jboymechanic

Thanks guy!

Nope, believe it or not all the cleaners are government regulated and any ingredients that are identified as carcinogens are red-listed an cannot be used. The vast majority of cleaning products these days are pretty safe. You still have to be carefull about high or low ph and getting chemical burns, but that is another story.

What do you do about the differences between the EJ25 block and the EJ22 heads? I understand using the gasket to match the block, but not all of the openings match the head, do you just go ahead and put them on as-is?

Well, this will be the third Subaru vehicle I will be using Fel Pro head gaskets on, the previous two never had an issue afterwards. I've had good experiences with Fel Pro, not knockin' the dealer parts, but I think the Fel Pros are just as good.

Tom, A good product to clean out a gas tank like this would be GP Forward (Diversey stuff that you probably work with). Grab a gallon from work and ship it to any one that agrees to help you out. It will clean out the tank and it has ingredients that act as rust inhibitors on clean steel surfaces (my brother is a chemist and he recommended this to me for all my Imperial parts that I acid dipped and needed to clean afterwards). I'll check work for a gallon as well.

The dealers want $70 for a wheel cover, a new tank would probably be $500.

I'm about to do this build and I purchased Fel Pro head gaskets for the EJ25 and they even have the Fuji Heavy logo in them. I definitely plan on rolling the engine over slowly by hand while it's on the stand before I assume everything is good to go and drop it in the car.

Looks like you've got a pretty good sized hole there on the driver side, how is the passenger side. Looks pretty good in the pictures, is that really the case?

Well, it appears the link doesn't work, but I just entered your car's info into the car-part.com search and came up with tanks as cheap as $45 and as close as TN. http://www.car-part.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi Your other option would be to repair the one you have, you can always cut out the rotten areas and weld in a patch. Be extremely careful if you take this route, you must make sure that all of the gas vapors have aired out. Then epoxy seal the tank. Again, how long to you plan on owning the car and do you want the piece of mind knowing it was done right once and never again.

So at this point are you going to strip out all of the rear suspension, clean the underside of the car and seal it up with POR15? And the same with your suspension components? Any leads on a new gas tank? I had to have my restored in the Imperial, cost $500 but it is guarranteed for life.

I have found that the "Hammer Finish" spray paint is excellent as well for hiding surface flaws on pitted metal. The finish is very hard and durable and the texture is very consistent as well. The only drawback is that the color selection is very limited. Keep up the good work Tom!

Looked pretty cheap, thought I'd see if any one had experience.

Blunt lights?

Do they still call them "map lights" in new cars? Who the hell uses maps any more? I guess old folks probably do, so Buicks can have map lights while most other cars just have interior lights.

Do these work worth a ************ and are they durable? http://www.ebay.com/itm/ALL-YEARS-SUBARU-HITACHI-R160-DIFF-/200679405560#vi-content

Those rocker sections are going to be life savers, he did a great job giving you plenty to work with. Time to start practice welding on scrap before you weld on your car. As for the lines, next time I see you I'll lend you my flaring tool. Did all of the stainless lines in the '56 Imperial with it and not a single leak in that system. It's okay to splice into a good line so long as good flares made. If you're going to hold onto this car for a long time, you may consider using stainless or other nickel-copper alloy lines. Not that much more expensive that steel lines and you'll never have to worry about it again.

That's kind of what I thought. I've rebuilt old three speed autos before, but I have never tore into a Subaru manual trans, kind of why I wanted to stick to a rear differential.

How difficult would it be to put the Helical Gear LSD in the trans? Is this diff below all I need, or will addition parts be required? This style of LSD should be acceptable for daily street use as the helical gear design should still allow each of the front wheels to spin at different speeds through turns, yes? http://www.ebay.com/itm/180828335051?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649#ht_2507wt_1110

In that case, what vehicles would have an LSD unit that would be compatible with my 1996 Legacy?

I have a 1996 Legacy wagon with 5MT and 3.9 gears. I'm about to pick up a 2.5 to make a franken motor and I thought it would be a good time to look into adding a limited slip rear differentail. As I understand it, all Outback wagons came with LSD in the rear, but were 4.11 or 4.44 gears. Can I purchase an LSD from a 1996 to 1999 Outback in my local junk yard and swap the gear set from my open 3.9, or are the two differentials totally different?

Yeah, Subarus are really easy to work on and being a guy that has done and always will do his own repairs, I'm pretty much set on them.

Good call on the gasket, the duty C didn't come with it. Luckily I was able to reuse my original gasket. Checked back at partsgeek, looks like they no longer carry the duty C, looks like a shift solenoid instead.

Try partsgeek.com, I've had very good luck with them. I bought a duty C from them about a year ago for around $135. They even have metal oil separator plates for the EJ motors.

I have had excellent luck with Honda Civics. Slow and boring to drive, but just don't stop running for any reason and are GREAT on gas. HORRIBLE in the snow though. I had a 1997 Dodge Intrepid that was interesting, never stranded me or had major problems, but it had lots of gremlins. The wipers would turn on at random and at strange speeds and the radio would do the same. Then the AC and heat stopped working and that was the end of the line for me. I've had good luck with my Subarus too.