Smo

Well, the half shaft is installed and the problem is still there. Sigh. I think my duty C failed and the drive shaft is rotating despite the FWD fuse being in. The front U-joint was in very bad shape, almost totally seized in one direction. I'm going to go put a mark on the shaft to confirm that it's rotating. If it is, I figure my options are: 1) If I want AWD, replace the duty C AND buy a new/used shaft. Not gonna sink that much money into this car. 2) Replace the Duty C, keep my shaft in there 3) Go to U-Pick-It and find a shaft with a good front U-joint, then get that one cut as well. 4) Plug the transmission with something else rather than half a drive shaft Either way, I'm glad I did things this way. I didn't spend a ton of money to find out the problem isn't fixed.

Update: I started with the hack saw but realized it was going to take forever. I took it to a welding shop and it was too hard to cut with their saw so they cut it with a torch. $5 later and I'm ready to reinstall my half drive shaft.

That's definitely an option, right through the narrow part of the slip joint. I guess what I'm really wondering is whether it's worth trying to keep this shaft going (I guess I'd have a new u-joint welded onto the rear?). Or, if I want AWD should I just replace the whole shaft anyway. If the latter, then I'll definitely cut this one in half for now and keep the car going. Better to save money for something more reliable than keep sinking funds into this one.

So I've got a 2000 Legacy Outback with a bad U-joint in the propeller shaft. I pulled it out but did not find the two-piece OEM shaft that I was expecting. Instead it looks like a one-piece shaft? See images. I'm fairly certain the car has the original shaft in it. I have a good maintenance record from the previous owner and there's no mention of replacing the shaft. Did some Outbacks ship with a one-piece? Also, if it's not OEM what are the odds this has serviceable U-joints? How would I tell other than taking it to a shop? With the age of this car (230,000 miles) and other problems I was planning on just removing the rear half of the drive shaft and running it FWD for another year until I can afford something with lower mileage. But this throws a wrench into that plan.

Thanks for all the advice! I decided to take the car in to a good mechanic for a quick inspection. There's a Subaru-specific shop right down the street from my house and I've heard good things about them. Money well spent given my lack of knowledge troubleshooting this kind of stuff. He said my tie rods (inner and outer) looked fine. I thought so as well but the second opinion is good. The play is all in my steering rack. That makes sense to me because I was watching the steering components when checking the wheel for play and it seemed like they were moving with the wheel to me. Definitely didn't see any play in the tie rods. It's possible that the boot has been split for some time and I didn't notice it and damaged the rack that way. Or it's just all the dirt roads I drive. So for now I'm going to fix the boot and do the rotors, then replace the rack if it seems to be getting worse. There's a tiny bit of noticeable steering play while driving but mostly it doesn't seem to be a big issue, and it seems unlikely to fail catastrophically.

Finally had a day to look at the car - I jacked up the front and tested the wheels. Found a LOT of play from side to side, no noticeable top to bottom play. I'm taking a break from working on this while I do some more research. If it *is* the bearings it seems possible the hubs are shot as well at this point.

So I've got 2000 Outback with 215,000 miles on it. Survived a timing belt pulley breaking a year ago, by sheer luck and the help from this forum. About 30K ago I redid the front brakes and got the rotors turned. Sure enough the vibration that was happening resurfaced and now it's gotten pretty bad, so I'm gonna jack the car up and replace the rotors next week. I've got a couple of other issues that have been going on, so my question is what else should I do while I'm in there? One issue is a faint "whoop whoop whoop" sound that occurs when turning and *not* under acceleration. I first noticed it while engine braking down some switchbacks. It goes away when not turning and it happens when turning in either direction. Could this be wheel bearings? Not sure if they've ever been replaced, I got the car at 140K. So, if I do decide to do the wheel bearings, it looks like I need to remove the CV axles. I should probably think about maintaining them. Thoughts? It was my parents car and I'm pretty sure they replaced the front axles with OEM Subaru ones at 135K, so they aren't all that old. I also have a torn boot, not on the CV axle but on the control arm in front of the CV axle (passenger side). Not sure what that ones called.

