joediesel

It's a good chance that it's the filler pipe that's leaking, not the tank itself. If you pop the tire off and remove the plastic shield around the filler pipe (I believe 3 screws), clean off the road dirt that's accumulated and look at it you'll be able to see if there is seapage. If it is the filler pipe it costs about $100 at Subaru and is fairly easy to change out.

mikaleda, what damage can occur running without a thermostat? I've got a scangauge in the car with the water temperature being monitored so overheating won't be an issue. I ran it yesterday for about 80 miles and the temp never got above 185, in the colder night it actually stayed below 150. Thanks, Joe

Excellent idea The_Bard! I'll probably putz with it some more this weekend (when it's a little warmer), for now my son is driving it without the thermostat. I've changed the engine, timing belt, etc on this car so many times that I have few bolts left holding the fans and radiator in, I can pop it all out in about 5 minutes. Joe

Have you tried tapping the starter? I used to carry around a 2 ft piece of rebar that would be used to reach in and gently tap the starter when it wouldn't start. My kids called it "the starter assistant" when they needed to use it. Eventually I poked a hole in the starter with it and had to replace the starter. The copper contacts inside the starter are replaceable, the only thing is you have to remove the starter, take it apart to get the contacts out and then go searching for a match for them. Joe

I ran the car for about 50 miles without a thermostat. Temperature never went above 185. How can I test the radiator for blockage? Again, since it happened suddenly after running fine for months makes me shy away from the air issue and to some degree the radiator blockage. I would think that radiator blockage would be a creeping issue over a period of time. I checked for air bubbles in the coolant and there aren't any so I'm thinking the head gaskets are still good, I just did them at the beginning of the summer and this was the first and only time there has been any increased temperature. I'm going to run it without the thermostat for a few days and re-assess. I appreciate everyone's input and look forward to more. Thanks, Joe

The water pump is turning and water does get pumped out. Scangauge is giving real numbers on the temp and the fans are kicking on also to confirm heat. Did real good job of bleeding it (on ramps, filled through passenger side, etc) so I don't think it's airlock issue. Thanks, Joe

What I've done today: I wanted see if the water pump was spinning properly. I took the cam sprocket cover off and could see that the belt was spinning the water pump pulley. I then took out the thermostat and while turning the crank with a wrench I looked up into the water pump and could see that internally the pump and impeller were spinning (not sure that it would spin as well under full load but can't really test for that). So I put the thermostat housing on without the thermostat and set it up based on grossgary's suggestion (see photo, Rube Goldberg would be jealous). I filled the radiator with water and as soon as it reached the top on the cap side it was coming out of the passenger side (where I had disconnected the return hose) so that leads me to conclude that the radiator isn't blocked. I then ran the car while pouring water into the radiator, as expected the water came out of the return hose and into my bucket. The only concern I had is that it didn't flow out of the return continously, it would flow, then stop, then flow. I'm guessing this is fine because it did remove as much water as I put in. Next I'm going to put it all back together without a thermostat and drive it to see how the temperature performs. I'm back to where I started, not knowing what the problem is. Any thoughts based on the latest observations? Thanks, Joe

No air bubbles and the heat is hot and strong. The thermostat is the Subaru oem so I'm pretty sure it can't go in the wrong way. Again, the fact that it only started yesterday makes me think it's a mechanical failure. The water pump is about 15-20k miles old but is an Advance Auto part. Thanks Joe

I've done that as I was filling and bleeding, not visible flow. I considered blockage in the radiator but when filling it lows well and when squeezing the upper hose I get good movement in the right hand tank. Also the fact that it appeared as a problem all at once makes me think some kind of mechanical failure. I'm thinking that before I pull the water pump I'm going to run it witout a tstat to see if I get flowing water.

