the_bard

Keep an eye on your speedometer... see if it's jumping around or dying at the same time. My old Loyale started doing this on really cold mornings... I attributed it to a old speedo cable that was seizing up.

Edit: My gawd. What happened to my line breaks? They're definitely not working, even after the edit. My apologies. '97 Legacy Outback. Here's the way I look at it... it might sound repetitive, but I gotta list things out like this to help myself think through this. If I try this in my head, I forget what I started with What I know: 1. Once the ECU is cleared of codes, the code gets rethrown approximately ten to fifteen minutes after starting the engine and moving the car. 2. I've tested the resistance across the heater circuit twice, approximately 5-6 ohms when cold, same as the original O2 sensor heater circuit. When I removed the new O2 sensor when it was still warm and tested it, the resistance was higher, 7-10 ohms. 3. I've tested the voltage on the engine side of the connector successfully, 12 volts. This was with the engine off with the ignition in the run position. What this leads me to believe: 1. The problem is not continuous. With the original oxygen sensor installed, the CEL would come on within a minute or two of starting the engine. 2. There is a problem occurring (obviously), otherwise the ECU would not be throwing the code and the CEL would be popping on. 3. Therefore, the problem is intermittent. Somehow, something is changing ten or fifteen minutes after starting that's causing the ECU to think the oxygen sensor heater circuit is failing. What I assume: 1. Because the Haynes manual states that the diagnostic test to verify the operation of the heater circuit relies on measuring the resistance across the circuit, I assume the ECU is using this same method to determine the operation of the heater circuit. 2. If that is true, then something is causing the resistance to fall outside what the ECU considers tolerable limits. 3. The resistance of the circuit depends on the temperature of the heater. I assume this because of the measurements I took as the heater cooled. Possible sources of failure: 1. The heater itself, but only until ten to fifteen minutes into operation. If the heater is heating to a certain temperature, then breaking the circuit, it would fail. Or if something is vibrating loose within the oxygen sensor, breaking the circuit, and just happening to occur ten to fifteen minutes after starting. 2. The wiring is failing intermittently. Since I've routed the wiring away from the half shaft by going around the power steering piping, I feel I can safely assume the halfshaft is not rubbing on the wiring. It could be the same case as number 1, however... the wiring could be vibrating loose, just happenstance that it's occurring that late. Or I cut the wires too long, which could raise the resistance across the circuit, causing it to fall outside the ECU's limits. I doubt an extra inch or so of wire would cause that, though. Could be that the crimped connections are causing too much resistance, though... or a combination of the two. 3. The ECU is mistakenly reporting that the heater circuit is failing. It could be that the oxygen sensor heater is still operating, but the ECU is mistaking the resistance across it as a failure. Or whatever portion of the ECU that tests the resistance on the heater circuit is failing itself. I'm leaning towards the extra length of the wire and/or crimped connections causing the resistance to be outside of allowable limits once the heater reaches a high enough temperature, ten to fifteen minutes after starting the engine. I can see two possible ways of verifiying this: 1. Clear the codes. Run the car until the code is thrown. Pull the oxygen sensor connection and test the resistance across the heater circuit as quickly as I can. 2. Pick up an OBD2 adapter, a inverter or power adapter for my wife's laptop, and find the appropriate software that would allow me to view however the ECU is testing the heater circuit in realtime. Number 2 is probably expensive and troublesome if I can't find the right software (or the ECU won't let me view that info), but it'd be reliable. Number 1 is cheap, but it's reliability probably depends on how fast I can get the test done, before that heater cools off. Can anyone poke holes into my theories?

Ever get the feeling you've got a gremlin in your car? So the ECU was throwing a P0135 code... "O2 Sensor Heater Circuit Malfunction Bank 1 Sensor 1". My Haynes manual states that the resistance across the heater pins ought to be 30 ohms. I tested the old one at 5-6 ohms. I pulled the old one out, cut off the harness per the instructions, and tossed it in the garbage. Looked pretty toasted, coated white on most of the internal portion. The new sensor was a generic aftermarket 3-wire. I used the supplied crimped connectors to connect the new sensor to the connector, leaving the overall length just a bit longer than the old sensor wires (per the instructions). I'll let the car cool down, clear the codes, then take a drive. It'll drive fine for five to fifteen minutes, then the code gets thrown again. I cleared the codes, drove over to Pizza Hut (about three miles down the road, with stop lights), got my pizza, and halfway home, it threw the code. I've pulled it twice, verifying that my crimped connections were still intact by checking the resistance of the heater circuit (about 10 ohms, but progressively closer to 5-6 ohms as it cooled). I did notice that the terminals on the sensor side of the connector (within the connector) were loose, so I pulled them out, reseated them, and forced that little rubber ring in farther, making sure that the terminals were solid. I've also verified that the engine side of that connector was supplying 12 volts to the sensor... I give up. Anybody have any suggestions, before I call oxygensensors.com and find out what I've got to do to get a replacement?

