MaddCelt

98 Legacy OBW - 166,300 miles. Replaced engine at 166,200.

This past weekend I broke down and had the engine replaced in my 98 OBW and the proccess was quite interesting. Turned out it had a cracked head and burnt valves. My certified Subie mechanic took a second gen block, slapped on first gen DOC heads and canabalized parts from a few other 2.5's in the garage. Added electricity and SHE LIVES!!!! And runs better now than she did the first time I brought her back to life. He had mentioned a few weeks before that he had found out that the head of the 1Gen fit the 2Gen block and said it gave more power. Anyone here done this and have more details on performance of such an engine?

thank you for the offer Larry, might take you up on it regardless. Never hurts to have backups. I'll have to drag out the meter and test them.

98 OBW, 2.5 Ok, been getting misfire codes for a while and decided to take my lunch and play grease monkey. I started with pulling injector wires. 1/3 pulled had little effect on the engine, 2/4 had negetive reaction. I retested 1 & 3 and I noticed a slight change, mainly when plugging them back in it it was slight. Ideas?

Picked up OEM wires and will be installing them later today. Stopped in to the local dealer shop and talked to them and they also recommended starting with the wires and plugs.

I read in another forum after doing some research that a guy replaced his upstream O2 sensor and it corrected a misfire issue. Mine has been on there for who knows how long and I read that they are good for about 100K, which I have long since exceeded.

Checked the fuses this morning and all looked good, no sign of burning. Yesterday it was at it's worst, misfiring bad enough at idle to shake the car. Also noticed hesitation until I got the rpm's up. That is another frustration, the issue can be near non-existent or bad like yesterday.

Advanced Auto. I just replaced it last month.

I have had an ongoing issue with sporatic misfires with my 98 OBW. No pattern as to when it happens, either under load or idle and it can come and go as it pleases. Swapped out the coil, new alt. A week or so back I got ready to head to work and noticed that the light on my rechargable light was doing a flicker in sync with the rough idle of the engine for about 3 or 4 mins, then slowly faded away. This happened again last week. Anyone have an idea what this could be and if it may be linked to the misfiring issue? Thank you

Feb 13th, 2011 May 20th, 2011 4/17/2012

If the junk yard doesn't charge much, I will grab the unit that came out of that OBW and solve it that way. From the sounds of it I was told that mine is fried.

98 factory installed

Ok, another problem. When I plug the wiring harness back into the unit it begins to blink repeatedly for a while, then stop for about a min then resumes. I found the button (Very small thing in the middle of all kinds of other things) and pressed it according to instructions and the blinking doesn't change. Ideas?

Will this Work with this?

I happened across a fob at the junk yard that might work with my 98 OWB. I crawled under the dash trying to hunt down the button everyone talks of but did not find it. Only thing that I can figure is there is a two tones wire teminating into one of the plugs but was cut with no other end to match to. Can some one, or has someone have pics of what I would be looking for and maybe the wiring harness for the unit out of the car I can refer to?

Made an attempt to change the shift linkage without success, could not get the bolt off and found mine has a rivet not a pin on the front. I'm glad I tried tho. I noticed some oil on the oil filter and thought it odd. Turned out that it was not tight. That would not been good had I not noticed it. I also swapped out a fraying seatbelt and working on redoing the bottom seat supports that are shot.

Picked up a cargo cover for my OBW and got the missing hardware yasterday. Got the hardware installed and now have a working cover.

Finally got my rear side window replaced (Got to contact McBrat for more decals), replaced the ignition coil, replaced missing intake piece ans got a new set of tires. Also picked up a retractable cargo cover for $20

Anyone in the Sparta/Florence, KY region skilled with working on Outbacks?

Pulled and tested the coil and got 1.9 on the primary resistance test (.73 +/- 10% is norm), tested all the plug wires, changed the battery trying to resolve my 1&2 cylinder misfires. Installed interesting magnetic stem caps.

t-stat is factory Not sure on the hg's, those were purchased before I bought it. Levels are good. Heat went to 3/4 and stayed there while I was idling at a construction stop point this morning. Went back to half once rolling again.

The hg's are less than a year old as is the radiator cap and t-stat. One thing that came to mind is the heater hose is not factory and had to make due with what I could get, might be a pinch point there that prevents the hot water to flow until the pressure is up. Will check the levels in a few.

Ok, have an odd issue for someone to solve. 1998 Legacy OWB 2.5 Issue is that yesterday I was out waiting to pick up my roomate from work and needed to warm up. So I fired her up and noticed the heat wasn't blowing out very warm, yet the engine was still close to normal temp at the time. I first thought my new t-stat went bad until I brought the RPM's up and the heat improved. the drive home was more than warm enough. One other thing I noticed is that she likes to run 3/4 on the thermometer when I am at an idle but when I either increase the rpm's at an idle or get moving past about 35 mph. Not over heating issues any other time. Thoughts?

Are the injectors from a 1995 outback the same as a 98 OBW?

I'll hit the u pull it and grab one at some point. Just trying to narrow down the misfire codes I keep getting. Stil need to check the coil and related areas. Hopefully I can come across the tools to do it. Can't afford to take it to the mech and don't have the $ to get the tools to do a proper troubleshooting.