Hi All, Have a dilemma with my 98 OBW. Car went to overheat yesterday on my son and he immediately pulled over and called me. When I got there the upper radiator hose was collapsed, I opened the radiator (no pressure, cool water) and the radiator hose immediately expanded. I put coolant in and got it back home with the heater going and the temperature didn't move past mid-point (15 miles). The lower radiator hose is not getting hot (barely even warm, I'd call it cool). Scangauge is telling me the temp is getting up into the 205-210 range. I took the thermostat out figuring it was malfunctioning and replaced it with an OEM stat from Subaru. Before putting in the new stat I tested both old and new and both opened in a pot of hot water. Put new stat in, bled the system while on ramps. Have excellent heat, upper radiator hose gets hot, fans kick in, temperature still goes into the 205-210 range (I don't want it to get any higher so I run the heat full blast and get back to the garage). I was thinking maybe the water pump is not working so I took off the sprocket cover on the right side and checked to make sure that the timing belt is turning the water pump which it is. The water pump is about 15k miles old and this problem only started yesterday, been running great since I did the headgaskets this past summer. Any other thoughts on what to try before I rip the water pump out? Thanks, Joe

Thanks for the link. I live in CT and didn't realize we had someone that was Subaru-savvy around. Joe

I was having a similar sporadic problem last year on my 98 OBW and it ended up being the plug connecting to the coil. There are 3 wires on it, one of the wires (happened to be the red one) wasn't seated well in the connector and wasn't carrying the voltage for half the coil. Joe

Final verdict: I replaced the "new" front cat with the original Subaru cat I had taken out in the fall (@ 170k miles) and it solved the problem. Once I took out the cat I could hear the rattle in it, the interior was completely dislocated and bouncing around in it. Thanks for the help everyone. Joe

It was the catatalytic converter(s)! Davebugs, My plan to test the restricted cats was based on another post I had read which said the vacuum should drop while holding a constant 1500 RPM if the exhaust is restricted. Also, a few posts back in this thread Nipper had posted a link to http://www.classictruckshop.com/clubs/earlyburbs/projects/vac/uum.htm which gave some diagnostics based on vacuum readouts. I just jumped online and found this article: http://www.all-catalytic-converters.com/techtip2.html which gives the test procedure: Another test, using a vacuum gauge, is to measure the engine vacuum at curb idle and at 1600 RPM. If engine vacuum is 21 inches at curb idle and 15 inches at 1600 RPM then there is a good possibility your catalytic converter needs to be replaced. That article also gave me another test procedure, take out an O2 sensor and run the car. Sure enough, I popped out an O2 sensor and ran the car down the road and back, it's a little loud but all the power is back. Now I just have to wait for it to cool down and in the morning I'll put the original cats back in the car (yes, I've still been holding on to them since the fall). Since I had removed those thinking they were bad but it was actually the timing belt having jumped a few teeth that caused my problem then I'm guessing they are still good and will be functional. All it'll cost me is about 30 minutes to swap them in. Thanks everyone for the help. Joe

Latest update. I changed the fuel filter today, yep the hoses are a major PIA to get off but I took the suggestion to squirt some PB Blaster in there and it did help. Unfortunately that didn't help the problem at all. The cats were changed for brand new ones from Rock Auto. Of course that doesn't mean they couldn't have failed also. Before changing the timing belt in the fall these new cats had glowed red a couple of times themselves, not sure if that would have adversely affected them. I've got my wife swinging by Harbor Freight to pick up a vacuum tester so that I can hopefully rule out the cats (or blame them authoritatively). The alternator is still an unknown. The voltage does not rise above 14 volts and after taking it for a test drive with the new filter it had dropped to a constant 13 - 13.2 volts. I've got the Scanguage set to read voltage constantly and it's just not getting up there. It's hard to fathom that it would be causing this problem but stranger things have happened. If the cats test out OK I'll next look to the alternator. The other items further down my list are the knock sensor and ignition coil. Since the engine seems to run well without misfires and no pinging plus not throwing any codes I'm not really thinking those items should be an issue. Any other thoughts would be welcome. Thanks, Joe

I had actually started to take the fuel filter out with the thought of just testing a straight thru connection on it but the hoses are very solidly attached to the filter. I'll go out and give it another try. Thanks, Joe

Thanks for the quick reply Davebugs. The plugs were NGKs as recommended here. I was also thinking of the fuel filter but it revs fine, to get up hills I'm basically doing about 3k rpm. When you say the alternator can loose the high rpms do you mean that it can't hit them or that the car doesn't perform when achieving high rpms? I checked my other vehicles (Chevy, Honda and VW) and all their voltages are above 14 at idle. I don't have access to another 98 OBW to see what the standard is on that. Is 13.7 so low that it would cause performance issues yet still maintain a healthy charge on the battery? Thanks Joe

