SchwarzeEwigkt

They make spray versions of that too. Great stuff.

I let my sister borrow my Outback for 3 years. She didn't wash it even once. I was amazed at the damage the road salt did. The rear subframe is fine, but there are all kinds of things I've had to fix because of that once she gave it back. Now I run it through the car wash once a week just to hose it off when it's winter. Moral of the story here? Road salt sucks.

Mine's good after about 5k too.

How the hell did I miss that? *looks up* Oh. It's 1am. That's how. Sorry.

That sounds like a pain in my butt. I'll probably just take it off and clean it out. I wonder if the local stealer carries those gaskets. It'll be a good excuse to go down and joyride in a WRX I have no intention to buy any time soon. :-p

I Seafoamed my engine the other day. Great smoke show and it feels like I got about 10% more power than before. Plus, I got it to diesel. I've never had a fuel injected engine do that before. That was kind of fun and confused the heck out of my dad. Anyhow, my plan was to do half through the ICV and half through the PCV in order to clean out the ICV while I was at it. I ended up running all of it through the PCV because the engine flatly refused to run with the ICV hose disconnected. Now, I realize that it would constitute the world's biggest vacuum leak, but I figured it'd at least try to run. I got it to stumble for a bit by plugging up the hose partially with my thumb, but it didn't keep going. I've read that people clean their ICV's by running a bunch of Seafoam though that hose, but how? Everything was perfectly fine after I put the hose for it back on the fitting on the intake. Is that normal? Did I miss something? Maybe that's a symptom of something goofy going on with the ICV. The engine was fully warmed up and it idles normally, maybe a little lumpy when cold. Think I should get another ICV gasket and pull it off for a look?

I have a hammer I use in situations like that. It's been named "The Persuader." Sounds like even it may not be mighty enough.

Nobody has asked so far if it's burning it or leaking it. If it's leaking, you'll see it on stuff underneath. If that's the case, you can identify the leaky part and go from there. If it's burning it, then all of the above apply.

I'd like to add my praise for Trans-X. I recently did a drain-fill-drive-drain-fill-drive-drain-transx-fill on mine and it was a HUGE improvement. I had done the drain-drive-fill dance about 30k ago and it wasn't nearly as good, even with some Lucas tranny stuff on there too. Shifts better, torque bind is gone, delay for engagement is much less. All around better. I can say, though, that Trans-X smells vile. Really stinky stuff. Made me gag.

I did a writeup on this six or seven years ago and determined that the cost is just too much to be bothered with. For me, anyway. It was going to be something like $1800 to do that on my '97 Outback. I looked into it because I was concerned my 4EAT was going to fail soon and wanted to know options. For what it's worth, it hasn't 75k later and all I've done is flush the fluid a couple times and put in some Lucas transmission treatment the first time (did a little good) and Trans-X the second time (did lots of good). Oh, and I replaced the little filter for the MAP sensor that had cracked and caused a vacuum leak and thus rough(er) shifting. But to answer your question, no not from that vintage. You'll need a transmission, clutch release hardware, flywheel, clutch, different crossmember, pedal box, clutch switch, driveshaft for a manual, shifter, linkage and hardware, interior trim pieces, differential, wiring all from a 95-99 (IIRC). And you'll need to trick the ECU. You might do better if you buy a parts car with a blown engine or rear end damage that totaled it but didn't compromise the drivetrain. If your reasoning is anything other than "I love my car more than my free time and any amount of money" it may make more sense to get a different car that already has a 5MT. There are quite a few writeups on this topic if you search around.

My philosophy is that if that doesn't work, it ain't coming apart and you need a new one. Sounds like you got a plan.

I ended up taking the block with the broken bolt in it and torching it. I was able to get the bolt out then. After that, I ran a tap through the block to clean the threads up. A got a couple replacement tensioner bolts from the local dealership. I think they were $5. It's working fine, though I think I got a faulty belt. It keeps loosening up, so I think it's stretching. I've got to go out and mess with it yet.

I didn't have any trouble on my '97. I was a smudge below full.

Yeah? Mine's rusting on the driver side but the strut mount is fine. A few others I looked at are similar. I always thought it was that they rolled the panel in a dumb way. For what it's worth, I'm going to grind out the bad stuff, hit it with rust reformer/primer stuff, and leave a hole. I could care less.

As far as I know, it's just a rebranded stop leak.

