idosubaru

someone on the XT6 boards had theirs improperly towed and as fired up as he got about it, i don't think they agreed to do anything about it. it would be hard to prove it's their fault. then everyone with a pad transmission could just keep parking their car illegally until they got the 18 year old kid towing it wrong and get a new transmission. so yeah - they should be responsible, but good luck and have fun with a situation like that. back to the topic. will towing an AWD manual or automatic ruin the transmission?

yes and no. subaru and nissan driveshafts came from the factory with unserviceable and unreplaceable ujoints. Rockford (check out their website for part numbers) makes ujoints that can be fitted in place of the existing ujoints in your driveshaft. Order the ujoints and give them along with the driveshaft to a machine shop (unless you want to try it yourself) and they'll charge 50-100 dollars. Then you'll have greasable and replacable ujoints, i have them now on my XT6. these guys supply rockford ujoints and have some good information on their website: http://www.staugustinefwd.com/ if you find any cheaper sources, do post where.

i know guys that have done a home style alignment with string and other assorted highly technical equipment, but i don't know the process myself. have you hit anything, do offroading or is the car very old, rusted or in less than perfect shape? on a newer vehicle i'd say don't waste your money on an alignment as the alignment is rarely a problem. i NEVER get alignments and my tires always wear perfectly. a guy i know that works at a tire place and seems reasonably knowledgable said unless something happens it's really a waste of money to always pay for an alignment even if you get new tires. if they old ones wore evenly, the new ones will wear evenly. i even slammed into a curb and trashed my lower control arm on my XT6. replaced it and still never got an alignment...at 200,000 miles it runs straight as an arrow with perfectly even wear patterns. one of my daily drivers XT6's i got at 105,000 miles and it now has 207,000 and i've never gotten an alignment. again - the set of tires on it are past the wear indicators, need a new set, but they are all perfectly even. you car is older and different than mine so maybe others have different experiences. what problem are you having exactly? if the tire wears weird, i'd rotate them and see if the next tire in the same location does the same thing. if you drive aggressively put around 3-6 more psi than recommended from the factory in the tires to mitigate rolling and wearing on the outer edges. if the tires are old that could also be a problem. i think bad ball joints can also cause alignment and tire wear issues.

someone mentioned to me recently that subaru carries steering rack rebuild kits for the XT6 for around 40.00. i've never checked into it myself though. if that is true, it would include any seal you would need to fix that leak.

http://www.carparts.com/ has great prices on corteco head sets. they would include head gaskets and a zillion other seals and gaskets as well. the corteco gaskets appear much nicer than felpro visually. not that looks really means anything i suppose. the corteco kits i've used do not include the cam tower metal clip-on orings, but the felpro sets do.

what do you mean by "handles" them? magnecor is not sold through stores, contact their website you won't see them anywhere else. accel and MSD are widely available on the internet and local parts stores.

don't get caught up thinking about 10 other items, you'll find what you're looking for if you inspect all your ujoints. one thing at a time - check it and let us know how it turns out.

the driveshaft is super easy to check. your best bet is to go check the ujoints in your driveshaft before trying to guess what else it may be. i've had horrible vibration 4 times on my soobs and every time it was the ujoints of the driveshaft. my money is one your ujoints

i haven't read the owners manual in your car, but this could possibly be one of the dumbest moves i've heard. are you SURE he put ATF in the diff? you didn't get confused by what the mechanic told you?

the block can definitely handle more miles without a problem. if you've owned this car for awhile (sounds like you have) and have taken care of it then i'd say the block is good for another round of tires. shop around for tires, www.tirerack.com is awesome. i bought a set of tires for 180 dollars (SHIPPING INCLUDED). mounted them myself...and you know i haven't even balanced them yet and you can hardly tell while driving??? i expected much worse vibration. i'm tempted not to worry about balancing them anytime soon, i don't even notice it while i'm driving...lucky i guess? don't bother replacing the muffler. if you must, find someone to weld up a generic muffler, it'll be much cheaper. don't replace the muffler with a bolt in replacement, they are typically expensive.

you have rear drive line. okay, now i'll go ahead and say that i'm feeling very confident that you have a bad ujoint. wasn't sure if this thing could have been FWD or not. rear diff - maybe, but don't even think about that until you inspect those ujoints like nobody's business. the driveshaft on most soobs comes off REALLY easy so pull it and check if this vibration is really eating you up. the bad ujoint will feel lumpy as you move it and if it's bad enough it will be seized or have obvious signs of failure and breakage on it.

headgaskets aren't terribly horrible to replace so if they do leak again it's not the end of the world. if you're not milling, i would pay particular attention to the bolt threads, be sure they are clean and the bolt holes in the block are clean. some people recommend a little oil on the threads to alleviate friction and get a good tight torque on them. but not so much oil that it's dripping and running down over the gasket. be sure to retorque them if required. make sure all mating surfaces on the head and block are squeaky clean. i wouldn't cut any corners on these points if the head isn't milled.

