hohieu

98 Foresters have the dreaded 2.5 DOHC that leak internally. 99- Foresters have the 2.5 SOHC, which can leak externally.

The torque on the crankshaft pulley bolt presses the t-belt gear against the snout of of the cranshaft. This torque holds the gear in place while the woodruff key is merely a guide for installing. If your crankshaft pulley bolt was that loose, it's possible that the pulley was shifting along the snout and not making full contact with with the belt, which could, in turn, cause the belt to slip. Knock sensor code is really no big deal. Disconnect and unbolt the connecter and inspect the sensor. If it's cracked, you'll need to replace it in the near future. Otherwise just clean the contact surfaces and reinstall. Check the idlers while you're in there. The toothed one is most highly loaded and tends to be the one to go. If you're not replacing them, it's also possible to regrease them. The hydraulic tensioner should be compressed very slowly, otherwise you could blow out the seal. I put mine in a vise and crank down little by little as I'm doing the work. BTW, year, model, and mileage would help. Good luck.

Often times, brake pads will come with a packet of grease, but I've had good luck with the permatex synthetic grease. It's available in little packets, and my local autozone also sells it in 8 oz. bottles (#24110) with brush applicator cap. The grease is a translucent green. I like because it does not dry out, will not react with rubber like petroleum based greases, and is even compatible with brake fluid. Hence you can even use it to lubricate the caliper pistons when rebuilding your calipers. Make sure to clean out all the old grease off your guide and lock pins as well as the bores into which they go. You don't need much at all, about 5-7 grams is more than enough per axle. When you remove the caliper pins, take note of the orientation of the lock pin (yellow with a runner ring around the tip) and guide pin (green) and reassemble them accordingly. If you get them mixed up, just remember that the brake hose will allow the caliper to pivot up around the guide pin. I use a cheaper tub of petroleum based disc brake grease for the back of and contact surfaces of the pads. If your pads came with grease, you could use that here. Just a thin layer here is all you need. If you're reusing the old brake hardware, clean off the old grease and corrosion with a little wire brush. And, of course, avoid getting grease on the rotors and friction side of the brake pads. I replaced the pads & rotors and rebuilt the calipers on my '99 forester at 131K. Depending on the mileage of and how long you plan to keep your car, I would rebuild the calipers. There's no sense in having a stuck caliper piston ruin a new set of pads and rotors. Complete caliper rebuild kits by Beck/Arnley are available from rockauto.

The lower right idler used be a single-row flanged bearing. According to Subaru, it has been superseded by a double-row non-flanged bearing that is identical to the upper right idler. In any case, this is a low load idler pulley so either should work.

The noise is probably coming from your starter, which is in the rear left (driver's) side of the engine bay. (just behind the dash and above the pedals as you indicated). A rapid clicking sound usually indicates a bad battery or poor connections to the battery. If the problem persists after cleaning all the connections as suggested by mwatt, I would have the battery checked. Internal corrosion in the starter lead cable that runs from the positive battery terminal directly to the starter solenoid can also cause these symptoms so also check the resistance there. A single click usually indicates bad solenoid contacts. If you have a Nippon Denso starter, these are very easily replaced. On the Mitsubishi starters, it's more of chore.

If it's stuck closed or clogged, oil can also be forced into the breather tube attached to the air filter box, which can also wreak havoc on any sensors downstream from this vent.

Sorry to utter the big no-no here, but Honda specifies 10 years/120 miles for the factory fill, then 5 years/60K miles thereafter. I noticed this doing some work on my sister's 2005 Pilot. As for the long life coolant debate, I've been using Havoline Dex Cool in my 99 forester for the past 60K+ miles with no problems. I do replace the coolant approximately every 3 years/50K miles. As far as I know, it's true that Dexcool does more readily react with pressurized air pockets. But I would argue that GM also has a quality control problem with their gaskets and seals, one that has been exacerbated by Dex Cool's chemical proclivities. Maybe a plastic intake manifold bolted to an aluminum engine isn't such bright idea? Unless you also want to blame synthetic oil for leaky (plastic) rear separator covers, I am not convinced that Dex-Cool is the problem. People are running this long life (OAT) coolant in a lot of cars with no ill effects.