I've slept in the back of my 2000 legacy numerous times. Quite a few times just in the car, but then I built a sleeping platform a couple of years ago. It works great! It's sort of like one of those Japanese tube hotels, and hilarious when two people try to get in or out, or get dressed at the same time. I'm 6 foot even, and disproportionately sized, for the record. When using the platform I sleep with my head on top of the driver's seat (I pull the head rest out and put a pillow in its place). That works pretty well, although my feet are up against the glass. But that said, I live in AZ and usually, even if its raining, I sleep with the hatch open for more air. I put curtains in, but need to reinstall them and fix them up a bit. One of these days I'll get around to it... See attached photo. I've since modified it a bit, and made pull-out platforms to cook on. This winter's wood shop project is to make a full-on pull-out kitchen for the passenger-side storage compartment.

So I took a look under the car and the most beat up part of the exhaust system is the crossover pipe (I think that's the correct name). So everything upstream from the cat rather than downstream. I got a nice looking replacement at the junkyard today. I'll bolt that on and see what happens, then worry about the rest if I need to. I did take an exhaust off of a subaru at the yard just to give it a shot and see how it works. So one more system of the car is no longer intimidating! I'm checking them off one-by-one...

So I've done quite a bit of googling on this but haven't found much about what I'm actually trying to do. I have a 2000 Subaru Legacy that just came back from the dead after a timing belt scare. Now I want to fix some long-standing issues. One is the exhaust, which has been getting steadily worse in the past 20K miles or so. Now, this car spent a lot of years in Michigan before I had it, and is quite rusty. Enough that I preemptively spray every bolt with PB Blaster before attempting removal. And it's been beat up on some dirt roads. But I live in Arizona, which means that my local salvage yard is full of rust-free cars. So my question is, how hard is it to remove my exhaust system (say, from the catalytic converter to the tailpipe) and replace it with one from the salvage yard? My thought was that I would just go there with my socket set and unbolt everything, but then I've read a lot of threads talking about welding. It's unclear to me if there's welding involved when you replace parts of the exhaust, or whether the exhaust is actually welded onto the body of the car. So, am I going to be able to get an exhaust off a car at the salvage yard with just a socket set? I haven't actually tried to find the source of my exhaust leak yet, but I thought it would be easier to replace everything with a non-rusty, lower-mileage exhaust. But if that's not the case I might give it a go with JB Weld and try to fix the leaks myself.

Good advice, thanks. I'll probably head back to the salvage yard tomorrow to look for my 22mm impact socket (doh!) - while I'm there I can grab whatever I need off of the 2006 forester that I got the timing cover from - it looked like it was in really good shape apart from some of the radiator lines draining what looked like pure oil when I removed them. o_O

Got everything back together today, found a cover at the salvage yard. Now it has one weird, new symptom - a rattling noise when idling in my driveway. I haven't driven it around the block yet, but so far that's what I get. It's coming from the front of the engine, sounds like from the drive belts. It did not occur when I let the engine idle before putting the drive belts back on. I'm used to a squeaking/squealing noise when drive belts are loose - could this also be a loose drivebelt issue? I'll double check the tension here in a second. I tried to tighten the tension bolts to the same place they were before I took them off, but I wasn't quite sure on one of them and decided to err on the side of slightly loose, figuring it would squeal if it was too loose.

I attribute this to the fact that the pulley seized but didn't explode, so the belt never actually lost tension - when I took the cover off it was still super tight. So I think it slipped just enough to die but not enough to damage the valves.

150 PSI all around! I don't remember the last time I felt so relieved! Now to get to a junkyard and look for a new timing belt cover...

OH MY GOD SHE LIVES! Well, I haven't done a compression test. I should probably still do that. But I started it, ran it for 20 seconds or so, then killed it. Sounded great. Hell. Yes.

Put the belt on and the marks I made were definitely not right for the engine, but after further research this appears to be a known error in the FSM, and the correct marks are 47 and 43.5. Which happens to be where Gates put them. Good job Gates!