So the aftermarket radiator I picked up from radiators.com (good people, btw, got that radiator rushed to me [one day shipping] for cheap $150) was obviously designed as a "generic" radiator... it's got the lines coming off from it for the automatic transmission cooler. I figure those lines are sealed, separate from the rest of the radiator, since I plugged one with my finger, and blew into the other, and just built up pressure. Seein' as I've got a manual transmission, I won't be using this to cool nonexistant ATF. Is there anything else I could put those lines to use for? I hate having something on my car that doesn't serve a purpose, as meaningless as that purpose might be.

I'd suggest a quick "reuse head bolt" search... there's been a couple threads on the subject, with both aye's and nay's.

*raising my hand* Yep, that's me. At 99,910 miles, I brought my wife's 2000 OBW into the dealer with a fairly obvious external headgasket leak. They dumped the stopleak in, ran it for 15-30 minutes, checked to see if the leak was there (it was), then swapped the headgasket. We didn't purchase the extended warranty, either... in fact, we purchased the car from a private owner in Vermont. From what I understand of the recall, they're only covering external headgasket leaks... not internal. I'd consider that a fine point, though, and I bet there's enough there put some leverage against if you wanted to raise a big enough fuss.

Just outside Albany NY. Something more central to New England would be awesome, since it increases the chances of me actually getting there...

Thanks . The ground's been kinda wet for the majority of the day, and I really didn't have the time nor inclination to get a real good look at it. So on the other side of this 4-pin business ought to be a nut or bolt, allowing me to remove the links, so I can take the bar and the links and have them rewelded at a local shop for cheap .

My wife complained of a "loose" sound coming from underneath her 2000 OBW tonight. I looked in the rear, and found the rear antisway bar disconnected on both ends. There's some funky kind of linkage that attaches to the sway bar on both sides. From the pic below, it looks to me that the four holes in the "cap" get lined up with the 4 pins in the "plug" (for lack of a better description), and then the cap gets press-fit onto the plug. My '97 has a nice, simple, obvious-as-all-Hades bolt & nut arrangement holding the antisway bar on. This cap & plug arrangement makes feel kinda nervous... am I right in my thoughts on how the bar attaches, or am I missing something?

Yep. Just had it in for the coolant conditioner recall, and while they were dumping the stuff in and then replacing the driver's side headgasket (Thank you Subaru!), they performed the anti-corrosion recall. I asked the service guy while we were picking it up for some details... apparently they spray the inside of the rear subframe assembly. They don't treat the exterior subframe, so I'm still stuck with dealing with that.

I'd refer you over to the corresponding page on cars101.com, that details the differences pretty well. Looks like the OBS has 0.4" more ground clearance that the Impreza Wagon, and it details the rest of the "improvements". I'd check the Legacy page for the sedan vs SUS.

Whoops. Talk about sounding condescending ... what I meant is, if you aren't a M.E., and you have no idea what a free body diagram is, follow the link. In retrospect, though, I suppose the comment does work both ways. *shrug* :cool: We need a smiley for "foot in mouth."

You might want to try POR-15. I plan on using it for my wife's 2000 OBW, which has spent most of its life next door in Vermont. The underside of that car is covered in surface rust... nothing really bad yet, but I want to nip it before it does get bad. I noticed a few spots of rust on my '97 OBW, specifically bubbling paint on the control arms in a spot or two. That'll get some POR-15 dabbed on, too... thankfully it's nowhere near as bad as the '00. Seeing as it started out in Colorado, I'd guess they don't use a lot of salt out there... I don't have any personal experience with it yet, but I've asked around a bit... nobody has anything really bad to say about it, and most say it's good stuff. I plan on knocking off as much loose rust as possible with either a wire brush or a wire disc on a battery powered drill, then coating it with POR-15, then spraying that cheap rubber undercoating crap over it, as soon as the POR-15 has set properly.

For those of you who aren't mechanical engineers, or haven't spent three years in a Mech. E. program and decided you didn't want to do that any more, look here.

If you're gonna be draining the coolant anyhow and disconnecting the radiator hoses from the engine, there's only two bolts and two fan connectors (on my '97 OBW, anyway) preventing you from pulling the radiator. At most, it's a few minutes. Why not? Cheaper and easier than finding a replacement radiator if you prang it.