Good point, Nipper -- and high heat and humidity resulting in a decrease in brake fluid viscosity and more water vapor to be absorbed only adds to the problem. I was thinking of a recall on brake master cylinders, where similar hydraulic symptons would appear in extreme cold. http://auto-recalls.justia.com/content/99V040000-SUBARU-FORESTER-1999.html Whereas the Endwrench links suggest replacing the slave cylinder, hose, and washers, I had only the slave cylinder repair kit on hand and reused the old washers, which did the trick. Pedal feel is firmer and more consistent. The repair kit comes with a new pistion & seal, piston spring, rubber boot, and bleed valve cap. After you've removed the slave cylinder, it takes only another 5 minutes to clean the cylinder & install the new parts from the kit.

Once you have the timing belt off, replacing the tensioner and idler pulleys is simple. If you haven't already seen it, here's the pertinent Endwrench link: http://endwrench.com/images/pdfs/2.5Timing.pdf

99 Forester, 134.5K miles We've been suffering through a heat wave on the east coast for the past week with temperatures in the mid- to high 90s. After about 20 minutes of city driving this afternoon, my clutch pedal went soft, disengaging the clutch at the bottom 1/3 of travel and, at certain points, sticking to the floor. After the car cooled down a bit, pedal action went back to normal. I didn't feel like getting stuck in bumper to bumper, mid-summer metro traffic so I rebuilt the slave cylinder with a Subaru kit. The cylinder bore surfaces looked perfect, but the old piston seal showed a bit of wear. I would have thought that extremely cold conditions leading to shrinking seals would be more likely to cause this type of failure. For those who experience the same problem, here are the pertinent links that have been posted on the site. http://endwrench.com/images/pdfs/ClutchPedal.pdf http://endwrench.com/images/pdfs/ClutchInfoWin04.pdf There is a discrepancy between the Factory Service Manual (FSM) and the Endwrench links for the torque value on the banjo bolt -- 13 +/- 2.2 ft-lbs. and 27 +/-2 ft-lbs., respectively. And according to the FSM, the mounting bolts for the slave cylinder should be torqued to 27.2 +/-2.2 ft.-lbs.

Sorrry to hear about your troubles.

+1 on taking thermal expansion into account.

Probably on the passenger side above the catalytic converter, right? Inner ones tend to go first. My right inner boot went at 6 yearts/90k miles and the driver's side inner boot went year later. If you discovered the split before any serious contamination, I would replace the boots on both alxles and rotate them. These OEM NTN half shafts hold up pretty well.

Are you talking about the rear main seal or the pinion seal for the rear differential?

I doubt that she regularly replaced the coolant (nor any of the other fluids) so it's a real credit to this particular water pump. It's good though that she did have the engine oil replaced regularly. One improvement to the new pump is the placement of the weep hole. On the original pump, it's located on the bottom, blocked from view by the crank pulley, and requiring you to get under the car to trace the leak. On the new pump, it's right on top and can be seen standing in front of the hood. In my 10k miles of ownersphip, I've replaced all the fluids a couple of times (ATF, transfer case fuild, front & rear differentials, brake fluid) and now the coolant. The rear differential oil was black when I first drained it -- guess that's how gear oil gets after 200k miles. After new front & rear crank shaft seals, oil pan gasket, valve cover gasket, and some other odds and ends, the car leaks nothing, consumes perhaps 1/2 qts. of oil/3k miles, and it still gets the EPA estimated 20 to 21 mpg on the highway. I'm very impressed by these earlier Cherokee models. When you acquire an older car like this, it always takes a while to find and fix all the problems, none of which were serious. In addition to the water pump and t-stat, I've also replaced or rebuilt the following over the past year or so: - shocks with KYB GR-2s - steering stablizer - front sway bar end links - vehicle speed sensor - bulbs and fuses - rebuilt front brake calipers (brakes were acutally smoking due seized front caliper) - rebuilt the neutral safety switch After a new alternator, this car could go the distance...

When you have multiple things going all at once, not uncommon after an overheating, it's hard to pinpoint the culprit. Funny thing is that I did hear some intermittent faint scraping noises that would usually arise when I turned on the AC and and then subside. I feared that the compressor was starting to punk out, but I now realize that it was the extra load on the belt that caused the water pump impeller to scrape against the housing. I've attached a picture of the old pump that shows the circular scrape marks on the housing -- still pretty incredible to me that the original pump lasted that long. I wonder how much longer it might have gone if not for the overheating.

