single range 5 speed in a 92 Loyale. Love it. Guy said the swap was very straight forward. No drama. He did say the backup lights would no longer function due to incompatible connectors on the two trannys. I figured out the wiring and it's fine. Just need to jump a few wires at the connectors. Here's how I did it: Find the switch wires for the backup light switch that is inside the tranny. Use an ohmmeter. Then locate the wire that feeds the backup lights. To do that, remove both backup bulbs and use clip leads to put 9v (battery from a radio or toy or old smoke detector) where one of the bulbs were. That's so you can do tracing and find it because the only 9v in the car will be from the backup light sockets. Once you find that wire, jump it to one of the two backup switch wires and the other switch wire goes to +12v that is conveniently located at those sockets somewhere. Done! I hacked up the connectors to get the pins out and used those to make the connections. You can also use butt connectors, crimp splices, or whatever. cnc

I got a Cardone reman off of Amazon for $52, delivered, no core deposite, either. Problem disappeared. It's a little disconcerting that there was no warning sign. Guess I'll just loosen the belts and wiggle the pulley every few months. cnc

If there was a rubber seal, it's no longer there. The view in the picture is what you see when you remove the pulley hub. Now that you mention it, I have no idea how the bearings are lubed. cnc

I'm sure it's better to remove the belts, but more likely to be actually checked if I can just quickly put a bar in there and see if it wobbles. Wondering if it is possible that the actual cause of the problem was the stamped metal keeper wearing out by rubbing on the balls, then bending and jamming in the balls. If the balls are not evenly distributed (that's the job of the keeper), they could clump together and allow the shaft to wobble. I don't have any idea how many miles were on it. cnc

Found it. Bearings were shot, shaft wobbled, stamped sheet metal keeper between the balls got caught, bent up, and pieces jammed the balls and stopped it. Couldn't detect the wobbly bearings by hand. Need a crow bar to try to wiggle it with belt tension present.

Oddest thing happened today. After driving a half hour or so with zero problems, I make a brief stop and when I start back out, I got a terrific belt noise from the area in front of the engine. Pulled over within a block. Things starting to stink. Figured it was a seized AC pump, so pulled the clutch wire and started back up. Same thing. Bolted for home, a half mile, squealing all the way. Opened the hood and poured water on the belt area to prevent any fires. Dang hot. Started engine and ran out front to see what's stuck and it's the power steering pump. Pulley just sits there locked in place. Let it sit an hour or two and go to restart it and it purrs like a kitten. Huh? The fluid may be a little low, but it's not out, by any means. Yanking the pulley around, it seems like the bearings are fine. The engine never got anywhere near hot while driving. What could cause this? Why would it fix itself when cooled down? Probably should replace it, of course. I just like to find smoking guns, so I know the problem. cnc

Question: Are all of the door lock actuators the same? In looking at some info, it appears that they all use little DC motors to run a leadscrew or similar. They will burn out if left engaged for any period of time. The most likely scenario is that one or more just finally bit the dust. cnc

Thanks for the tips, guys. All seems to work perfectly until at some point, none of them work. I don't know when it's going bad. I do have a clamp-on DC ammeter, so I could conceivably test each one individually, to see where the big current draw is. Even simpler but not conclusive would be to just substitute an ammeter where the fuse goes and read it as I hit the lock switch. If I find that the total current is anywhere near the 20 or 25 amp fuse rating, then it's just a matter of time before it cooks off the fuse, anyway. I'll report back. Stay tuned. cnc

I keep blowing the 25 amp fuse that runs the door locks. They work for a day or two and then quit. I fixed the driver door switch that sends the lock/unlock signals to the other doors and that works fine. I suspect the problem might be in the wires that span the gap between the driver door and the body, since those flex all the time. One of them may have shorted to ground. Any other ideas out there? That fuse also runs something else. Can't remember what, though. I can make a current measurement. cnc

This is great news! My 92 Loyale drags it's butt and I've been looking for something to stiffen it up a bit. I installed a trailer hitch, and any tongue weight makes it worse, of course. Do you have the part number handy? I'd like to get a pair of them. cnc

You're welcome. Yes, I've fixed the driver's door multi-switch a couple of times. The only trick is to do it carefully, over a large pan to catch all the contacts that fall out. Looks scary, but it only goes back together one way, so just keep messing with it until it fits back together. cnc

92 Loyale wagon with power door locks. Doors suddenly failed to lock or unlock. Fuse was fine. What failed was the switch. It can be repaired. It is located in the driver's door and is operated by a rod that comes down from the locking mechanism. See the picture. It is a sliding switch mechanism and over time, the spring tension gets weak and the sliding contacts fail to engage the contacts. Take it apart, bend the contacts slightly, scrape any crudd off of the contacts and put back together. Total time to open up the door, pull out switch and fix it, plus reinstall is under a half hour. See the pictures. Hope I can save someone's day when the door locks just fail on them. cnc I forgot to mention that to get it apart, you take out 4 little screws to open it up, then carefully bend the white plastic arm up to get it off of the slider. Remove slider and clean and rebend the contacts. Good as new. New switch costs over $100, and nobody has them anywhere near me or for 500 miles.

