hiropro42

Parting out a '93 SVX. Been in dry storage for a little over 5 years. A little under 185,000 miles. Transmission is seized in neutral. Windshield is cracked, but all door/side window glass, sunroof, and the hatch window are intact. Body is iffy; quarter-panel rot has started on all four, but is still salvageable. Hood and hatch in good shape. Interior is pretty clean. Dashboard is almost perfect, with the exception of the latch mechanisms for the two console covers in front of the shift lever. Driver's seat has slight bolster rash, passenger is better. Back seats are in great shape. Pics of/info about specific parts furnished on request. The car has been in south-central Wisconsin for most of its life, though washed and well-cared for. I'd be willing to drive to deliver parts within 50 miles or so of Reedsburg, WI. I'm saving the motor and its accessories for a future swap, but whatever's left will be scrapped. I have neither the time nor the inclination to take on the work this car needs. If you're interested in the whole car–sans motor, of course–make me an offer and we'll talk.

Works!! I'll update if that changes.

On first attempt, this worked fine. I'll update if that changes. '99 OBW 2.5 5spd, already changed the sensor and checked the wiring harness.

Wow. So glad I found this thread. Have been having this problem for quite a while now. '99 OB Limited, 5 spd., 245,000 mi. Though, given that this has been going on so long, it's probably more like 280. Both the gearbox and speed sensor have been replaced. CEL isn't on, cruise works fine. Pulled the cluster last night to check electrical, and everything in the vehicle wiring was fine. Priced a new cluster, shat my pants, and hit the boards for advice. I'll try the solder fix and report back.

Thanks for the input. That's pretty much how I was looking at it, but a combination of factors pushed me in the JDM import direction at first, not the least of which is a very good friend who's a pretty competent mechanic, but who hasn't really spent much time under the hood of anything from Soobie as of yet.

Ok, so what I'm taking away from all this is that you're fairly certain that, as a result of the timing belt issue, there's nothing wrong with my current motor other than bent valves. Granting that, and that I had a preexisting headgasket issue, what should this reasonably cost me, aside from labor? Or rather, what all is involved? I have to be pretty careful with what I do here, since this is my daily driver, and needs to be a.) back on the road ASAP and b.) reliable once it's there.

Which Portland? This car actually lived on High St. in Portland, ME for about 3 years. In terms of swapping for a 2.2, what are the drawbacks, if any, besides the reduction in power?

My only issue is that I don't know how to tell if there is or isn't damage to the block without having it torn apart, and since it was towed straight to the garage, they'd probably end up wanting a couple hundred in labor just to get that far. If it turns out that the block is fine, and with a little bit of TLC, the current motor could be fine with $1,000-$1,500 worth of parts and work, that would be great. But I can't really afford to have a garage do that work only to find out I'm back where I started. A month ago, it would have been a different story, but I kind of splurged on Christmas for my kids, so... At 30,000 to 40,000, I was sort of looking at it as a fairly fresh motor for $975, but then I've never had to price this stuff before. CCR? Thought about that, and it's a possibility, especially if there's any kind of a price difference. Not thrilled about the possibility of a power loss, but I'd put up with it if the discount were big enough.

. . . enigniesus.com? Reliability? Rip-off? They're offering a used JDM EJ25 DOHC with a 6-month/unlimited mileage warranty for $975, plus shipping, no core charge. Nice price and all, but what really caught my eye was the rebuilt EJ25 DOHC for $1595, plus shipping. Comes with a 2 year warranty when used as stock replacement, and also a $400 core charge. I'm looking for something for the long haul for my '99 OBW. Car's in great shape, even after 225,000 miles, but the timing belts' tensioner pulley decided to take a break on the highway Thursday morning, and after inspection, the motor's pretty well gone anyway. So, I'm desperate, to a degree, but are these prices too good to be true? Quotes I've gotten from mechanics start around $2,000 for a used motor and go up, steeply, especially when rebuilds enter the picture.

Ok, wait. The bolt in question is one of the three holding the driver's side exhaust header on, which means it isn't really a bolt, but a stud and a nut. The nut is gone, by the way; Dremmled off. The stud is still there, but not all of it. Since I was expecting to have to replace them, I wasn't exactly careful about not grinding the stud here and there. Point being that it's like having a bolt where the head has twisted off or something. There's still a little under a half inch of it sticking out of the bottom of the engine. My neighbor (a really nice old guy who knew my dad pretty well before he died and lets me borrow tools) doesn't have an oxy acetylene setup, but he said he used to use a trick where he'd use a propane torch to heat the remaining stud and then jam an ice cube on it right away. His point was that the rapid cooling had a tendency to break any rust-fused bond that had formed, and often worked for him on stuff that impact drivers couldn't touch. I didn't try it yet because he only told me about it over beers after I'd decided to call it quits for the day. Anyone tried this? Any reason to think it wouldn't work? That was exactly what I was thinking, actually. Staring up at it from the creeper, I said, "Wait: this isn't connected to anything else right now, and it's not in the way. Why can't I just take it off and deal with it after the tranny's already out?

