SchwarzeEwigkt

+1 to that. My rear bearings are original and have over 200k on them.

I've got a 3/8" and 1/2" drive one. Both of mine are pretty close to the fairly expensive 1/2" clicker my dad bought years ago, one that we've considered "close enough" and hasn't caused any issues. I haven't had a single issue with either of my HF torque wrenches and have used them for about five years.

I replaced one of my wheel bearings not too long ago. Took the knuckle off, took it to a shop and had them press in a new bearing and a new hub. Cost be $95 plus parts (either $75 or $100). Took me about three hours total once I stopped screwing around and got out a big hammer to persuade the strut mounting bolts. I'll bet I could do it in an hour if I had to do it again.

The Haynes book has a table in it with all the available shim sizes and part numbers too. The trick is to take them out, measure them, figure out which shims can be reused and which ones you need to replace. Get the ones you need from the dealer, you're good to go. I do wonder, though, if you're sticking to the temperature requirements; the book mentions it needs to be between 50 and 70 degrees out, IIRC. Are you doing this in a heated garage? If not, you'd better wait until it warms up.

It could just be the release bearing. I had one on a '96 Legacy that did the exact same thing. It'd make kind of a whooshing/light grinding sound until it got loaded against the diaphragm. Ended up identifying it by playing with the release fork, specifically pushing against it with a 2x4 or something to slightly load the bearing. You could also do the same thing by pressing the clutch pedal a bit. Once we pulled it all apart, the throwout bearing was wiggly and rough compared to a known good new one. On the bright side, if that's the problem, it's a cheapish part. If you pull it out, you can check it for play and roughness. However, you've got to pull the tranny to get to it. Might as well do the clutch and have the flywheel resurfaced if need be. This isn't a hard job, it's just a lot of work and the tranny is pretty heavy. I also find it hard to believe that it'd cost $3500 to get the tranny rebuilt. That sounds more like a remanufactured tranny. Here's what I would do, for what it's worth: Pull the tranny and replace the clutch, pilot bearing and throwout bearing. Inspect the flywheel and pull it to have it resurfaced at a machine shop if need be Put it all back together and try it, especially if the throwout bearing was screwed up If it's fixed, rejoice. If not find an independent shop that is comfortable with Subaru 5MT's and ask for a quote to have the just the tranny rebuilt, not removed and reinstalled. I was quoted $1200 a while back to have my 4EAT rebuilt, so I'd expect a similar quote for the 5MT. Alternatively, source a used one. Take the tranny out, have them rebuild it or turn in your core, put it/the replacement back in. It's a bunch of physical work, but it's not hard, especially once you get comfortable with the way it goes together. It took me and my friend about eight hours end to end to replace his clutch, me having a fair bit of home-mechanic's experience but never disassembling a Subaru drivetrain before and him never having worked on a car before. You'll be sore, but it'll save you a boatload on labor.

+1 to bad bearing. I've had this happen a couple times, actually. Last time, I had to have a used knuckle put on because the spindle froze to the axle. Anyhoo, the most recent time I had a rumble and a squeal. I pulled the knuckle off, ordered a new bearing (and later a new spindle because the old one was murdered by the bad bearing) and took it to a shop in a box. They charged me a hour of labor to press it all apart and install the new parts. Cost me about $200 total, IIRC. Maybe a bit less, plus a few hours ripping the front suspension apart (again...)

The wheel bearings are designed to have the axles bolted in place over them to provide an axial load and hold it all down.

I had an intermittent quick-flash like a bulb was burned out and it just turned out to be dirty. Cleaned it up, put some dielectric grease in there, good as new. Don't know if your problem is being caused by the same thing, but my experience says "+1 to spending 15min and cleaning the connections because it might be that simple."

Replacing the valve cover gaskets isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be. I did mine on my '97 Outback when I did my whole timing-belt-and-everything-else thing. I can say that those ratcheting box wrenches are absolutely required. There's no room for sockets on either two or four of the bolts. It can be done with a regular box wrench, but i'll take your entire life. To give you an idea, it took me an hour to take one side off. After that, I found my ratcheting box wrench set and the second one took about 15min.

I plan to try this myself. ...after it stops snowing.

I installed that on my '97 OBW several years ago. I'll see if I can dig up the stuff I wrote up on it.

I got a kit from mizumo auto on ebay with all the idlers, a belt, seals (which leak, though that may be my fault ) and a water pump for $180. So far so good.

This happened to me when I did my timing belt. My stupid rump roast didn't plug the camshaft position sensor back in. Are you sure yours is plugged in, or for that matter, working? Also, it threw a code for the crank sensor circuit too. I couldn't tell until later since the CEL was on because it wasn't running. You might want to get a code puller and see if it's on about something.