I figured it out. Here's what I did: I used clip leads and put a 9v radio battery across the backup light wires in the tail light assemblies. I removed the bulbs first, to prevent draining the little battery. That allows me to poke around all of the terminals on the connectors at the transmission to locate the tail light wires. By using 9v, not 12, it's easy to spot just which wire is the one I want, and not just some other random 12v wire. Just use a multimeter to look for a pin with 9 volts on it. Then find the backup switch terminals on the tranny connector by ohms continuity with the same meter and now you have the actual lighting wire and the switch. Put the switch in series between the light wire and +12v, which you will find somewhere on the car connector that hooks to the tranny. I had to dismantle a couple of the connectors to yank the pins out because the two trannys had different connectors. I just poked the pins into the car connector and secured them with tie wraps. Been working just fine. cnc

I bought new rear end rotors and pads for our '98 Legacy Outback and they literally will not fit in there. They are about 0.030" too thick. Not OEM. Could that be the problem? What is the fix for that? I can grind the pads down a tad, but that seems wrong to me. Is this normal? The piston is 100% all the way retracted. ??? cnc

I was assuming that the transmission backup switch would be driving a relay somewhere in the car, which then sent 12v back to the lights in the back. If so, the lighting wires wouldn't even come into those connectors by the transmission. If however, there is no relay, then I can see that the rear lights would come to those connectors and as you suggest, I could just find +12v (with ignition on) and run it through the tranny switch and then back to the lighting wire. I might try unscrewing the backup lights and tying a 9v battery to the socket and go back and look for 9v at the connector. Thanks. cnc

That would have been a good move, but alas, it's too late. :-( I have a 94 Loyale that had the 5 speed, single range manual tranny in it. I now have a dual range 5 speed manual tranny in it. Not sure what year it came from, but I might be able to find out. The 94 car has a 4 pin socket and two 2-pin connectors on it. As a guess, I assume one of the 2-pin connectors is for reverse switch and the other is for neutral switch, with the 4 pin socket being the range switch or something. Clueless on that one. I tried shorting out each of the 2-pin connectors to see if the backup lights came on, but no. I had the ignition on, but not the engine. I had tail lights operating. I'd assume that a wiring diagram for the '94 should be somewhere in the universe that would show the functions of each pin on those 3 connectors. I don't want to start shorting pins together to find which combination makes the backup lights come on, for fear of burning something out. Ideas? Thanks, cnc

94 Loyale and I scored a dual range 5 speed for it. Love it, but the electrical connectors aren't compatible and I'm trying to figure out how to get the backup lights to work. I found the backup switch wires on the dual range, but I don't know which pins to graft them onto on the '94 wiring harness. I think I could figure it out if I had a wiring diagram that showed those connectors where they plug into the tranny. Anyone? Thanks, cnc

I put brand new calipers, including pistons. The pistons were probably pushed all the way in to start, plus the screw operation just adds some length as the pads wear, right? Everything came together and behaved as normal, including the e-brake. The best way I can describe what happened next is to say that as if by magic, the cable instantly lengthened by a half inch or so.It still functions, retracts, etc. It's just longer. Wondering if most of the cable strands broke, but a few were left and they unraveled a bit, thereby making it a little longer. Hoping someone on the board has a clue.

DaveT: I replaced the calipers, rotors, and pads all at the same time. Hence, the pistons just pushed all the way back with my little finger. I think I also adjusted the e-brake at the same time and all was working fine. I don't know what I could have done differently. Len: Not sure what you mean by 'twisted'. They only go on one way, don't they?

I did notice that the two cables looked to be different lengths where they hook onto the handle. They were roughly equal, then something popped and the handle went way up. I had no braking, and then I adjusted it way tighter and got some brake action. The cable looks fine out at the wheel. When I release the brake handle, the cable retracts like you'd expect it to. cnc

92 Loyale. Recently changed front rotors, pads, and calipers, so it's all new up front. Oddly, I pulled on the e-brake after parking and something broke, allowing the brake handle to rotate up 30 degrees or so. Now it was so slack it wouldn't hold. I adjusted the e-brake between the seats and got it to kinda hold, but the right side is clearly longer than the left. It almost looks like most of the cable wires broke and only a few are left, and they unraveled a little, making it a little longer. Essentially, the cable got about a half inch longer, all of a sudden. I'm just guessing, here. Is this what must have happened? Anything else come to mind that would cause this? The normal hydraulically operated brakes are fine. They didn't change at all. Thanks, cnc I should mention that the e-brake is on the front axle. The parts houses almost always say it has rear axle e-brake. Dunno why.....

Sometimes people put too much RTV sealant on gaskets and they make little blobs that break off and travel to the tiny holes in the hydraulic lifters, thereby preventing them from filling up as fast or at all. Does it make that noise for the first 10 min and stop? cnc