idosubaru

go buy a 3/4 inch drive socket and that axle nut becomes like any other nut, comes right off. the problem is trying to remove that nut with a 1/2 inch regular drive socket. yes people have done, yes it *can* work, but get a 3/4 inch drive and you will not have any problems. get the right tool and this job is super simple. i replace the front XT6 axles by removing ONE BOLT and loosening 4 others, after the wheel is off. loosen the top 3 strut mouting bolts, loosen both bottom strut bolts, remove just the top one and that gives enough room to do the job.

even better to remove the driveshaft entirely. only requires 6 bolts on my subaru XT6, very easy to do. remove it and check all the joints. a bad ujoint will either be seized or feel very lumpy. they will fail and i wouldn't like to see what happens if they fail at 50 or more miles an hour. on my XT6 all you do is remove 4 10mm bolts where it bolts to the rear differential. then remove two bolts holding the center bearing in place. the drive shaft will slide out of the transmission and the entire thing will be setting there for you to look at. very simple.

if it's AWD you need to inspect the ujoints in the driveshaft. did it just come one day, or has it been getting worse for awhile?

matt, you could easily wait until next years tax return to do this. i have driven about 50,000 miles (although mostly highway, so not much turning and grinding, dirty action in there), but stilll they obviously last a long time. off road, dirt and particularly sand will destroy them quickly. i had a completey quiet busted cv start clicking in no time and clicked all the way from south georgia (the sand) to home, maryland. i was driving through lots of sand and it wasted the joint, but i still drove 800 miles home that way, no problem. i packed some grease in it by hand just to quiet it down and it just about went away. then i replaced it. like mentioned, i generally wait until they start clicking while driving straight before i bother with them and i've never had a problem. that's how i got about 50,000 miles out of a busted (outside boot by the way). i currently have two busted boots and i've had a new axle for awhile, just waiting for a good time to install it. pack some grease in there with a gun or with your hand (messy) if you want to quiet it down some and it could go away, i've had that work before. i also had a BRAND NEW axle blow out on me. had probably 100 miles on it and the outer joint just blew up. the auto trans was *confused* and kept messing with the transfer clutches, kept trying to give it power to the rear wheels. which was good, i was able to drive enough to get to the parking lot at work where i installed another axle the next day. if you were driving fast the axle could slam around and break something, like a brake hose up front. but you should be nowhere near that point and you'd know it right away, and your emergency brake will always work. this is really too much information because you don't have to worry about this, just trying to be as comprehensive as possilbe for you. forget about it and have fun.

on XT models there's a wire connector that gets corroded, dirty, burnt, shorted out...etc just above the pedal assembly down by your feet. various interesting electrical problems can happen here. often on XT6's the headlights will be the only thing affected. not familiar with your model, but something to check if the bulbs are good.

kevin, john (from ky) suggested using these as a simple solution to turbo issues so i'd post over there and see if you can get his input. put "turbo" in the thread title and i bet he responds. he is the man.

if it really is a harmonic balancer i wouldn't replace it with another one. the XT6's have them as well and they are stupid annoying. only gets worse over time. i'm getting a solid pulley made for $200 or less, so it can't ever *go bad* like a freaking harmonic balancer. i have 3 or 4 that are no good or out of round due to separation at the inner rubber ring. VERY annoying. if you can buy solid pulleys from aftermarket sources (which i bet you can), i'd definitely go that route myself after all the harmonic pulley problems i've had and know of others that have had as well.

usually grabbing one side with one hand, the other side with the other hand will work for me. gradually just keep wiggling it/rocking it back and forth. at first sometimes it seems like it's not even moving but after a bit it will eventually work loose. be very careful, and don't do this if you don't know what you're doing but i have used a prybar to gently work it off. i'd get as close to the crank as possible without touching the crank or anything else of importance. sometimes the first time taking one off is really tight, after that it's never as hard later. if it's a harmonic balancer do not use a pulley puller, unless you know what you're doing. in generaly i don't think you should need a pulley puller for anything subaru related unless you're inside an automatic transmission. did anything strange happen to the front of the motor before?

with motor out, definitely replace any and every seal you can get too. 10 times easier out of car than in car, rear main and front crank seal in particular. i pulled the motor and trans out together once on my XT6, not sure if you can do that with the turbo's, but it makes splitting the motor and trans, lining the trans up and doing any trans work cake that way. removal and install is quick as well. i have everything ready to do it again very soon.

i do not hear my solenoids clicking on. but i don't have very good hearing either. DIFF LOCK engages and disengages best when driven in a straight line at low speeds. it will in other situations as well, but most consistently as mentioned. and the light should come on when it's engaged. if the light comes on, it should be engaged. i know of XT6's that would actually be engaged but the light IS NOT ON, but i've never heard of an XT6 where the light would come on when the car wasn't actually engaged. so if your light comes on i think you're golden. (you'll know it as soon as you try to turn on dry pavement if you're curious, the binding is unmistakeable).

double post - cracked up computers

definitely pull the motor and trans together, that is a rocking way to do it. makes the job SUPER EASY!! Engine Gear Box....does that include the engine or are you really just swapping the trans and gear box? it's really nice working on the motor and trans out of the car. although the transmission can come out very quickly, i've had them out in like and hour before. motor takes longer to remove for me (unless you're doing a hack job and cutting all the wires, hoses and cables).

