brycarp

Just wondering whether anyone has a "try this first" for a 96 5MT Legacy that "buzzes instead of cranks", maybe about 1 in 4 times when the key is turned to start. It usually cranks on the second try. Sometimes I think that I push harder on the clutch pedal against the floor and maybe that helps, but it could be unrelated and the second try would have worked anyway. It sure sounds like the buzz comes from "up under the dash" rather than from the starter on the other side of the firewall, but I haven't nailed down the location of the sound yet by having a "volunteer" try cranking while I listen under the hood. With an intermittent problem, you ususally can't get it to happen when the volunteer is present. :-\ Thanks! Bryan

This stuff (sugru Hacking Putty) is another possible way to go: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/tools/e976/?srp=21 I know it's a bit of a "left field" suggestion, but it's pretty interesting stuff. I have no idea how well it would stand up over time, but for someone who wanted to try the urethane sealant approach, it might be worth a trial run making a representative-size glob of that and of this, letting them cure, and seeing which one you wanted to trust more as your first attempt.

I know I'm not helping any, but your original thread title had me picturing a "Hmmm, I KNOW there was an engine here yesterday..." situation.

I need to find out whether my local favorite U-Pull-It will let me bring in a generator to run my skilsaw-with-abrasive-blade and my Sawzall with the demo blade. zzz

Thanks for the tips! They are very much appreciated.

I'm wondering whether someone can tell me what the deal is with valve adjustment for an EJ18 motor in a 1995 Impreza L. I've never had the valve covers off this motor, but when I did for my 1996 Impreza Outback EJ22, there were no screw adjusters and I think that's either adjusted with shims or has hydraulic lifters. Sorry to be so clueless - it's been a while since I paid attention, but the lifters are a bit noisy on the '95 EJ18, so I'll probably pop the covers soon. Thanks, Bry

Here's my problem area: I'm finishing up a reasonable rust fix on my '98 CR-V in the equivalent spot. For that I found a car being parted out and they let me saw a hunk out of the car. I was able to get the stamped sheet metal pieces I needed to do a good patch job. On this car, I'd like to do the same, without worrying about cosmetic perfection - I just want to stop the rust progression, fill the gap, and have the bumper cover attachment point back. My first question is - What range of years of Impreza Wagon would have matching sheet metal there? (There are several layers involved, including the wheelwell.) I'm confident that 93-96 will match my 95, but I'm wondering about 97-2000 (maybe 2001?) I know that the roll-out cargo cover on a 97 is not the same as 95 and 96, so there was an interior redesign in the rear for 97. My next question is - any suggestions where I can get the "hunk of a rust-free car" I need? For the CR-V I was able to do the cutting myself, but if I don't find a local donor car I might need to look at more options. Maybe someone here would be willing to "saw and sell." I lucked out with my CR-V - the donor car was already pretty well stripped, had no rust in the subject area, and was sitting behind a shed in a very rural compound. He only wanted $20. Here's the CR-V target area near to when the outer patch was applied: The patch cut from the donor car: An inner view without the patches in place: An exterior view after the above patch was bonded with a couple screws and JB-Weld: And the inner patch screwed in place but not yet bonded with the JB-Weld (much bigger area since I had dug out to get at the rust): Thanks for any help! Bry

Regarding the oil leak, Caboobaroo mentioned the possibility of the oil separator plate being the leak-prone plastic design. I don't know what you have for sure on your '99 EJ-25, but thought I'd point out my thread about the oil separator plate fix I did. Of course you'd want to eliminate any other possibilities first, because in order to get at this plate, you have to separate the engine and transmission. (I pulled the engine and did new seals other places too.) http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=118440

I was going to point out this old thread of mine to someone asking about an oil leak, and noticed I hadn't added my "after" picture here. So here it is all cleaned up with the new steel oil separator plate: And the car no longer drips anything!

I am ready to say this fix was good. I've had plenty of chance to drive it under very cold conditions now, and I am still not getting the "lack of assist just when you want it" behavior I was getting before the flush with Dexron VI.