Well, I decided to go ahead and replace the H20 pump and t-stat. After running some prestone super cleaner through the system for the past week, I removed the old pump, and it really was on its way out. It hadn't started weeping, but the play in the bearing caused the stamped impeller to wear grooves into pump housing, similar to grooves on a poorly worn brake rotor. I more or less confirmed that the old pump is the original OEM pump. Along with reasons previously stated, the manufacturing info. casting on my old pump also matched that on the pump pictured in my Haynes manual. The good news is that the cooling system channels appeared to be in great shape with almost no corrosion. The bad news is that the whistling is still present, and as Nipper inferred, it does appear that it's my alternator. The noise is still faint so I'll just wait until its starts to really scream or until the voltage gauge on the dash starts to dip below normal levels. Thanks for all your input.

I should add that it's definitely a high pitched, faint, whistle and not a belt screech or chirp. It's most noticeable due to the change in pitch during accelearation or deceleration between idle (@750 rpm) up to about 2000 rpm. If I hold it at 1200 rpm or so, it's barely audible, and bove 2000 rpm, it's inaudible, perhaps because engine noise drowns it out. Really hard to pinpoint the noise. I was out there with some tubing and put it up to all the accessories and couldn't locate the noise. I sprayed water around the vacuum hoses to check for leaks, even though it runs and idles perfectly fine. I also sprayed the accessory pulleys as suggested by Nipper with no effect. It spins smoothly & freely, perhaps a little too freely as compared to a new pump. We acquired the this car from my mother-in-law, who was the original owner, and she had no record of the WP ever having been replaced. Her records may be incomplete, but the oxidation on the water pump is consitent with that on the adjacent aluminum power steering bracket. If it's indeed the original pump, after 205K miles/17 years, it might not be a bad idea to swap in a new one for peace of mind. Ah yes, I forgot to mention that this is the 4.0L l-6 egine. The distributor looks good. I'll check this out but doubt it's the problem. The whistling isn't very loud at all. Nipper, I hope you're wrong about the alternator, but I'll check the pulley again when I take the belt off.

My front seals didn't come packed with grease either, but my rear main seal does. Don't know if it's high temp grease, but you don't need to remove it. It's assembly grease that provides some initial lubrication while the seal breaks in.

This is the setup on my 99 Forester. There are three seals per wheel in the rear and 2 per wheel in the front. "Inner" and "outer" refers to the orientation with respect to the bearing. Somtimes inner seal #1 (in the ESM diagram) is referred to as an intermediate seal, and inner seal #2, as AE said, is just a dust seal. There's no dust seal in the front, because a dust shield is already pressed onto the outer cv joint. It would be simpler and better if the rear half shafts had a similar, integrated dust shield.

Wish I could. Unlike our Subes which have two accesory belts, these 4.0 L straight six have one serpentine belt driving all accessories.

My brother-in-law overheated our '91 XJ at around 195K miles -- a leaky bypass hose causing loss of coolant and the radiator to melt. Now at 205K miles, I hear a whistling that changes pitch with engine speed. I suspected the water pump was going south and took off the belt to confirm and also find a tiny bit of in & out play in the water pump pulley. I replaced the idler pulley, which was leaking grease and had some play lateral play, but all other accessory pulleys had no play or roughness. The whistling is unchanged, and I should add that the engine idles and performs normally otherwise. Does this confirm my suspicions? Any other thoughts?

My brother-in-law overheated our '91 XJ at around 195K miles. A leaky bypass hose causing loss of coolant and the radiator to melt. Now at 205K miles, I hear a whistling noise from the engine bay that changes pitch with engine speed. The engine idles and performs normally. I suspected the water pump was going south and took off the belt to confirm to also find a tiny bit of in & out play in the water pump pulley. Does this confirm my suspicions? Any other thoughts?

Yes, your hunch is correct. They are indeed the same. I replaced cam and crankshaft seals for my 99 Forester with part numbers 806732150 & 806733030, respectively.

No special tools needed to remove the crank pulley bolt. Here are some notes I posted after doing the T-Belt on my 99 Forester 2.5 SOHC. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=61525 If you're planning to replace the 3 front seals, which most here would advise, you should crack the cam pulley bolts just a bit before removing the T-belt -- it will make removing them a easier after the belt is off. I used pipe wrench (visegrips with a chain) over a section of the old belt to hold the crank pulleys still while removing and installing the bolts. Check the idler pulleys, epspecially the toothed one, which I replaced for peace of mind. If there's no play in them, it's also possible to regrease them. You already have the Endwrench article on T-belt service for the 2.2 SOHC engine, right? The procedure is almost identical to to the EJ25 Phase II engine.