idosubaru

will a 97 or 98 2.2 (i have each) swap into a 99? did they remove the EGR system on the later models? a mechanic is telling me this is impossible. i did some searches but can't find specifics except on this issue.

new bushings typically stiffen the steering up and help alot. there have been a couple threads in the past year/few months at xt6.net about that issue. impreza steering bushings fit the XT6 steering rack, that's why kevin and others are using in theirs. steering pump should be cake to find. no EA82's around here that i know of, but get someone that knows a yard with EA82's and order one from them. they'll ship 'em.

yup. doubt that's the cause, but still a good idea to replace. be sure to verify the gap is correct, was that done last time the plugs were changed?

there are thousands of used cars across the country at yards that will mail this part to you. find a PA, CO, WV, NY yard that has a zillion subaru's and they'll mail it to you for a couple dollars. they're more than willing to mail parts, done it plenty of times. or splice like mentioned earlier. if you're still having issues, posting a picture sometimes helps if you can do that. a picture is worth a thousand words and noone feels like typing or reading that much!

make sure your battery cables/connections are tight (you should not be able to move/twist it by hand) and clean. this can shorten battery life significantly.

O2 sensors don't typically cause driveability issues that early, more info later. are the spark plugs NGK and the ignition wires OEM Subaru wires? if not, they should be and i'd start there. particularly the wires. most aftermarket wires won't work well with the newer Subaru's (2.2 and 2.5 liter engines). the O2 isn't hard to replace, just hard to get to sometimes. best to crawl under and have a look. i saw the one on the 2.2 liter i just pulled last week, didn't look hard at all. hopefully someone will post a wrench size for you. hit it good with penetrating oil (use Liquid Wrench or PB Blaster, not WD40 as they are better products for this). spray it down good where it threads into the exhaust a day before and the day of to help it break loose. these are the three wire type O2 sensors. the plug is in the engine bay, follow the wire UP until you see the connector. pop the hood and disconnect it. then remove the O2 and install the new one and connect it. that's it, it just unscrews from the exhaust. access is the only issue, but it's usually not too bad, just annoying getting on the ground and under the car. i typically pop one side of the car or one front tire up high by driving up on a curb or something else elevated. approach any curb nearly head on with the tires, you want the tread to ride up on the curb (slooowly), not the side wall. side walls of tires are weak. i've done it a zillion times. this is much easier than getting out a jack and feels alot better too when you crawl under there. on a scale of 1 (easy) to 10 (hard) this job is a 1. you could try swapping out the coil pack as well. pick up a used one for a couple bucks and give it a try to see if your problem goes away.

that should be fine, i was thinking she might be running that really light stuff.

try a little heavier weight oil if she's using the really thin snyth's now. if it's is an HLA engine change the oil often (relatively speaking of course).

i knew (know??) nothing about welding and did it myself a couple days after buying a welder too. it is possible. but it is also a pain. i think the cheapest alternative would be to buy a good used exhaust (post a in the Wanted to Buy Forum here on this site). You can probably get one for $100 or less. i've sold exhaust parts before, that's the cheapest and easiest route in my oppinion. treat/paint the rust with high heat rust proof quality paint to at least mitigate any existing rust. you should also be able to get this job done for $200 or less at an honest local muffler shop for a generic off the shelf muffler and new pipe from the cat back. $50 in parts and $150 in labor should be easily possible (if not cheaper). i threw a muffler i bought in my trunk and kept it in there for awhile and stopped at a few shops and finally found a place that said they'd do it for $35. they ran new pipe almost from the cat all the way back to the muffler and hung it for only $35. shop around and look for a place that'll weld/replace the pipe and muffler with non-OEM parts. if they're buying direct fit bolt on replacements you're going to pay high dollar. not cost effective in my oppinion. if you still want to do this yourself....i bought a ton of flanges and gaskets and pipe. i took the old muffler and pipe (the one i had welded for $35 years earlier) to a shop and had them bend me new pipe where the two bends were in the exhaust. i welded one directly to the muffler and the other had flanges. i would not mess with that flex-pipe it is terrible quality. not bad for a mock-up maybe but i'd just take in the old stuff. they can bend close to that. mine is bolted to the motor and i have one hanger at the muffler, that's it. use the stock locations, i only have one hanger on my muffler and that's it. i don't use the mid-hanger because i didn't feel like welding it on, didn't seem necessary. worked fine for me. the front is held in place by the engine/exhaust manifold. get verything held up and lined up as best as you can. tack it in place and remove and fully weld all the parts. i did one piece at a time and worked my way front to back. bolted the first flange to the existing exhaust manifold flange. set the pipe about where i wanted it, then tacked it to the flange. removed the flange with pipe now spot welded to it and fully welded the flange. reattach and repeat until you're finished. tips: buy extra pipe and extra flanges and take back what you don't need. make sure the pipe, muffler and flanges (mostly the muffler will be the issue since pipe/flanges are usually not stainless), make sure they are not stainless unless you want to be welding stainless yourself. stainless steel can't be welded by all types of welding machines. practice welding the pipe on some junky pipe or practice pieces and a flange, pipe is thin and you need to practice a little for yourself and to get the welder settings adjusted right for the thin pipe. pipe will melt through easily. look for flanges that have good clearance between the bolt holes and the exhaust flow where the pipe will be. reason is that if it's your first time welding you don't want to be confined to making a perfect, tiny weld next to the bolt holes. what will happen is you'll make a large weld. around the pipe, then when you insert the bolt, the head of the bolt will catch on the large welds around the pipe. more clearance there will give you more flexibility, be more forgiving and less time consuming. good luck and have fun!