I'm just putting this in here in case someone is in a similar situation to what I was and wants to give it a shot. I had acquired a 1995 Impreza L where the service records the previous owner turned over to me showed a steering rack replacement within the last 20k miles. But I would often experience a distinct lack of steering assist (like when maneuvering into a parking space in a parking lot where the spaces are side-by-side, so the space is at a 90-degree angle to the access lane.) For normal around-town driving it felt fine, but it would give out "when I wanted the assist most" and I'd have to just muscle it like what's necessary if the engine's not running. I had already bought a reman pump to give that a try, but I thought I should make sure of what fluid was in the system first, before I installed it. (And I had some thought that the fluid change itself might actually reduce the problem.) So, given that I wanted to get a pretty thorough fluid flush, and also given that I'm a bit eccentric at times, I "repurposed" the 1-gallon jar from a 3-dollar jar of pickles from Sam's Club as shown here: Those fittings (the black plastic part) are sold at hardware stores to be able to put a drain hose on the pan that goes under a water heater. And the brass parts are adapters from 1/2" pipe thread to hose barb. This "reservoir" let me introduce a gallon of new fluid into the system and get a really thorough flush. This was temporarily plumbed into the fluid return line, of course! (And don't try doing this with a non-rigid "tank" like a plastic jar, because you need the extra reservoir's volume to be constant.) I drove around for about 10 minutes in a big empty parking lot, exercising the steering lock-to-lock a lot. I used Wal-Mart's "Super Tech" Dexron VI for the new fluid because it costs about the same as their other tranny fluid offerings in quarts (about $4 a quart) and I figure the specs for what can be called "Dexron VI" require it to be pretty good stuff, so I'm not worried about the fact that it's a "house brand." It's what I use for the tranny in my other Impreza that has an automatic. As you can see on the label, it qualifies as Dexron II and III, which is what Subaru calls for. Anyway, since I did this (never did replace the pump) the steering has been basically perfect. I think it might have taken a couple of days to get really good - maybe some seals were reacting positively to the new fluid but took some time to do so. In reality, I won't know for sure until I go through another Winter and make sure there wasn't a "really cold weather" component to the previous assist lack, but I think it was having the problem even when fully warmed up before.

I believe the operative word is "pragmatic."

One more point here. As 987687 said, "Good luck getting the bugger out of there." I'm glad I didn't try to pull it out yet on the car I'm trying to fix, as indeed it is difficult to get out. The main reason is that there's no realistic amount of clearance to manipulate it with a wrench. It's right up against the tranny case. I happened to show up at the junkyard where I got one yesterday at about 15 minutes 'til closing time. The owner agreed to pull the part for me, but even though the engine was already gone on the donor car and therefore the access was easy, it still took him at least 15 minutes to get it out of there. If I had to do it, I'd probably use my small "needle nose" Vise-Grip ( http://www.irwin.com/tools/locking-tools/the-original-long-nose-locking-pliers-with-wire-cutter ) but since I haven't done it I'm not even sure that would have enough swing room. So I'm definitely hoping the speedo screws are the culprit and I won't have to mess with the sensor at all!

My mom is 88, so when I give her a ride in my Impreza, I've wished for there to be a grab handle over the door just to give her another place to hold on when getting in or out. But neither of my Imprezas were equipped with any grab handles. On the other hand, there were caps in place at the right location on the headliner that I figured it was intended that some could be put there. When I was at the local U-Pull-It yesterday I did a little experimentation and found that the rear seat overhead grab handles from 90's Legacies were virtually a perfect match. The Legacy front-seat grab handles were different, and had the wrong size screw. I found that when mounting one of the Legacy back-seat handles in my Impreza, once one screw was well started in its threads, I had to push on the other end of the handle a little to "squeeze" the handle a little shorter so the second screw would line up. I would suggest being extra careful not to cross-thread in this situation, because the screws are self-tapping style, and you're doing a little "convincing" to line up the second screw. The caps you're removing have a plastic barb that shoves into the threaded mounting point in the roof, so to remove, you need to pull at the same time that you rotate in the "unscrew" direction. Anyway, here's what the final result looks like in my 96 Impreza:

Hi guys, Yes, the code is the 500 one. I did grab a junkyard sensor to try swapping in today, but this thing with the screws in the cluster looks like it better be the thing I try first. Once again - this place is amazing and I really appreciate the tips!! Bryan

I really appreciate the info and tips! Thanks again.

I didn't get a very good shot, but it's probably enough to tell. The Autozone that pulled the code that indicated a speed sensor problem said their computer showed either a "right hand side" or a "left hand side" vehicle speed sensor for a 96 Legacy 5MT. I already needed the VIN to know what replacement shift linkage joint to order for this car too, so obviously there was a mid-model-year change in the manual trans for the 96 year. Also, if I end up trying to find a junkyard part, does anyone know whether the tranny with the sensor on the right hand side would be the "up through part of 1996" style or the "part of 1996 and later" style? This shot is taken on the right side of the tranny, shot upward and forward over the crossmember. The thing I think is the VSS, I drew a red box around in the photo. The speedometer has been intermittent, but is still mostly working. Any guesses about whether it's likely to be the sensor itself in a car with about 160K miles? Should I try to mess with the connector first, before I look for a junkyard VSS? Any tips about the R&R process? Thanks!

Since this thread has somewhat evolved into a "scummy salvage yard stories, etc." thread, hopefully it's OK to tell my story that ended up with a great ending that wouldn't have happened if the scummy salvage yard hadn't screwed me over. I was trying to accumulate enough of this kind of alloy wheel to have pretty nice ones on both my 96 Impreza and 95 Impreza: I had pulled together enough for one car, and was still short by 2 in good enough condition for the other car. So I found a salvage yard about 50 miles away that listed on car-part.com that they had 7 of this wheel. I figured the odds were pretty good I could find two that would be nice enough. I even called ahead to say "I have to drive 50 miles to get to you - do you really have these wheels?" and was assured that they did. When I got there, they could only come up with two, one in completely horrible shape, and one that was better but still well below what I was looking for. To make a long story short, I had to keep up the search, and ended up asking at a local Subaru-oriented service shop that sometimes had used Subie parts that they'd sell. It turned out that they had a full set of 4 of these that had never even had tires mounted and had been gathering dust in the upstairs storage room. They sold me the set of four for $100. So the scummy salvage yard actually did me a favor in the long run. Here are the cars (still need to get some nice lug nuts):

Here's the diagram for the horn circuit (for a '96 Impreza but I bet it's the same.) The "LB" marking on the "business" side of the horn circuit (the black wire is just hooked to +12 volts) means "blue with black stripe". (They use "L" for blue, because "B" is already taken for black.) It looks like the wire you want to trace is "blue with black stripe" all the way from the horn relay to the horn(s).

