idosubaru

have you checked your head gaskets? i've seen soobs leak from that area just as you're saying through the headgaskets. they can leak without causing any other symptoms (oil leaks without any coolant leaking or oil-coolant mixing). seen it happen before. really hard to tell without seeing where it's coming from. can you clean up the area really good and let the car idle and look for the dripping? otherwise we're just guessing.

new rebuild and oil consumption of 1 quart per 1000 seems like alot to me. on the A/C - for 200 bucks you can go buy a compressor, buy a vaccum pump and recharge it yourself. vaccum pumps are 10 bucks at harbor freight. buy one, borrow someones compressor and buy some R134a. while everything is dry and open (your a/c system) replace BOTH schrader valves. they cost about 50 cents and require venting the system to replace, so replace them now before you charge it up. replacing o-rings would be nice too, but there are a bunch of them. definitely unscrew the two schrader valves on your compressor and get new ones. (valve removal tool is like 2 dollars, same thing for tire stem valves like in a bicycle or car tire). call around you can probably find somewhere a little cheaper than 200 if it's R134a.

pittsburgh isn't the friendliest environment on older cars. keep it sprayed down and dry as much as you can in the winter, treat whatever rust you can before it gets bad. motor should be at about half it's mileage under two conditions. don't run it hot and dont' run it without good oil supply. if you don't do that you won't toast your motor or run into any costly repairs. replace your thermostat, water pump and make sure that radiator is in real good shape. that's the easy way to make 200 or 300,000 miles.

i always pull a vacuum as well, but my buddy in his impatient mode as normal didn't want to last year in his honda. we removed and replaced the compressor immediately, charged it and it blows antarctic air. his had retained it's previous charge though, the compressor was just inop. i agree with mentioned earlier, if it sat open for awhile you definitely want to pull a vacuum or your a/c could easily start failing soon after.

i've read through this post and i guess i'm out of the loop...what do these head studs offer? are they only viable for forced induction applications? do they offer anything for NA engines? may consider a set for the XT6 if they are that good, seems to be alot of talk about them. did we ever answer the re-usability question? can you pull them from a blown block and reinstall them on another? or can you pull them to do some block work and then reinstall in the same block?

LSD rear end may help next time. friend plowed his neon through a few feet of snow all the way off the road. wasn't sure if i could drag him through all that snow with packed snow and regular street tires. i felt the tires just start to slip and the LSD kicked in and pulled him right out no problems. pictures would have been sweet, i'll be sure to carry my new digicam with me this winter. may have pulled him out just fine without the LSD, but i definitely felt it kicking in and kept the car pulling nice and straight.

there is no possibility of engine damage due to a broken belt on an XT6. if someone told you there is, then they either don't know or are lying. i own a bunch of these things and have done timing belts about 50 times. put new timing belts on and go to town. heed the last persons advice, change everything up front while the timing belts are off - cam seals, crank seal, oil pump seal and water pump. you can buy all these items for like 30 dollars from www.thepartsbin.com . if you don't change this stuff now, then you'll be charged 200 dollars again just to replace a 5 dollar cam seal. or 200 dollars to replace a 16 dollar water pump because they'll have to remove the timing belts to get to them.

verify the problem first. options if it is the muffler: they should be able to do it while you wait if you call ahead of time and politely ask for a convenient time when they aren't very busy. mufflers don't take long at all to install. tell them you will be waiting for it and ask for a time estimate. i woudln't personally tell them why you're waiting because i don't trust people - if you tell a good salesmen why he'll probably say "oh we can't do that", knowing that you probaby won't act on the warranty if you have to make the drive twice. you could also ask them if you could pay for a higher quality stainless muffler (minus the difference of the replacement they would typically install), but have it installed for free since they'd have to install another one under warranty anyway. or buy a stainless at a local shop and have the midas install it for free in place of the warranty but non-stainless option. check with them first, may be company policy to not install other mufflers. i got a muffler shop in atlanta to install an aftermarket muffler i bought while i waited - very fast. it was not a direct fit, larger pipe and they were done in like 30 or 40 minutes while i waited.

what does AW in AWIC stand for? i'd like some more info on supercharger installation. what issues are there to confront? i assume you need a blow off valve to compensate for when the throttle closes. and something to cut boost once it reaches whatever max boost you want. for instance if you want to stop at 10 psi...you need some sort of cutoff right? awesome setup, thanks for posting the pictures.

make sure your battery terminals/cables are good as well. if they don't tighten well, replace them. that's one of the best 3 dollar preventative maintenance items around. that would keep me from working on many friends cars!

chris, oil pump gasket, crank seal, cam seals are most likely culprits. valve covers are also possible, but i think they should have spotted that for you while under there and it sounds centrally located. the central location (oil pan) sounds more like crank area/oil pump gasket. all of these items require removing the timing belt which runs a few hundred at a shop. the seals generally cost less than 10 dollars each, the labor to get to them is the killer. that's why i'm doing my own next week. those long rods you speak of are axles.

always had good luck with sears die hard as well. have had advanced auto parts batteries last only 2 years, not good enough for me. the optima red tops are awesome from what i hear, but i've never owned one. putting one in my XT6 once i drop the motor in...next week hopefully.

oh and can that bean counter conversation be framed and mailed to me, that was hysterical!!!!!