I said they were too tight, not that there wasn't any clearance. The ones that are tight are about 1/1000th too tight, so they're still closing and staying closed plenty long enough to cool off. Head gaskets have already been replaced with the revised ones. Regardless, I'm going to put this to bed: Phase 1 EJ25's are DOHC. They have shim-over-bucket direct actuation valve systems. They started in '96 and went to '99 in Legacies but hung around for longer in other models IIRC. Phase 2 EJ25's are SOHC. They have rocker arms with screw type lash-adjusters. They showed up in '98 in Foresters IIRC. EJ22's are SOHC. They have rocker arms and hydraulic lash-adjusters. ALL EJ25's need their valves adjusted periodically. The EJ25D with the shim-over-bucket ones are a pain to adjust but doable; see above about the screwdriver and such. A shop can do it but it'll cost a fortune because it's a long job. The SOHC EJ25's are easy to adjust. You only need your feeler gauges, a screwdriver and a wrench (after pulling the valve covers, of course). HLA's don't need to be adjusted; they adjust themselves. They need to be replaced once in a great while if they gum up and start to stick. If you don't adjust your valves, at best the valvetrain gets noisy. At worst, it tightens up and you burn exhaust valves. Typically what happens is the intakes loosen up and the exhausts tighten up. If you don't adjust it, the intakes clatter, the exhaust valves fry and you pull the heads and do a valve job. A valve job WILL cost more than shimming your valves, especially if you are lucky enough to be able to reuse some shims. Moral of the story: If you own an engine without hydraulically adjusted valves, adjust them once in a while. Fun fact: Most modern engines are hydraulically adjusted unless they're performance engines. HLA's tend to start to collapse and cause oil to cavitate at high RPM's and adversely affect valve lift and thus output. Example of a "normal" motor vs. a high performance one: BMW M54B25 2.5L Inline 6 used in the 3 and 5 series, Z's 189HP at 5900RPM, redline 6500RPM Maintenance free DOHC rocker arm/HLA valvetrain BMW S45B32 3.2L Inline 6 used in the M3 and Z3/4 M Roadster and Coupe 333HP at 7900RPM, redline 8000RPM Shim-over-bucket DOHC valvetrain, adjustment required every 100k*mi

My '97 has buckets and shims. And I need to adjust them. Just can't be bothered at the moment. A couple exhausts are a little too tight and a couple intakes are a little too loose. It's fine. I'll adjust it next summer.

It lives! Turns out what I thought was the oil pressure sensor and knew was plugged in was the crank position sensor and it WASN'T plugged in. I thought the thing on top of the oil pump was the pressure sensor and the light told me I had oil pressure. Go figure. Anyhoo, plugged it in, it fired right up and ran great. Had a CEL, so I test drove it across town to the nearest Advance and pulled the code. Sure enough, it was for the crank position sensor. Cleared it, all good. Anyway, I plan to post writeup as soon as I get around to writing it up. Thanks for the help, guys!

Oh, oh. Other thing to mention: it doesn't sputter, fire or anything of the sort like it's even trying. It feels like it's completely out of gas.

I don't know where the crank angle sensor is, though I did look at the cam angle sensor above the driver side intake cam. It's definitely plugged in. Something I didn't remember to mention is that there's a buzzing noise coming from the engine bay when the ignition is on, the engine isn't running and the throttle is opened some. I don't think I've ever heard that, but I don't think I've ever opened the throttle with the ignition on and the engine not running before. It seems to be coming from somewhere under the airbox or at least in that area. Might not be relevant, but I figured I'd mention it. I'm looking forward to trying some of this stuff out; I'm at work right now and won't have a chance to play with it for a while.

I didn't unplug anything but the washer stuff, the MAF and the plug wires. Oh, and the oil pressure sender. Maybe I undid one by accident. I checked them, but I can recheck.

No offense taken at all. Worth asking, in fact. Notch on the back of the crank sprocket lining up with the notch in the block (pointing straight up), intake cams with single mark pointing up and lining up with the inner timing cover notches, exhaust cams with double notches lining up with the ones on the intake cams and the single mark lining up with the marks on the inner covers. Not with the arrows.

I'm almost positive I've got it right, but it's easy enough for me to pull the covers and check it.

If I had something off when timing it, wouldn't I have felt something during my test? I didn't feel anything, had to overcome no resistance other than the cams and didn't have to push hard at all. In fact, I used my 18" T-bar and set it in the middle.

I'm reasonably sure I got the timing right because it sounds normal; nothing is hanging up, crashing, clanking or banging; I checked all the marks and tooth counts like 30 times and I spun it without spark plugs with a breaker bar and it spun without any sort of issues. I haven't yet checked for spark, but the reason I assume it's fuel delivery is that there's no smell at all. I'll have to try that trick out. I wonder if something went wrong with the filter in the month it was parked. It ran fine when I put it in the garage...well, until the battery died. Yup. Full, in fact.

Nope, didn't need to. I did timing belt, pulleys, water pump, seals, VCG's, spark plugs and wires. Nothing I needed to depressurize the fuel lines for. Plus, if I pulled/blew the fuse, I wouldn't hear that brief hum from the back of the car when setting the key to "ON," correct?

Well, it's all back together. Timing belt was lined up perfectly; checked about 30 times. Spins around fine, no noise or anything. So, I went to start it...and it won't start. Doesn't even sputter. Cranks, has compression, sounds just like it did before I took it apart when starting, it just won't kick over. How annoying. I cranked it a whole bunch of times and didn't smell any kind of fuel smell in the garage anywhere. I think something is going on with fuel delivery. I can hear the fuel pump when I turn it on initially. Hrmph. Any ideas?