I gotta throw my two cents in: Go back a few years. Wife was driving a '96 Saturn SL1 sedan. I bought a '92 (I think) Loyale Wagon with the pushbutton 4WD. At the time, we lived in Troy,NY... that city has a problem with plowing their streets during the winter. Add in a new mayor that refused to declare a snow emergency, and there was as much as six inches of snow right where we needed to park on the street. Wife's Saturn would constantly need to be pushed in or out of the parking spot, or have it shoveled clear. I took her out one day in my Loyale, and as we were coming back, I simply hit the 4wd button and parked in the six inches or so of snow. Wife's jaw dropped, and asked "How'd you do that?" Suddenly that "ugly wagon" became something in her eyes . My Loyale rusted out, and it was a while before I could get back into a Subaru. When the Cougar I was using for a temporary ride wasn't worth repairing, I started looking for another car. The tranny was starting to act up on the wife's Saturn, so she started looking too... and found an '00 Outback Wagon that she fell in love with. Chalk up another converted another one . I ended up finding a '97 Outback Wagon, though I really wanted a '96 Outback Sport (couldn't find a single one in NY state for sale, 'cept one with over 200k miles for $3,000 that was looser than a 25 cent... well... um... yeah...). Major problems? Wife's OBW started up an external headgasket leak, which was covered by Subaru under warranty. Had a timing belt tensioner replaced at the same time, not under warranty. I was very impressed by the Subaru dealership we had the work done under, enough so that I'll be considering them first for my next Subie. My '97 has had a plugged radiator that my used car sales/garage refused to diagnose correctly, so it's on its third engine. Finally swapped in a 2.2L instead of a Phase 1 2.5L, and I'm not looking back. The wife's OBW has been nothing but reliable so far, and she loves it. Feels secure in it because of the size and weight, and that it's not prone to rolling like her friends' SUVs. I caught her actually playing with it in the snow the other day... this coming from a woman who used to hate driving in snow . My '97 has got a lot of "character"... and things that need to be fixed. I still need to swap out that radiator, along with an oxygen sensor with a bad heater. Most of the rear defroster lines are broken. There are a couple indicator lights that are burned out, and need to be replaced. All of this is "tiddly stuff", though... I can replace/repair it as it bugs me, and it's extremely easy. A $15 Haynes manual gives me most of the info I need, along with the community on this wonderful board . In contrast, I hated working on that '93 Mercury Cougar, since everything was just a pain in the arse to get to, remove, and put back in. My OBW just makes sense to me.

Update: I heated a couple cups of vinegar in the microwave to boiling, then poured it into two different glass coffee cups. Dropped a chunk of the mineral that I got from the radiator in one... dropped a piece of aluminum foil into the other. Waited about an hour... and there's no visible difference between before and after on either the chunk or the foil. Looks like I'll be buying a new radiator sooner rather than later.

Yep... mine's a nice three wire connector, set up in a triangle fashion. Two whites leads, one black lead. Tested the resistance on the white leads at 4.5 ohms (should be 30), so I'd say the heater is dead. Time for a new sensor *blech*.

Now that I've got that overheating problem resolved (or so I hope ), I'm taking on that CEL. It's throwing a P0135, saying the heater circuit is malfunctioning on the precat O2 sensor. I'm going to go out tomorrow morning and test the heater line, making sure the resistance (30 ohms) is correct and verifying that the wiring is supplying power to the heater. Knowing my luck, I'll probably end up having to replace it. Now there seem to be universal and OEM sensors available... with the OEM's being a straight plug-in replacement with the proper harness (and more expensive), while the aftermarkets seem to be a "solder/crimp your old harness on" (being less expensive). Is that right? Any other differences? I have convienent access to a soldering iron, and not-quite--so-convienent access to a heat gun, so I could get the harness moved over to the new sensor without too much trouble. The hassle is worth the difference in price, from what I'm seeing. Edit: Now I'm confused :-\. In the repair/diagnosis section of the Haynes manual, they depict the O2 Sensor as having a 4 wire connection. In the wiring diagram section, there's only 3. Oxygensensors.com lists both OEM and aftermarket sensors, but they're all 3 wire. Why the contradiction? I can hope that once I get out there tomorrow and look it over, it'll be plain as day, but right now, I'm confused.