i've heard lots of hype over this issue over my 10 + years of owning dozens of XT6's. for the first half of those years i was in college and didn't know much about cars. i bought used tires all the time. i know for a fact i had all sorts of different tires on my AWD XT6's. i drove 30,000+ miles per year, typically well over that. never had any transmission problems then. had to replace one auto trans at 150,000 miles recently...now that i always run matching sets? go figure. i've seen 2 soobs towed hundreds of miles on a tow dolly improperly and know of one other in texas, none experienced any trans problems?? i am an engineer, but have nothing to offer because what i've seen doens't match what i hear from soob so i really don't know what to think. i just keep the tires matching and don't worry about it. in my case i have extra transmissions and can pick them up for next to nothing if need be so i don't really care, but i keep the tires matching anyway. i'm a moderator at http://www.xt6.net and i always tell people to match their tires and be careful but what i also know is that i can't really say i know of anyone who's fried a trans in the 6 or 8 years or whatever i've been in the XT6 community because of this. but as many people as i know it's hard to believe someone hasn't grossly overshot the recommendations.

did you see the tire? if the nail is in the tread it should be fixable and you should have it repaired. have them patch it instead of plug it (though i plug my own, but technically speaking a inner patch is better). then you're done. 11,000 miles is sort of arbitrary. i've seen tires shot at 11,000 miles (in which case you should replace all 4) and i've seen them look brand new at 11,000 miles (in which case you could get away with just buying one tire). in general i'd say for an average driver who isn't driving aggressive i'd agree with buying two new tires and putting them on the front until they *catch up* to the rears and then rotate as normal. i'd even go so far as saying you could probably replace just one tire with only 11,000 miles depending how your tires have worn.

how did he decipher the seperator plate as the source of the leak? it also doesn't make sense that this thing should leak enough to need replacing. can't think of any way to differentiate seperator leakage over rear main seal. the seperators that i've seen aren't under any constant oil pressure or supply either, more or less a vent/drainage back to the oil pan, i can't imagine it leaking very much. i've pulled 200,000 mile motors and the most i've seen is some wetness, no major leaks from these things. i've owned many soobs, worked on other subaru's and i'm a moderator at http://www.xt6.net and i've never seen or heard of anyone having a seperator leak fixed. i know people (myself twice) that have replaced it only because the motor was out for some other reason though. if this is even possilbe, it is very rare indeed. i would get a second oppinion. how much oil are you leaking?

thanks for the heads up, i'll check for future reference. for now, even if it is 105,000 i'm ready to change it out. i inspected it yesterday and it doesn't pass my visual inspection.

67,000 miles 2.2 1997 OBS. doing the timing belts next week. didn't see anything in the repair section of the site or doing a search, are there any good write ups/pictures of replacing the timing belts? lots of t-belt questions, but not many details. i'm definitely replacing the tensioner and cam seals as well. should i do the water pump or oil pump seals while i'm in there or let them go until the next t-belt change? how often do the water pumps fail? anything else to address while i'm in there? i've done 100 ER27 timing belts so i'm not too worried about it, but a little sketched out working on an interference motor so just trying to read up as much as i can. thanks!

timing belts are not terribly difficult. if everything goes right (cough cough), the only tricky part is the drivers side belt tensioner. easy with two people, get a chance to be a little creative by yourself. i always do it by myself with no problems. the 4 cylinder motors are definitely easier, but the XT6 isn't terrible and doesn't require any special tools - depending how you tackle that drivers side tensioner. if it hasn't been opened up any time recently the timing covers will likely be very annoying to remove. the inserts that the bolts screw into will strip and turn inside the inner belt covers and the bolts won't come out. you'll have to push/pull the actual insert out in that case. or just break your covers and run without them. how fast .....the XT6 doesn't have any problems getting over 100 very quickly. it's not a race car, but it doesn't take forever and requires a slight incline to get over 100. mods won't make much difference in top speed as the top speed isn't all that high. the automatic is geared higher and has the potential to go faster. for instance a manual AWD trans XT6 will run 60 at 3,000 rpms and the automatic AWD will run 70 at 3,000 rpms. i'm making those numbers up, but they are close since i don't really pay attention, but something like that. so at 5,000 rpms in highest gear the auto will be going faster.

this needs to be fixed now unless you want an excuse to buy another car. the motor won't last long if you don't do anything. have you checked the coolant level? is it full? when the fans come on, does it stay at normal temp? radiator could be shot as well.

there are driveline and off roading shops that can do this no problem. some machine shops will cut, weld, and balance drive shafts too, just call around and start asking. i agree with his price above. if you're really looking for high performance have a solid aluminum driveshaft made. be sure to get very good measurements or keep the old/new driveshafts as templates no matter which option you choose. i think fitting axles will be trickier than the driveline. you'll need axles for the new trans that fit into your old hubs. unless they are a direct swap, which i highly doubt.

been running no covers on 2 XT6's for over a year (and i drive 30,000 + miles per year). no issues. i drive off road all the time too, mud, water, fields, corn stalks, grass, etc. no issues yet.

my cap on the fusible link holder has the colors indicated on it.

what RPM are you at when you max out? i've had auto and manual AWD XT6's that had no problem getting to that speed. i've had the NA 4 cylinder XT up to that speed as well. tune up is in order. you need spark (tune up indicated above), good compression (compression test) and good fuel (have injectors cleaned). mom mode: i don't support triple digit speeds on public roads.

i have a high flow converter but my mods and order of doing them are too convoluted to determine any changes. if you open up the exhaust too much you may see some low end loss which is annoying if you're driving up hills and such. highway gas mileage definitely goes up on the XT6 if you open the exhaust up a little (straight through muffler like dynomax is my preference), but too much and it goes nowhere and you loose low end power which is annoying if you live in hilly areas (at least to me it is). i think kevin has some dyno plots of some before/after exhaust mods on his XT6 on http://www.xt6.net if you want to check there. he also has a high flow converter on one of his i believe.