So. Been doing this project myself. No help. In my driveway. On jackstands. Wheee. Anyway... Pretty much everything went smoothly until I got the car up in the air and started to work on the exhaust. All the heat shield hardware is rusted into unrecognizable lumps. Ok, whatever. Passenger side header came unbolted fairly easily, after a single application of Liquid Wrench and a little help from an impact driver. 3-4 seconds max for each, and they spun right out. Headed over to the driver's side, and the inside nut came right off easily. The other two were pains in the rump roast and stopped me dead last night. Doused them each in Liquid Wrench, let it sit, and hit it early this morning. The rear nut came out with the shaft after about 5-6 seconds. Split three Craftsman 14mm 1/2 sockets on the front one, and eventually watched in horror as the nut rounded badly. I checked out one of the other threads here having to do with cam bolts, and it mentioned something called "bolt-out." Can anyone tell me what that would be? Not something I've heard of before, unless it goes by other names. Am I looking at shearing off the nut and the exposed part of the shaft and somehow extracting it? After deciding to attack it from a different angle, I unbolted the connection between the cats and started to loosen the bolt on the hanger affixed to the tranny itself. Less than a quarter turn and the head ripped right off the bolt, leaving the rest stuck in the hanger. The good news is that the exhaust is off the car. The bad news is that a.) I have two bolts that need to be extracted and b.) the center section has literally been welded to the front section, which I couldn't see without taking the damn thing out. I don't really care about that, personally. It's stupid, and I'll be replacing it within the next year, for sure, but for now, I need to get these two bolts out. Suggestions?

Awesome, thanks.

Uh, that's actually why I'm pulling the tranny in the first place. The pivot wore its way straight through the stamped steel of the fork itself. From what the parts guy at the nearest Soobie dealer said, he sees a half dozen or so of those a year, almost always around the 200,000 or 400,000 mile marks.

You're talking about the spring pins, yes? Good to know; I'll check them out. PP...? Sorry, I've had a bit of a day, and it's not clicking for me right now. Planned to, thanks. Any recommendations for what to seal with?

So, for those of you who may not have heard about this issue before, here's a brief recap (car is a '99 Legacy Outback wagon, 5-spd manual): Clutch completely lost pedal and became unresponsive very suddenly, just after starting up one night. Master and slave cylinders have both been replaced recently, and there's no fluid leakage. After pulling the airbox and the clutch lever boot, I saw the pivot had punched through the lever itself. Clutch doesn't slip, and I *can* technically still drive the car through rev-matching, but I'm not very good at it, and the car is high mileage (225,000 or so), so it's been parked for a little under a month. I have the replacement parts and the Haynes manual, plus access to a shop, but here's a list of a couple of questions for any old pros out there: Anyone got any tips about avoiding common mistakes? Given that the transmission itself is a rebuild and is less than 30,000 miles old, do I really need to replace the gaskets/seals/spring pins as stated in the Haynes manual, or is that stuff in there primarily to assure that dealership service departments and garage mechanics aren't liable for damages if they're reused? Is there any real danger in reusing said parts? I'm not worried about other hardware, since I have plenty of that laying around; I just figured if I really do need the gaskets and other assorted stuff they say to replace, I probably should grab it before I start to tackle this thing.

Actually, there are stickers plastered all over the engine compartment about using 3 or 4 brake fluid as hydraulic fluid in this clutch, so I made sure to grab exactly what they said. If their own choice of hydraulic fluid is eating away at their seals, I'd've thought someone would have picked up on that by now. At least, I'd hope so... And hey, everyone, guess what? On top of all this master/slave drama (sounds like a bad episode of South Park right there), I now need a new clutch fork and a pivot. Got everything bled out and functioning properly, started her up, headed out for a trip around the block, and just as I let the clutch back in to climb into my driveway, there was a pretty sharp *CHUNK* and the problem started all over again. Now I have pedal only in the bottom half of its range of motion, and it won't return to normal position without a helping hand. Popped the hood, took out the airbox and grabbed my flashlight to see that: ta daaaa! There's now a solid 15-20 mm of lateral movement in the clutch fork where it meets the slave. Specs call for 3-4 mm, max. The pivot's ball head is no longer visible, since it appears to have punched straight through the stamped steel of the fork. Wahoo. Given that the clutch itself has about 130,000 miles on it, it's also getting replaced, since the tranny has to come out to get at the fork and the pivot anyway. It's possible I may have sheared off the lip on the edge of the release bearing, but that won't matter. Time to call my uncle and trailer the car out to the shop with the hydraulic lift; this is waaaaay too much for my driveway to handle. There goes my week.