Hi All, I have a 98 OBW which has lost so much power over the past week it's become pretty much undriveable anytime I'm in the vicinity of an incline. The car idles fine, has a little hesitation when first applying the gas but then revs up fine. When driving it shifts fine and the rpms increase correctly, the only thing is it has to keep downshifting to get up hills (or accelerate on any grade) until it basically gets down to 1st and 2nd gear and you have to keep the car floored to get it to climb the hill at 15-20 mph. I'm not getting any check engine lights. I'm not getting any pinging (thinking of the knock sensor). I just did the timing belt in the fall and it has passed our state emissions with out a problem. Prior to changing the timing belt I changed both catalytic converters (didn't realize the timing belt had jumped teeth until I posted here) so those "should be" fine. O2 sensors are originals but I'm not getting any codes regarding them. I changed the sparkplugs, the old ones looked fine. No noticeable improvement. I did not change the wires since they are fairly new NGKs. Real gas mileage has decreased over the past couple of weeks, not sure if it's because I've had to pump that much more gas into it to go or if it's a sign of it's problem. I've got a Scangauge II and readings for gallons/hr have stayed the same at idle (slight improvement with new plugs). Other readings seem to be ok but I don't have a baseline to judge against. One odd thing I do note is that the voltage seems to be low at 13.6-13.7 but it definitely has been enough to keep the battery charged and running everything. I'm now at a point of uncertainty on what to try next. I don't want to just throw parts at it without reason. Any thoughts from others? Engine is a 2.5 out of 96 with unknown mileage. Auto transmission. THanks, Joe

BH, I've got NGK wires on it and they work well. The problem wasn't with the plug wires but with the electrical connection to the coil, the 3 wire connector with (I believe) red, yellow and blue wire. The yellow carries the 12v and the red and blue are for the current to the front pair (1&2) and rear pair (3&4) spark plugs. The red wire was not properly seated in the connector and by wiggling the connector in the coil I could interrupt the spark to the 1&2 wires. After dissasembly and adjustment I put it back together and can no longer recreate the problem. Have about 150 miles on it so far and it's been going great. Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction. Joe

I took BH's advice and did the timing belt and water pump yesterday. The car ran incredibly smoother, I'm not sure how off the belt was but enough to make a difference on performance. Prior to the belt change passengers would question why the car shook so much at idle and now it's silky smooth. This morning though I jumped in the car and started it to drive away and it immediately threw a CEL and ran horribly. On reading the code it indicated that cylinders 1&2 were misfiring. I checked the coil and sure enough 1&2 were not sparking. After some headscratching, disassembly and reassembly everything was running fine. Not liking that for an answer I pursued a little further and found that one of the electrical wires connecting to the coil pack could be gently wiggled and cause 1&2 to misfire. Took that apart and pushed the wire fully into the clip and now it runs well all the time. I'm wondering if the original cat problem may have been due to that wire and the misfires were being masked by the faulty timing belt. Nonetheless, all the repairs were beneficial and the car is running well again. Thanks, Joe

Huh, I hadn't thought of it being an issue from the other end. That could definitely be an issue. I was planning to do a timing belt on it anyway this winter, I can just bump the schedule up a bit and see if it helps. Thanks for the suggestion. Joe

A couple of weeks ago my 98obw started running horribly and when I looked underneath the cats and pipe were glowing red. I went ahead and ordered a front cat from rockauto and put it in. 2 days later the same problem. I figured it was that I changed the wrong cat so I ordered the rear cat and put it in yesterday. Ran fine for 20 miles and now I'm glowing red again all the from the front cat to the resonator. I just put the middle pipe in a couple of months ago so figure it can't be the resonator but now I'm wondering if it could be. I'm not sure what to try next and willing to entertain any ideas. Thanks Joe

DId you find the new contacts online? I had gone looking a while back but couldn't find a match. I cleaned the contacts last year and it worked well for a bit but now it's failing more often. Thanks, Joe

Does the car eventually start after a number of times clicking? If yes, more than likely the starter. If no, still not sure. Do the lights dim when you turn the key to "click"? If no, more than likely the starter since the juice isn't getting presented to the starter by the solenoid. The solution to test the starter issue is to take a broomstick (or equivalent) and tap the starter a few times. If the vehicle then starts you've got the solenoid issue. I've got the solenoid contact issue on my son's 98 OBW. I actually opened the started and cleaned the contacts out. It diminished the frequency of the problem but he still drives with a 2 ft screwdriver in the back so that he can tap the starter when it doesn't work. Joe