for AWD, just be sure the tires match and you are swapping all 4, not just 2.

there's not trick, never seen that happen before. check the end of the cam shaft, right where the cam sprocket attaches. check for rust or some damage on the end that it could be hanging up on. remove the old cam seal then try to pull it off, sometimes it *kind of* hangs up on the old seal, but not really.

you're going to need an estimated price. something like this is entirely dependent on price, there is interest out there but the cost is so high that turn around would be very slow on parts like this. for 50 dollars i think people would be beating your door down and you could sell dozens of them. for 500 dollars i think you'd be hard pressed to sell more than 1. i'm interested but it's entirely a function of cost whether or not i would buy one, and most likely i won't justify the high expense.

check your timing - make sure your tensioners, pulleys and sprockets all look good and solid and appear to be working properly. doesn't sound like it's a tooth off, it would run terrible that way. i would also suspect the HLA's, this thing has them right? i've had seized HLA's that gave low compression...but DID NOT actually tick or tap or make any noise. i would suspect this before the head gasket. i had two cylinders on one side of my XT6 (3 cylinders per side) that had a bad HLA and bad compression associated with that HLA. i went back in and cleaned all of my HLA's, dissassembled and cleaned them all up. the two that were problematic would not come apart i tried a bunch of things and they were completely stuck, would not move or budge with treatments, heat, etc. i replaced them and compression was fine. now the easy way to tell, was that once the cam tower was off i noticed that two of the HLA's out of the 6 of them were not the same height. in other words i put a ruler across the top of them all and two fell short of the heigth of the rest of them, that was my first clue that it was HLA related. so maybe you can pull your cam tower on that side and see if you observe the same thing.

they fixed a known issue, they didn't just install the same engine as it came with new with the same head gasket problems. so your chances of another head gasket failure after 30,000 miles is really really small. you'd have to be very unlucky for that to happen. like others said, i'd consider this a good thing that you've finally gotten it taken care of. my guess is the previous owner probably had some *hint* of the head gasket problem or was suspicious about something and got rid of it, so you just happened to get someone elses problem. but....any 2.5 liter could have give you this problem, they have issues. but yours is taken care of, so i wouldn't worry about it. change that oil often and don't let it overheat.

check your oil frequently after using MMO or ATF in your oil. they tend to dirty oil quicker than normal and an oil change could be called for before your normal oil change interval. can you go 3,000 miles without loosing any oil? if your pressure/tapping is due to loss in oil pressure then the MMO won't fix the problem. has your oil pump ever been resealed? MMO is great for dirty or stuck HLA's, but won't do anything for your oil pump seals.

dude you have the 4 cylinder motor, these things are super easy to work on. this won't take that long at all, i could finish that in an hour. i could do it in 20 minutes on my car. your are in luck - it's on the passengers side so you're money you don't have to remove the drivers side timing belt. the passengers side belt IS SUPER EASY. once you get to it it takes loosening TWO BOLTS to get off, you don't even have to remove them. remove cam sprocket and replace seal. get the cam seal KIT, not just the seal as there is also an oring behind the cam seal holder, remove the 3 10mm bolts around it to get it off and replace the oring as well while yo'ure in there. DO NOT DRIVE IT LIKE THIS or you will surely ruin your engine bearings. you think this itty bitty cam seal is annoying, try replacing your block.

you can definitely find this seal, just not sure how. an idea would be to pull it out or have someone with a diff lying on the ground read the numbers off for you and see if you can locate it by part number. seems like subaru should have this seal.

if it doesnt work just have them redone like mentioned earlier or buy new ones.

kevin was up to 2.5" and is now wanting to downsize....and this is on an XT6...the 6 cylinder. i'd check kevin's dyno plots and what he has to say, he has alot of experience on this. he's tried a couple set ups as have i and on the XT6 i don't think wide open 2.5" is best for my rides. 2.0" seemed best on mine but it wasn't running perfect. running in top shape i think 2.25" is best. i also ran without a converter and now have a high flow converter in place. when i had no converter and big pipe mine lost alot of low end, but maybe it was a combination of something else. i think kevin has similar experience though. and again this is all on the 6 cylinder which is pushing alot more air.

depends what you want. SVX are way cool...but WAY freaking expensive and difficult to find parts for. biggest mistake you can make on an SVX is to use all your expendable cash or maxing yourself out when purchasing one without anything left for maintenance. SVX maintenance and parts can be through the roof and only gets worse if you can't do the maintenance yourself. i'd rather get an ER27 (or even an EA82T) and modify the monkey nuts out of it than get an SVX....though i really dig the looks of those cars. i don't want to ride in one for the fear i'll go buy one. alot depends on personal preference. there are website and plenty have converted the SVX to manual transmission. i know a guy who would probably sell his already converted manual trans SVX for about 5,000.

"barely close your hood". i guess you took precautions to make sure it doesn't ground out against the hood?

in general no, i don't see a reason for such a large gap in price for front/rear. but i don't know the OBS very well. just got one, but haven't looked at the brakes yet. do you really NEED 4 disk rotors brand new? if taken care of properly i've had rotors last a REALLY long time. i don't even have them turned, i just make sure to replace the pads early. at 200,000 miles i decided to replace my rotors for good measure, though there was nothing wrong with them. one of the news ones was warped!! had to return it.