I'm going to try this tomorrow... drain all the coolant out again, plug the bottom of the radiator somehow, and fill it with hot (from the stovetop) vinegar. I'll let it steep for a while (10-15 minutes sound good? I'll google for research on time), then drain it, rinse it out, then put fresh coolant in again (not the old stuff, in case I get more grit and minerals out in the current coolant). I can't imagine the vinegar harming the aluminum radiator, but I'm expecting to buy a new one anyhow. No sense keeping my hopes up . I figure removing those chunks did make a rather large improvement, so I'm hoping the coolant passages themselves aren't too gunked up. After removing that gunk from the radiator and reinstalling it, I idled it, letting it come back up to normal operating temperature. Previous to the degunking, once the temp. was normal, the upper radiator hose would be pressurized a lot. It took significant hand strength to collapse the hose. After the degunking, the hose was gave easier, but not as easily as if it was cold. I figure this means, before degunking, that the radiator was blocking the coolant flow enough for the coolant to significantly build up pressure. Now that the gunk is removed, coolant's flowing easier, and not building up that pressure. Either that, or I left a lot more air in the coolant than I want to believe. After letting it idle, it came up to normal operating temperature and stopped. I drove it around town for the rest of the afternoon, ready to pull over if the temp. gauge so much as raised above normal... it stuck to normal like it was glued there. So I'm hoping the vinegar trick will keep things together for a month or so 'til the cash flow opens back up, and I can afford to replace the radiator ('specially before warm weather kicks back in). Long story short, I've only owned her since August, and it's spent most of its time back at the garage, getting two engines replaced after overheating problems. Everytime I talked to the owner of the garage, he was adamant that he checked the radiator (yeah, my arse he did). So I haven't done a coolant flush myself, but I've done them with previously owned cars, and usually used tap water. Like wondercow2 said... those minerals had to have gotten in there somehow, and it's most likely through tap water. Distilled water, when it undergoes distillation, ends up dropping all the impurities (theoretically, at least) out, leaving just pure water behind. Tap water still has all that mineral content, letting it build up inside the radiator and other coolant passages. It'd be cheaper to buy the full gallon of normal concentrate coolant, then mix it with a gallon of distilled water, but I'm lazy . I'd be saving a couple bucks by doing it that way, rather than the premix, but then I'd just blow the couple bucks on something frivolous. If it was substantial savings, I'd switch... *shrug*

Thought y'all might get a big kick out of this... I got bored today, and although I'm still broke, I thought I'd pull the radiator out of Serenity ('97 OBW), and take a look at it. And a good look is what I got :-\ Now I'm not a genius, so I gotta figure it's fairly obvious that having this fall out of your radiator is not a good thing. Having an inch long mineral deposit with a rough diameter of around half an inch isn't going to promote the flow of coolant. Now if that was sitting on the side channel in the radiator, I can only guess what the actual passages that run through the fins look like. After cleaning out as much as I could, I slapped everything back together and filled it, just so I can give it a drive around the apartment complex so it doesn't just sit 'til I can get a replacement radiator... And I sure won't be using tap water to mix coolant ever again. Premixed 50/50 from Prestone, hoping that they use distilled water (they ought to, right?). Blech.

Tell me about it. As a general rule, I don't trust dealers, garages, or anybody else that works on my car. These guys seem to be fairly honest and upfront. They've backed me up every time the wife has talked to them, trying to get a second opinion, so I guess they can't be too bad . What really matters is that the wife has dealt with them on her own (asking questions regarding OEM brake pads), and they didn't talk down to her... made her feel very comfortable and helped her understand what was goin' on. Overall, we're pretty happy with these folks. I was tempted, but cash was tight. The only other work I had them do was changing the fluid in the diff's... the only other portion of a tune-up ('cept plugs & wires... oh yeah, and fuel filter...) that hasn't been done yet. As it was, I ended up using the money I had set aside for a employee accomodation deal straight through Intel, preventing me from getting said deal. ($800 or so worth of hardware & software for $215). The way I look at it, I might just be heading back to this dealer (Goldstein Subaru, Albany NY, in case anyone was wondering) for my next Subie, which means a lot.

Figured I'd post an update: Dropped Kermie (wife's 2000 OBW) off down at the dealer. They dumped the coolant conditioner into it and let it idle for half an hour. The headgasket leak was still present, so under the terms of the recall, they replaced the headgasket on the driver's side only. Stopped the leak, and the other side shows no sign of giving out (yet). Now the fun part: We didn't get to pick it up at the initially stated pickup time, since the mech. working on it had just finished putting everything back together, and discovered a noise. Not feeling all that comfortable with the noise, they didn't want to "release" Kermie yet. Ends up that the cold start "piston slap" that I had tentatively diagnosed was evaluated by the dealer as the timing belt tensioner dying. The mech. was kinda flummoxed by it, since it would only show its age/failure when the car was started cold (real cold... like sitting overnight in 20-30 degree whether cold). Or apparently, if it was getting put back together after a headgasket job . So for the nice neat price of $270, they replaced the tensioner. Starts up like a champ now, no "piston slap" noise on start, cold or warm. The dealer made a big show out of giving me "half off on labor", but I was too happy that they had found it now rather than me finding it later (darn interference engines) to be concerned about the price. Got another plus out of it, too... finally convinced the wife that spending money on an automotive stethoscope might actually pay out

OT: My smiley button (in the middle of the bar on top of the field where I type this reply in) has a link at the bottom that says something like "Showing 14 out of 25 smileys - Show all smileys." I click on that, which pops up another window. Beating dead horse smiley is on the right, third up from the bottom.

I'll run it past the wife, and see what she says. I doubt she'll be up for a 5 hour drive, but if I bring back enough pics to entice her, she might be grab the next meet in the N.E.