So, got the master replaced this morning, and now I'm just waiting around for a buddy to get off work to help me bleed the system. The rubber fittings in the old one were almost totally disintegrated, so that's pretty obviously what the problem was. Didn't replace the hose (mostly due to time constraints and a lack of a desire for bloody knuckles today), but I've got a spare, should that come up anytime soon. Thanks again for the help, guys.

Good plan. I should've thought of that, and I guess I'm not surprised, now that I think about it.

Nice. Thanks for the help, all. I haven't had time to get under the hood yet today, and I likely won't, but at least my hair-pulling is calming down. Aggro (named for one of Steve Irwin's crocs, I think) is my daily driver, and she doesn't like sitting idle for long. Also, I was lamenting the idea of having to swap out the clutch altogether. I'll post the results (and maybe some pics) on Tuesday, when the new part gets in.

As true as that is, how can I tell until I take it off the car and check?

The last time it was opened was the beginning of April, when I replaced the slave. It's been running fine up until now, so I'd discounted air in the line, but since I've got a big bottle of brake fluid laying around, that'll be the first thing I do in the morning. Though now that I think about it, there is a *little* tiny bit of pedal that seems to come back when it's completely depressed, but that could just be my imagination. If bleeding it doesn't make a difference, I'll take the master out and check it out. I just got ahold of my brother's Haynes manual for this car (thank you sweet zombie Jesus), to that should help speed things right along.

I'm guessing the springs got replaced for two reasons: 1.) the mechanic he was using was a pretty trustworthy guy who used to suggest stuff like that and then provide the parts at cost--he wasn't one to let that slide in order to guarantee another visit down the road; and b.) if they hadn't been replaced, would they have trucked on for another 130,000 miles? Plus, I think they're included in a clutch kit... Either way, no, I don't know for sure... The hose, though, that's interesting: the parts guy at the nearest Soobie dealer said his system recommended the hose be replaced with the master, not the slave, and none of the three guys I talked to before doing the slave said anything about the hose. Incidentally, it looked fine when I did the slave--no cracking or peeling or brittleness. Regardless, there's another on the way with the replacement master. My reason for zeroing in on the master (or possibly the clutch fork, now that that's been suggested) is that the clutch doesn't slip, it's just not engaging and disengaging properly. I'm hoping that when I get the master off the firewall, I'll see a pretty worn piston with plenty of clearance around it. That'd explain both the problem and the dirty fluid. I would have removed it today to check it out, but it's been raining here all day, and as the car's immobile at the moment, moving to drier work space wasn't an option.

Can that be fixed without dropping the transmission?

So I own a '99 Legacy Outback, 226,000+ miles, give or take. Second transmission and clutch, about 130,000 miles ago. New clutch slave cylinder less than 10,000 miles ago. I was on my way home from work the other day, when, after stopping at an intersection, I lost almost all pressure in the clutch. It felt like someone had opened the bleeder screw on the clutch slave and let all my juice spray out. First and second became very stiff to shift into, and before long I had to resort to near-perfect rev matching to get the trans to shift at all. I limped home (thankfully only about 8 blocks, with two stop signs) and popped the hood, expecting everything near the airbox to be covered in brake fluid. No such bad luck. I put a 4' square of cardboard under the firewall and pumped the clutch pedal a dozen times or more, checking for leaks. Nothing. Master cylinder's reservoir was slightly below the full line, so there was nothing leaking out. Today a friend and I were poking around, and we noticed that, with the clutch pedal depressed, the clutch fork has an awful lot of play. Like he said, I'm not all that familiar with Subaru's clutch setup, so I don't know if that kind of wobble is normal or if it's indicative of whatever's wrong. The gears don't slip at all, once they're engaged. The other odd thing is that the clutch fluid is pretty dirty, considering that it all got replaced a few months ago when I replaced the slave cylinder. I figured that'd be the case, but only if this really is a case of the internals of the master cylinder just falling apart. Previous owner was my brother (and the original owner); he said he didn't think he'd ever had the master replaced, so it's likely OEM. I've already got a new master ordered, but I'm really hoping I won't be after a new clutch as well. Ideas?

I recently called a nearby dealership to ask about these, as well as a couple of different independent parts stores, and the answer I got was the same: "If you find anything that works, let us know; we get a lot of calls about those." Checking the links in this thread revealed a lot of "Sorry, this item has been sold or removed," messages, and the link to Auto Ventshade elicited a "This product is not guaranteed to fit your vehicle," message. From what I understand, the difficulty is in the lack of an upper window frame on the doors, which makes sense. If anyone has any updated info on where one can obtain a set of these that would fit a MOY'99 Legacy Outback, I'd love to find out. And so would the parts dealers in my area.