I figured out my answer on this one. The main harness that runs forward from the back of the car comes along the right side of the car roughly under the doors. I pulled off the trim piece that runs along the bottom of the right front door opening and also covers the kick panel area, and then I could see the big bundle harness that comes from the back. The two wires I want for controlling the hatch lock solenoid are "blue with yellow stripe" and "green with black stripe", and they come up to one end of the big blue connector. The mating connector has no wires to connect, (since my car didn't come with power locks) so here is where I'll need to tap into them for my added switch. It appears that this pair of wires is used for both "lock" and "unlock", by applying the 12 volts in one direction and the other direction. So a spring-to-center momentary DPDT paddle switch should do the trick, with 12V and ground connected to the two center contacts, and the two wires that go to the solenoid connected to the outer contacts in a crossover pattern. The reason this is worth doing to me is that while each of the 4 doors has a lock control on the inside, the hatch doesn't. so it's inconvenient when I happen to have my key in the ignition, car running, and I want to quickly get something out of the back of the car, I have to shut off the engine and take my key out so I can unlock the hatch.

Yes, I've been measuring everything with my voltmeter. and some of the lines are working fine. So the supply of power to the grid isn't a problem. (And I already did a complete re-do of the section of the hatch wiring harness that passes through the "flex boot" between the body and the hatch. I spliced in new sections of wire with soldered and heat-shrinked splices in both directions from the flex area, so there aren't any splices in the problem area.) I guess to me, a partially-functioning rear defroster is kind of like a cracked windshield though. Yes, I could live with it, but that's one of the functional areas I just want to be "right", and will probably do what it takes to get there. Thanks for your comments!

Here's one where I'm just being lazy and/or not wanting to muck with the car's interior to trace where the wire goes. I figure some kind expert here might be able to tell me where to find the other end of a harness wire. When I swapped the hatch from a '96 Impreza L wagon onto my '95 Impreza L, the new hatch had the lock solenoid. And since I used a '96-style hatch wiring harness, it had the wires for the electric lock. When I plugged things into the car's harness near the right rear tail light assembly, I noticed that the car harness had wires and pins in the connector to connect to those electric lock wires from the hatch. So since the main place I miss the electric locks is in the hatch, I thought I'd wire up a switch to activate the solenoid that I got by swapping on a '96 hatch. But I don't know where to catch the other end of those wires I saw at the right rear corner of the car. Can anyone tell me where to connect to them - hopefully somewhere in the console/dash area? Thanks, Bry

Hi All, just wondering whether this is a realistic task for an advanced do-it-yourselfer. I bought a 95 Impreza L wagon with a large area (about 1 sq. foot) push-in dent in the rear hatch. I found a straight hatch already the right color at a salvage yard and put that on. Everything's great except for the defroster lines in the window of the hatch I swapped in. Normally in the past, I've been able to repair defroster lines pretty simply with the Permatex #09117 kit. But on this window, the lines seem to be broken down or corroded in some way, not just scratched at one point. So repairing them isn't working out. The window in the bent hatch I took off had a perfectly functioning rear defroster/defogger, without any repair needed. So of course I wish I could get that window onto the straight hatch on the car. That means I need two glass removals (one non-destructive) and one install. I took a look at the trim surrounding the glass, and it seems pretty well attached. I'm thinking it might just come with the glass and should be left attached. Can anyone point me in the right direction on technique or at least tell me "You don't want to try that - better to have a glass shop do it."? Fortunately, I do have a connection to a good glass shop where they're usually willing to charge me their "fleet rate." I haven't gotten a quote from them yet for this, though. Thanks! Bry

I have NO idea how my experience with a 1996 EJ22 in an Impreza might relate to your 2001 car situation, but I had a leak that leaked onto my exhaust and consistently made an unpleasant smell from the burning oil, so I'll make sure you know about the "oil separator plate" on the back of the engine (between it and the transmission.) It has been redesigned a couple of times since the original plastic design. I had a plastic one: and replaced it with the most recent steel redesign: The word I got before I decided to pull the engine to repair this likely problem was that it's roughly 50/50 whether it's easier to pull the engine or the trans to get to it. I chose to remove the engine so it would be easier to do all of the other "sealing up" stuff and timing belt/water pump etc. while I had it out. The car is pretty much dry underneath now. A stark contrast to how it was when I bought it.

California's beyond "in the toilet." I grew up in Santa Barbara and moved out of state at age 21. Glad I did. I mean c'mon... Jerry Brown?????????