idosubaru

original post: engine

engine

unless this guy really knows subarus, he could be confusing something else for head gasket issues. is it leaking coolant or oil? valve cover leaks will pour oil all over the bottom of the motor, covers the cam tower and the head, particularly it coagulates on the rear of the head and drips down on the motor mount...then exhaust and burns off and stinks and smokes. that being said, a valve cover or cam carrier leak can look like an expensive head gasket leak. valve covers are cheap and easy to replace and are more common problems areas than head gaskets or cam carriers. verify if you are loosing oil or coolant? overheating? if you're sure it's overheating, loosing coolant and needs head gaskets then you can expect to pay 500-750 (american). depends what all is done - timing belts, water pump, heads machined, valve job, valve seals, etc.

the 3" lift for EA82 (used on an XT6) won't be available for this deal? just the 4"?

shady, this time around i'd like to aim for a november buy of the lift kit, i have no lift experience at all. what will i need to address to install on an XT6 (or an XT if you don't know the XT6)? just a steering extension, is that it? i have pulled motors, transmissions, resealed motors, have a welder and air compressor.....can i pull this off on an XT6? thanks, gary

have you done timing belts before? it's only 5 more bolts to remove once the timing belts are off. tough question. i think they're easy. for someone who's only changed oil it would be a tricky task.

couldn't shift? wouldn't go in gear or come out of gear?

soak 'em in ATF or cleaner as long as possible. try to compress them and see if you can get them to operate through their range of motion. when you compress them, oil will slowly seep out as the HLA compresses. clean them up real good and reintall. a seized HLA just won't compress at all and that will verify your problem - it is stuck and that can cause ticking. as far as determining if they all pump up properly i can't help you there, i've never had that problem so i'm not sure how to diagnose it. but if you clean all 4 i think a bad one should stick out. they should all end up the same when you're done cleaning/draining them of oil.

a new oil pump is unlikely to fix his problem in this instance. i'd at least troublshoot the HLA's as the motor is already apart and they are much cheaper than a new oil pump.

not so fast - a seized HLA won't be squishy and will cause your problems. i usually stick a straight edge across mine (i have a 6 cylinder so there are 6 per side), which ever one looks out of whack (isn't lined up with the rest in terms of height) is the one(s) that need replaced. only had to do this once and i found two that were seized and would not budge...even a C-Clamp would not compress them. i replaced them and all ticking went away. if the ticking is on one side (drivers side), this is most definitley not the oil pump that is why that did not fix the issue. i've posted this about 30 times, but random ticking across all cylinders points to oil pump issues while ticking associated with one cylinder (sometimes confirmed with off compression on those cylinders as well) points to the HLA's of that cylinder. replace you HLA's and you'll be golden. replace it with known good ones. you can try compressing/disassembling them if you want this thing back together quick. i've done it, time consuming but it is possible and if you can't get it apart due to being seized then trash the bad HLA. both of the bad ones i removed would not seperate at all. pulled the caps off and they would not disassemble after soaking in cleaners, ATF, heating in oven, pulling with assorted tools....all sorts of stuff. i trashed them. easiest solution is just get known good used ones or get them from Mitzpah Engineering (look them up on Yahoo), they sell them for like 5 bucks a piece - that's a much better deal than cleaning/disassembling yourself as it's time consuming. but it can be done if yo'ure wanting it back together.

johnceggleston : start a new topic/thread or do a search. the questions you asked have been answered before. as far as the original post regarding the older models 2.2's and 2.5's, the more $ and reliability weigh on your mind, the more you should consider the 2.2. the less those factor in your decision the more you can lean towards the 2.5 if you need that larger motor. the 2.2 is a very durable motor and should offer you little trouble. auto/manual is your choice. manuals typically have less issues in general, less moving parts and gizmo's and all. if mileage is an issue then compare the mileage between the two. i'm not familiar with mileage of the manuals trans so i can't say. my auto OBS gets like 27 on all highway miles. the XT6 auto's do not get worse mileage than the manuals so the old axiom that auto's get worse milegae is not always true...usually it is, but not always. i'd plan on 25-27 mpg, that seems to be the average. i'm sure someone will pipe in with higher/lower but use those numbers in your decision making.

