99obw

http://www.endwrench.com/pdf/drivetrain/RearAxleBindingInfoF99.pdf

I still haven't made up my mind. It sure seems to me that subaru intends for the tech to leave the prepacked grease in the bearing. One of the seals I bought has grease pre-applied as well, and I am hard pressed to think that is "packing grease" on the seal.

The oem replacements I have sitting in the shop for our 99 outback say both subaru and kyb on them. I think kyb is the oem supplier.

Go for the '00, as it has the improved Phase II engine. If not I would recommend the '99 as it has the improved Phase II 4EAT transmission with the external filter and drain plug. With the AWD make sure you drive tight figure eights in a parking lot and listen and feel for weird noises or vibrations. If you are unsure that the tires are all within 1/4" circumference of each other I would either measure them or make the seller replace all four tires with new identicle tires. After working on toyota, nissan, cadillac, dodge, buick, ford, and chevy, I can confidently say that a subaru is a PLEASURE to work on. My '92 dodge is 100 times harder to work on than our '99 suby. I just recommend following the subaru maintanence schedule, it is pretty comprehensive.

FWIW, all brake cleaners are not created equal. My favorites are Prestone and Napa brand. A lot of the cheaper brands barely have enough propellant to get the stuff out of the can, never the less actually clean something.

I am using Mobil 1 75w-90 in our outback with good results. I am giong to put it into a friends 97 legacy tonight. The 75w makes for good cold weather performance. Hopefully it will work well in his 5 speed that is making terrible noises. Most here will probably suggest redline. I don't have any experience with it but I would use it if I could buy it locally. I have read several times that using a synthetic in a manual transmission can be bad. I really don't know. Certainly someone will comment.

I don't think there is a Haynes manual for the Gen II Legacys yet. I just completed the download of the factory service manual for our 99 outback from the techinfo site. I have found the quality and level of detail of the information to be much better than haynes. At first I was renaming the files but I found that to be too time consuming. About half way through I gave up renaming the files, so I will have to go back and open each file and then rename it. I would say that the 256k DSL that I have is the bare minimum for getting the job done in a reasonable amount of time. It probably took me about 4 hours to get the 569 files totalling 156MB. BTW, I hate Chiltons.

I am just wrapping up a relatively huge 8051 assembly language project at work. We are traditionally a motorola house though. For home projects I prefer the PIC. They have a part called a 18F452 that kicks some serious butt!!! http://www.microchip.com

That makes me think to a certain extent it may be related to the ECU. Perhaps a bad connector or ground. Maybe something external is damaging the ECU over time. Just WAGs. I like the sounds of the homebrewed monitoring system. Your FIFO idea sounds cool too. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts. Maybe a synchronous FIFO with the write always enabled and a relatively slow clock to sample the signals. Maybe you could run the signals into the clocks of some D latches, then or the outputs together to control the enables. It's tough to reliably connect fast logic chips to noisy car signals though. Some hardware or software debouncing may make the results more trustworthy. It would be cool to use a microcontroller if your into that.

Obviously the line for swerving has to be drawn somewhere. I think horse, cow, moose, elephant, human for sure. Dog maybe. Deer or anything smaller, not for me. I worry a little about the guy I ride to work with. He swerved bigtime at 65 MPH to miss a huge deer carcass in the road earlier this week. I have visions of him yanking the wheel on the freeway at 75 MPH. Yikes!!! That day we saw about 6 deer dead on our 48 mile trip to work. I have seen around 4 per day since then. Back to the topic at hand. A parts car might not be a bad investment.

My $0.02 FWIW Let me start by saying I am glad to hear that everyone is ok. I hope I don't sound too harsh but this is a topic I unfortunately have way too much experience with. NEVER swerve to miss a deer. Hit the brakes as hard as safely possible and hold the wheel relatively steady. Injury from hitting a deer is rare. I have hit and killed 4 deer with various cars. My mom, brother, and stepdad have hit countless deer. Nobody in my family has been injured hitting a deer. If your vehicle makes you that vulnerable and you live in a heavily deer populated area like we do I recommend getting a safer vehicle. We lost a guy at work two years ago that hit a deer at night in the fall on a motorcycle. Clearly not an appropriate vehicle. No amount of swerving will prevent a collision when an adult deer runs full speed into your path from behind cover at night. Case in point: My 11 year old neice suffered some serious internal injuries after her mom swerved to miss a deer and hit a similar sounding immovable object. She now is missing one kidney and her spleen IIRC. 12 days and counting until (shotgun) hunting season. :-)

Not to drift the topic too much, but a detroit has to be the coolest sounding engine I can think of. I love to hear a skilled driver beat the crap out of a detroit. For a truck diesel they like to rev. BWAAHHHHHHHHHH........BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!

I have been using Valvoline's Synthetic Blend Dexron for quite some time now. Very happy with it, and it is much cheaper than real synthetic. I still change it and the filter every 30k though. Of course most of the big synthetic players have their own version of Dexron. I can't bring myself to spend $6-$8 a quart for the real thing.