Great, thanks guys! I'm glad I checked the FSM. I've got the crank sprocket lined up with the back mark (and double-checked that the crank key was straight down). Everything seems to be in order. The drivers' side cam felt like it was spring loaded, and didn't want to stay on the mark. I did some research and that seems to be normal. And after a couple of tries it somehow decided to stay on the mark. Not sure why that happened, but I'll roll with it . . .

Well here's an interesting issue - the FSM seems to indicate that the distance between the camshaft mark and the passenger's side cam mark should be 44 teeth, and to the driver's side 40.5 teeth. But the marks on the Gates belt don't match that - one is 44 teeth and the other is longer - 47 or 48. Anyone know what's up with that? I double-checked the length of the belts and the Gates is definitely a match for the OEM belt that I removed. And all the pulleys and such match up. So I didn't order the wrong kit or anything.

myhilo: Thanks for all the detailed information! I have tapped a few holes before, but don't own a tap set and that sounds like a nice workaround to have in the toolbox. fairtax: yep, it's the toothed idler, and I do have a replacement water pump, so I guess that solves it. Thanks!

So I got the cover off and removed the idler pulley. It wasn't easy to do (the bolt was bent and I had to hammer on the pulley (carefully...) to bend it back enough to take it out...). It came out with a bit of metal on the threads, so it might have stripped some. It also removed some metal from around the bolt hole when it was bent like that: So . . . is that going to be a problem for the new idler? Seems like it could be a deal-breaker, but I don't know. I'm also not sure how to time the engine now. From the research I've done the best thing to do would be to remove the spark plugs to eliminate compression, then turn everything by hand but don't force anything.

On second thought, I'm starting to question whether it was turning or not . . . could've been wishful thinking. Now I'm trying to find that damn hole that you're supposed to stick a screwdriver into... EDIT: Got it! I ended up wedging a piece of rebar in there (couldn't find the proper hole for the screwdriver so I used the one this video shows: The rebar seemed way sturdier for that job.

And the plot thickens - working on it today, I was able to start getting my crank pulley bolt loose, by using a hammer on a breaker bar to make a poor man's impact wrench. Saw that online somewhere. I also used the trick in this video: With those two tricks together I'm able to get the bolt to move (I can look down and confirm that the pulley is not rotating), BUT . . . it doesn't seem to be getting looser. It's turning but I still need the hammer hits to turn it, I can't do it by pulling (the crankshaft pulley will rotate even with the friction from the belt as shown in the trick above). I'd say I've turned it close to a half rotation now. So . . . is the bolt stripping, or something going wrong? Or was it just put on with threadlock (a common thing from what I understand). Anything I need to do to keep from causing damage, or should I just keep hammering it? I hit it with PB Blaster preemptively two days ago, and again just now.

Got back from my backpacking trips and started the process today. Need to go get a 22mm socket before I can start on the crank pulley. Ordered a Gates kit, it should be here by the time I'm ready for it. But I did take a photo of the belt!

Thanks for all the great information, guys! I'm gonna try to fix it myself. Should be fun, in any case. I got an offer for a free tow to my house (on a flatbed!) from a friend, so I'll get it here and then deal with it in January after all my winter break hiking trips. I'll update the thread as I find things out, for future reference. The ebay kits I've found include GMB idlers, pulleys, etc - which seems to be a good brand from my quick research. But most of them don't state a brand for the timing belt itself. Any recommendations on a belt brand to search for? And yeah, walking to work will be nice - I'm looking forward to it. 5 minutes each way.

Hmm, I hadn't thought of the compression test. If I wanted a really cheap test I could go grab a timing belt and the pulley off of a subaru at the local salvage yard. I know just the subaru (I took an oil pan off it last week). The silver lining here is that I walk to work next year, so I really have no need for a car until the summer. Plenty of time to figure it out, take the heads out if I need to, etc. The other silver lining is that I was planning on driving to a remote trailhead next week and this could've happened 30 miles down a dirt road. o_O So good timing, timing belt!