if it has HLA's, then yup they can make noise. sometimes a grade thicker or thinner oil will help, though i consider that a band-aid more or less. or try some sea foam added to the oil. this can clean the HLA if it's build up related. oil pump would have been a good maintenance item with all that timing belt, water pump stuff too. it has seals and screws on the backing plate that come loose. not saying that's the cause but good to take care of "while you're in there". and the guy saying engine knock is probably wrong. is it me or does every diagnosis from people that know nothing about cars involve either "the catalytic converter is clogged" or "it's like it's not getting any fuel so it's the fuel pump".

they are designed to be replaceable, but they are with a little work. and once you do it, you have replaceable and regreasable joints. i did it a couple years go and posted a picture of the process/instructions included with the ujoint. the file is too large to post here, so check it out at this link: http://www.xt6.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5179&highlight=joint resize it and post here if you'd like, these nasa computers won't allow it. next time i do this i'm having a shop build a one piece driveshaft so it uses only 2 ujoints instead of 4. prices are kind of steep, i think they were 30 or 40 a piece off the top of my head. if you find better prices, let me know. use a sawz-all to get the old ujoint out. anything else can be time consuming.

i know people that have with good results. i have spoken with them on the phone and plan on ordering a set or two.

pull the hoses to the heater core off. (there are two hoses connected to the fire wall giong to the heater core, remove them). i leave the hose connected at the firewall and disconnect the other end. you'll have two hoses, inlet and outlet. blow water or compressed air through them to flush out any junk. i've done this before, it's very easy. might as well replace the hose and clamps while you're going through the trouble. be careful where the hose clamps at the firewall, the hose actually clamps to the heater core, don't break it. gotta go.

i've read on here that dealers normally do the headgasket in the car, they don't remove the engine. crank seals, cam seals, water pump, oil pump are all right in front of them while doing the headgasket, there's very little associated cost in replacing those at the same time. crank and cam seals are 5-10 dollars each, same with oil pump oring. call another shop and get an estimate on head gasket and crank, cam, oil pump seals and see what you get.

yes

15A fuse. it's not a big deal. you could install any fuse in your fuse box whether it be a 15, 20, 25, or 30 and all will work just fine without issue.

nice picks indeed, doesn't look hard at all? much easier than i thought. is there a new gasket that goes between the rear extension housing and the trans case when you reassemble?

not required as i suspected, found online: http://www.epa.state.il.us/air/vim/faq/testing.html#10

most states have an exclusion for AWD vehicles. they test it at idle only, no moving or rolling tests needed for AWD. i would refuse to use the fuse. an AWD auto trans is nothing to mess with unless an emergency. good to be prepared, but i can't imagine they'd make you do that, liability written all over it. i'd call and ask first and demand that this not be done to your car if any resistance is found, but i find that unlikely. not too mention...what if, somehow that one dinky circuit went bad or the fuse popped or something...then what? the car takes off with people standing in front of it and through the doors it goes? no way i say, refuse the fuse.

lots of people do this, i've done it a number of times to any subaru i drive. very common practice. the tune up likely did more for your engine than this.

the newer generation subaru's don't get great gas mileage. yours doesn't sound far off depending what kind of driving your doing. the fuse will not help physically speaking. mentally maybe you're more aware of driving habits and slow down, use brakes less if you put it in due to the fact you're paying more attention to it, but otherwise it won't make a difference everything else being equal. i've gone so far as to drive both auto and manual trans in FWD without the rear driveshaft connected and even without the rear axles/rear diff in place and still no difference. (i didn't do it for gas mileage reasons, but do plenty of highway driving for accurate comparisons). i'm currently running FWD in my XT6 because i removed the rear diff to put in another car...no change in mpg at all and i drive all highway miles 120 miles round trip per day to work. very consistent testing, no change.

so why would this misalignment occur while the engine was not run for a couple months and never while driving? i always assumed corrosion of some sort since it was always while "sitting". cars both ran perfectly fine before tear down (minus head gasket seaping). belizianbus, do you have a means to swap distributors to check? haven't heard back from you yet.

agreed, i can send you one for "testing" if you'd like. send it back if i it doesn't work.

battery connections clean and tight? how old is the cap? i'd replace it and the rotor. cracked or leaky distributor cap or rotor can cause this, rough to start but runs great. outside of that, leaky injectors bleeding off fuel as the car sits. but i'm highly doubful that's the case.

positive, i only swapped distributors and kept the (brand new) cap and rotor. same on the previous instance a couple years ago, finally swapped disty after many days/hours replacing everything and swapping MAF, Knock sensor, ECU..blah blah blah to no avail. replace disty and it ran fine. on this last time, i had pulled/reinstalled the wires multiple times and connected/disconnected the electrical testers. no codes, i tested every pin out at the ECU and followed the entire, convoluted, detailed "No Start" testing in the FSM...pages and pages worth and everything tested fine. i've owned about 12-15 XT6's, parted a few out and know them fairly well. from now on i say replace it (but that's easy for me to say i have plenty of parts lying around). this just occurred to me, i dare even say this as some people likely don't believe me up to this point, but let me mention an even stranger detail. i'm wondering if there is anyway for the CAS to become disoriented or misaligned internally? the first time i could actually get the car to run (not very well though, but driveable) by lining it one or two teeth OFF intentionally. line up the disty correctly and it wouldn't even start if i turned the timing all the way as far as it could go. lined it up OFF intentionally a couple times (more or less by accident) and it ran.....i agree, totally weird and believe i would have used every cuss word in the book at the time i was so frustrated. that's why i say check it if you can't find anything else now that i've had it happen twice. and both times it never happened while driving the car or using it...but after the car had sat awhile....it wouldn't start up after running fine before. huck, john and others from xt6.net helped me through that first nightmare, they probably recall and the details are posted all over xt6.net or the old yahoo groups. i say swap disty if you can, it's easy enough to do and worth the trouble it may save.