Seals tend to be dirty, and dirt is abrasive. I have seen cranks with serious ridges worn into them. I wonder if seals are available that could compensate for the smaller diameter of the crank?

They are ingorant and/or lying. If the Phase I doesn't have increased incidence of head gasket failure compared to other Subarus then I will never buy another Subaru. I think that if the job was done correctly the new gasket should last at least as long as the original gasket.

That last time I used a press to replace a bearing that is exactly what I found. I had to shim the knuckle all over the place in order to get it to sit on the press such that I could press parallel to the axle hole in the hub. With the rusted snap ring and the total lack of appropriate dies to press with, I think it took me and my stepdad about 4 hours to press the hub out, old bearings out, new bearings in, hub in, and install the seals. That press is no longer readily available to me so I bought the hub tamer.

I talked to a friend of mine a couple of days ago and he had been to some sealed bid auctions at local dealerships. He had seen a 97 Outback Limited with 105k miles and a blown head gasket. He said it ran perfectly and was in mint condition except the head gaskets and a siezed AC compressor. He didn't bid on it so he didn't know what it went for but I bet it was super cheap(<$1000), as he bought a mint '00 chevy malibu with 50k miles for $3200. Here in NY I think you need some sort of dealer license to go to those auctions. Unfortunately he didn't call me and ask me if I wanted him to bid on that '97. I could have done the head gaskets and had a sweet car. I think a lot of these Phase I cars are going to auction with blown head gaskets.

Could replacing only the rear struts be a mistake? That is going to make the rear very stiff compared to the 145k mile old front. I don't want to wait for very long to do this job, nor do I want to fork out more money for parts. This is the first car with 4 struts I have worked on. I do remember having some strange handling on cars where I replaced the rear shocks but left the old front struts.

I have heard that before, and I don't know how true it is. In my case, if I want to park a car in the garage, it is going to melt even without the wood stove going. I only heat when I am working down there, but that is usually 3-4 days/nights a week. I think a decent metal worker should be able to quickly fab a shield for you. Stainless steel (heavy) or maybe aluminum (lighter).

I am curious to know why you are looking for a brand other than Yokohama? Our outback came with michelins XW4s and I like our current Yokohama Avid Touring tires much better. I have never owned any Geolanders. I highly recommend doing research at http://www.tirerack.com and perhaps http://www.consumerreports.com (mainly USA, requires subscription)

I think you are correct Josh. My wife's car is generally kept in a garage that never gets colder than 40 F in the winter (underground and often heated), and we have never experienced that problem in 4 winters (145k miles on it now) with the outback. It isn't practical from a cost standpoint for most people to heat their garage. Ours garage is mostly below grade and I heat it with wood, which is cheap around here.

I usually do have an alignment done when I have had the front apart, but I have never had an alignment done when I have had the rear apart. I don't have or have access to a hydraulic press, so the hub tamer works well for me whether I remove the struts or not. I usually like to err on the side of caution, and I know that the premium wheel bearing grease I have will work very well, so maybe I will change my mind and repack the bearings. I wasn't going to replace the struts yet but the left rear decided it wanted to freeze solid. I think I will wait until I do the front struts to have a 4 wheel alignment done.

WAWalker, I am doing the rear bearings at the same time as the rear struts. I assume I can swap the struts out without needing an alignment. Is that correct? frag, I will certainly post my experience here when I do the job. This weekend a friend of mine is coming over and we are doing brakes, rear wiper motor, and a timing belt job on his '97 legacy wagon. Maybe next weekend I will get to work on our '99. To me the advantage of the hub tamer is doing the job on the car. WAWalker suggested removing the knuckle with the strut, eliminating the need for an alignment, which is a really cool idea. I don't know if using a press actually damages anything.

Thanks for the advice. I think I will use the bearing as is. Assuming they install the bearing the same way at the factory, I should be able to get another 145k miles out of the ones I install. Do you use a hydraulic press? Do you have the special tool they use to measure the depth of the hub once installed? I am going to have to improvise that tool a bit. I am going to be using a hub tamer. Thanks again!

I have been gearing up to do the rear wheel bearings and seals on our 99 outback wagon for some time now. I think I finally have the parts and tools to complete the job but I have a question. The subaru procedure on the endwrench site says NOT to add grease to the factory packed bearings. from http://www.endwrench.com/current/Current6/03/WhBearRep.pdf *Prepare the new tapered roller bearing for installation. Do not remove the bearing stay (plastic piece inside the bearing) at this time. Note: Do not disassemble the bearing. Do not add any grease to the bearing. *Set the bearing assembly into the bearing housing. As many of you can imagine this makes me a little nervous. Not only does the technique differ from what I have done in the past, but I seem to remember someone on this board recommending cleaning and packing the bearing. PS: I will list the parts I plan on using for those interested. All OEM. 28015AA110 OIL SEAL IN2 RR* 28015AA100 OIL SEAL IN1 RR 28015AA050 OIL SEAL OUT RR 28016AA030 BEARING AY R 4WD 28044AA000 NUT (AXLE) [EDIT, 01/18/04] * has grease pre-applied on the seal. Unusual in my experience.