the terminology "off topic"/"on topic" is subjective. you don't care about his particular situation but it was in reference to a supplier of the gears you speak of so it could be useful to others. consider it a free bump, you'll need it on a custom job like this, keep the thread up there awhile.

got another vote for the yellow paint being there from factory from someone else. i'm replacing it.

decided to do my cousins timing belt on her 96,000 miles 2000 legacy. she said nothing has ever been done to the car, just normal cheap stuff. pulled the cover and the timing belt still has SUBARU on it and the part numbers and everything are readable on the belt. it is worn some, but doesn't look at all like i would expect a 96,000 mile timing belt. also - the cam sprocket on the drivers side had an orange paint dab on the outer rim, like someone had worked with lining up the belt before. can a 96,000 mile timing belt still have writing on it? anyone ever seen paint marks on the cam sprockets from the factory? i'm used to older soobs, maybe that's the problem. confused in maryland.....

no way i'd spend that money on 2 pistons. i would only consider new pistons if they are a new design that prevents this problem. no way i'd go through all this with the possibility of a recurrence. if there is a new piston design then i'd be tempted to go for replacing all 4, replacing 2 is nonsense after hearing that others have developed the slap after 100,000+ miles. considering what is involved in replacing pistons - replacing 4 instead of 2 is such a small difference in the overall job time, do them all.

the only subaru wheels that won't fit your car are the SVX and '05 wrx sti wheels and they are not 15" rims so you should be golden.

i don't think you'll get a compression reading by turning the motor over by hand in my experience. maybe different motors, testers are more capable but my standard off the shelf compression tester won't read anything when i turn my motors over by hand. zero. need to use the starter to get the motor turning.

oh and on the oil pans - i wouldn't expect a repeat of that scenario on the rest of the motor. oil pans suck really bad at sealing. some of the gaskets are cheap and suck, but mostly the pans get old and the mating surface gets trashy. dirty, old gasket material, and the biggest problem is the bolt holes become concave upwards and don't provide good clamping force when you install it. the concave gouges the new gasket while not providing for good clamping force between it and the next (also probably concave) oil pan bolt hole. i just installed one of my engines and put sealant on both side of the freaking gasket to hopefully avoid this scenario this time. hope it works, either way the oil pans just suck so you shouldn't have this problem with your cams.

i'll repeat what he said for confidence. fill the groove and have about a 1/4 inch bead sticking up. if you didn't do any head gasket work then this paragraph doesn't apply. did you do the headgaskets and need to retorque the head bolts? if you need to do a retorque there is no need to appy sealant. you'll have to start the motor, get it to operating temp then turn it off and remove the cam towers again to retorque the heads. in this case, don't waste your time with any sealant on the cam towers, leave them bare and then seal them when you go back in for the retorque. with a retorque you only run it for a little bit before going back in, it won't leak (much). good job replacing that o-ring, it is mucho important and don't put any sealant on it. i know a guy who put sealant all around that oring and it got sucked up his oil ports in short order. horrific lifter noise and he pulled it apart shortly after getting it back together and even took pictures of the lodged sealant blocking the oil passage. probalby not much of a problem if you're using anaerobic sealant (which i think you should), but anyway. on the rocker arms i use a big glob of high quality grease on the rocker arm and place it on the HLA, as it's hanging i rub the grease around the edges thick to hold it in place. this keeps it from falling off. engine lube the rocker arms and all sliding surfaces when you install the cams. if you're doing this with the motor in the car (which you should be or you wouldnt need to grease the rocker arms to hold them in place), get everything out of the way that you can - hoses, wires, atf lines, anything that might get in the way. you don't want to be squeezing the cam tower down there and have something in the way and knock a rocker off or scrape off your great bead of sealant while you're wiggling it in place. i personally like to hold the cam just about an inch away and place the first two top corner cam bolts through the holes and partially thread them, just enough to hold the weight of the cam. then check everything as you gradually torque them down and go for the final press into place. it'll likely move the cam as it pushes the cam into the *resting* position so to speak. EA82's aren't bad at all, much better than the ER27, not much room to work with on that thing. good luck

depends what you want. the 2.2 is a freaking beast, it will run forever properly taken care of. great motor and AWD system. at least drive one to see if you really need that extra 0.3 liters of displacement. i'd keep your eye out for one with as low of miles as possible if you want to keep the car a long time. be advised any 97 or later will need the timing belts checked as they are interference motors (unless it's already known the last time it was changed). sounds like you can do it yourself so no big deal, i just did my 2.2 for the first time and it was cake.