As an owner of an engine with variable cam timing, I can tell you that it's the nuts. When it's not broken.

Last time I did this I just put a 2x4 on the axle and gave it a whack with my 5lb sledge. Came right out. You might want to squirt a little penetrant on the splined part of the axle and rap on it a bit with a hammer just to try to shake any corrosion out. Don't whack it too hard, though; if you peen it over you'll never get it out and frankly will probably end up having to replace the axle altogether. For what it's worth, way back when I first got my car I had to have an axle and spindle replaced because the axle froze to the spindle. No amount of pounding or even torching the poor thing got it out. It was stuck. EDIT: Eh, never mind. You probably though of that. I read your post and then though of something else entirely. Moral of the story, don't post when too tired.

There's 4qt in a gallon. :-p But, seriously, if you get a bottle of straight coolant and not the premixed stuff, you'll have 8qt after you're done mixing it.

Yup.

My '97 did not come with keyless; I had to install it.

No kidding. The Haynes book said you can check it by unplugging the sensor or something and watching the gauge. Are there two sensors, one for the gauge and the one for the ECU?

It doesn't really feel like a fuel delivery problem, though. I've also noticed it when I make trips to other places in flat ground if I'm accelerating harder than normal, say I need to outrun someone slow to a lane merge or I'm feeling like driving in a slightly more spirited manner. I've also considered that it might something odd about the coolant temperature sensor. No codes and the gauge operates normally as far as I can tell. Dunno. I'm considering taking out the EGR and checking it out. I did notice that the Haynes manual wants you to remove the pipe from the exhaust manifold when you pull the EGR. Any reason I can't just disconnect that inlet pipe right at the EGR when I remove the valve itself?

Nope. It's just a run of the mill EJ25D. I used the word "boost" to describe the little increase in power. I had hoped the quotes would clarify what I meant. Sorry.

Check the crank position sensor on top of the oil pump housing too. That one got me last time I ripped it all apart. Had me stumped for 8hr until I realized it wasn't plugged in all the way.

So, I have a kind of interesting thing going on with my '97 Outback with a 4EAT. I'll have a sudden increase in power about a third of the way through my admittedly short trip to and from work. It's not much, maybe 10%. I had initially thought it was the engine switching from open to closed loop or something that has a hard transition on it, but that didn't makes much sense considering that it always does it climbing the same couple of hills. It occurred to me that it can't be warmup since ambient temperature has no effect on it. It's the same when it's 40 out as it is when it's 10. I've also noted that once the "boost" kicks in, it stays that way until the car sits overnight. It's like a valve opens or something. I always notice it when accelerating up the same hill at about 40-45mph with the engine at 2700-3200RPM, so in third gear. It feels like a little VTEC kicking in, even. After that first time, the "VTEC stays kicked in, yo." There's a short list of things that could cause that kind of behavior as far as I know. It did it in a more pronounced manner before I did plugs, wires, air filter and timing stuff, kind of a "wimpy" to "there it is" kind of transition more like a 30% increase in power. The O2 sensor was changed about 2k ago to correct a rich running/crappy milage problem. It didn't affect the power increase behavior. I did the fuel filter since I had one and it was overdue. That hasn't changed it either, though it seems to idle slightly better. PCV was done a while back, not that it should have anything to do with it. It idles and runs as well as it has since I've owned it and gets acceptable milage (17-19mpg on snows and winter gas on a 8mi round trip commute). I'm thinking that IAC isn't the problem since that closes at anything above idle (right?) and would probably throw a code if it was stuck. It's not open loop vs. closed loop since it would depend on ambient temperature as opposed to spatial position and I expect the new O2 sensor would have caused a change. There's no vacuum leaks I can find and I'd think they'd cause other issues. That leaves one other thing: the EGR. I'm theorizing that it sticks until the engine warms a bit and I get a low vacuum situation like half throttle up a hill at 3k*rpm, where it pops loose and starts injecting stabilizing gases, allowing the timing to advance a few degrees or something. Maybe it's a stretch, but that's why it's a theory. As far as I know, it's the original, so over 207k on it. I'm pretty sure it works, though I honestly haven't the slightest idea how to test it. I would expect that the thing would be pretty well carbonized at that milage. This begs the question "How can I test it?" It also begs "Can I clean it out by taking it off and hosing it down with carb cleaner or Seafoam or something?" What do you guys think?