already said, but weep holes are classic signs of water pump failure. very common, time to replace. you're doing the right thing, just too bad you did it twice!

that actually depends on final gearing among other things. auto's are worse on mileage, more internal losses but can make that up depending on the gear ratio of the highest gear (particularly in highway miles). auto XT6's get the same mileage as manual XT6's because the gear ratios are better. at 75 they're doing about 750 or so lower rpm's for the same speed. complete tune ups are a good thing. some place just did a mileage comparison and showed that cruise control dramatically increased mileaged, someone just posted the link on the boards here recently. interesting article. showed also that driving with windows down instead of a/c didn't really hurt mileage any (as compared to running a/c). actually the mileage was an itsy bitsy bit better with windows down. in any event, tune up is in order if you're serious about gas mileage. the more thorough the better. have your brakes checked and the slides greased well on the caliper to make sure there's no dragging. my mileage went up in my auto AWD 2.2L OBS after i did the brakes....totally unexpected, everything was working fine i just installed new pads but i'm guessing the calipers were dragging a little bit but they worked perfectly fine, no malfunction at all. after replacing pads my mpg went up a few. i'm probably just lucky though. haven't done anything yet to my OBS, but the auto XT6's get better highway mileage with a better muffler. you can get 2 mpg better or so with a little muffler/intake action...if everything else is working right at least.

anyone figure out the price discrepancy originally posted? and what exactly is Subaru Auto Parts price? is that an online retailer? agreed. after all the searching through old threads trying to decide what to do with my 220,000 mile original coil i still haven't bought an aftermarket one yet. not really much good from what i can see getting an aftermarket substitute. i'd guess any tiny performance gain that *might* be noticeable is from getting the 100,000+ mile unit out of there and probably would have been the same increase as replacing with a new stock unit. i'll get a new stock unit.

are you sure that is all true? i currently have an XT6 that i removed the rear differential, drive shaft and axles from because the diff went bad and i'll replace it later. maybe the legacy is different, but in the EA82 cars and the XT6 you can do it. the axle nut/stub is not needed to mount the wheels. the wheels mount to the hub which is held in place by the entire rear assembly/member. i don't know that the axle's support much, i believe most of their function is to just transfer power from diff to hub and fling grease on your underside when the boot breaks! my XT6 runs fine. if it's an automatic you'll need to keep the front half of the driveshaft in place otherwise transmission fluid will dump out all over the ground. the splined shaft of the driveshaft (the center bearing support, front half of the drive shaft) also seals the rear output seal. the rear half of the driveshaft can be removed, unbolted. manual trans driveshafts can be unbolted. also for an automatic you'll have to splice into the duty solenoid C or put in the FWD fuse to run in FWD mode. in the manual trans you'll have to lock the center diff. otherwise the rear output shaft will spin and do nothing and your front wheels will not do anything. very small weight savings, doubt you could shave more than 75 pounds, not enough to make a noticeable difference. if you did a ton of city driving with heavy foot and brake action then maybe, but for highway miles it won't mean a thing. i load a few hundred pounds in my soobs and for highway miles it does nothing because once you're up to speed i'm guessing the amount of gas to sustain that highway speed is nearly identical regardless of weight. alot of accelerating would likely be hurt more by weight i'm guessing.

converting is easy and cheap. typically a leak can just be a 50 cent o-ring. best to replace them all if you want to keep the air ride, those o-rings are now 10 years old +. i like the air ride on my XT6. but it is more maintenance than a standard strut. best to condition the struts which i've posted about before, but either way there are alot of o-rings, air bags and compressors, fittings that can go bad. mine has been fairly trouble free, but i've done some preventative maintenace to the struts and replaced all the o-rings. requires some research and taking time to understand, maintain and trouble shoot. i've also got a stock pile of extra parts to swap if anything fails, that makes it easy too. convert to standard struts and no more worries.