in my oppinion you will not find a better wire than magnecor. check out their website, they are very straight forward, no gimmicks and are very popular with people running high performance motors. they do not carry all the hype, glitz and showmanship of other companies, but their performance is excellent. if you want more color choices and fancy gizmo's and stickers, these wires are not for you. http://www.magnecor.com/ might want to take a look at this subaru while you're there: http://www.magnecor.com/magnecor1/main.htm sometimes new spark plug wires may alleviate poor running not because those wires are so great, but because the old ones were that bad. some commentary about Nology spark plug wires: The most notable of exaggerated claims for ignition wires are made by Nology, a recent manufacturer of ignition wires promoted as "the only spark plug wires with built-in capacitor." Nology's "HotWires" (called "Plasma Leads" in the UK) consist of unsuppressed solid metal or spiral conductor ignition wires over which braided metal sleeves are partially fitted. The braided metal sleeves are grounded via straps formed from part of the braiding. Insulating covers are fitted over the braided metal sleeves. These wires are well constructed. For whatever reason, Nology specifies that non-resistor spark plugs need to be used with their "HotWires." In a demonstration, the use of resistor plugs nullifies the visual effect of the brighter spark. Ignition wires with grounded braided metal sleeves over the cable have come and gone all over the world for (at least) the last 30 years, and similar wires were used over 20 years ago by a few car makers to solve cross-firing problems on early fuel injected engines and RFI problems on fiberglass bodied cars — only to find other problems were created. The recent Circle Track Magazine (USA, May, 1996 issue) testshowed Nology "HotWires" produced no additional horsepower (the test actually showed a 10 horsepower decrease when compared to stock carbon conductor wires). The perceived effect a brighter spark, conducted by an ignition wire, encased or partially encased in a braided metal sleeve (shield) grounded to the engine, jumping across a huge free-air gap (which bears no relationship to the spark needed to fire the variable air/fuel mixture under pressure in a combustion chamber) is continually being re-discovered and cleverly demonstrated by marketers who convince themselves there's monetary value in such a bright spark, and all sorts of wild, completely un-provable claims are made for this phenomena. Like many in the past, Nology cleverly demonstrates a brighter free-air spark containing useless flash-over created by the crude "capacitor" (effect) of this style of wire. In reality, the bright spark has no more useful energy to fire a variable compressed air/fuel mixture than the clean spark you would see in a similar demonstration using any good carbon conductor wire. What is happening in such a demonstration is the coil output is being unnecessarily boosted to additionally supply spark energy that is induced (and wasted) into the grounded braided metal sleeve around the ignition wire's jacket. To test the validity of this statement, ask the demonstrator to disconnect the ground strap and observe just how much energy is sparking to ground. Claims by Nology of their "HotWires" creating sparks that are "300 times more powerful," reaching temperatures of "100,000 to 150,000 degrees F" (more than enough to melt spark plug electrodes), spark durations of "4 billionths of a second" (spark duration is controlled by the ignition system itself) and currents of "1,000 amperes" magically evolving in "capacitors" allegedly "built-in" to the ignition wires are as ridiculous as the data and the depiction of sparks in photographs used in advertising material and the price asked for these wires! Most stock ignition primaries are regulated to 6 amperes and the most powerful race ignition to no more than 40 amperes at 12,000 RPM.

sounds like drive shaft/u joint issues to me. is it 4WD? i would look nowhere else until you carefully inspect all of your ujoints.

55 dollars, that's monkey nuts! if you haven't cut them all up, return them and buy magnecor wires. magnecor are probably the same price, much better wires, no assembly and they'll last forever. excellent customer service, i've run them for years. my friends go through other wires in 30,000 miles on their jeeps and they run these and never replace them. check them out here: http://www.magnecor.com/

oh and these motors need to be retorqued as well right? maybe that's why the headgasket isn't lasting long? was it retorqued after the first install?

i developed a horrible rod knock in my XT6 because i was adding water due to a blown headgasket this summer. i never knew this was an issue so i just put it off cause i was too busy. i would highly recommend not putting this job off, tom is correct, i wish i hadn't!

if your headgasket is blown, why are you worried about it being warped or not? no way to check that with the head on the car. if you're replacing the head gasket then you should have the head checked and milled. it will most likely be out of tolerance, but well within the limits of milling. i find it unlikely your head is trashed, but it won't be perfect. ideally you should have it milled and have the cracks between the valves repaired (all EA82 and ER27 heads i've pulled had them). you can skip repairing the cracks and you can skip milling the head, each is added risk to the life of the engine and not milling is added risk that your new head gasket won't hold. driving around on a bad headgasket is not good for your block. i had a leaking head gasket in one of my cylinders and just kept adding water/coolant all summer because like you said "it ran good". didn't take long to develop a massive knock in the engine. more than one knowledable person informed me that water in the oil will do a number on engine bearings.

what kind of valve train do these things have? if the valves are susceptilbe to being noisey maybe an oil change or change in oil weight would help. the older soobs had hydraulic valve adjusters in them which were prone to be very noisey, particularly with dirty oil. what exactly is piston slap and why does it happen and why does it go away when warm?

first time i did brakes i thought "oh my nuts i can't believe i've paid people exhorbitant amount of money to do this". suffer the learning curve now and thank yourself for the rest of your life. this board will be a great resource. i second the haynes manual or a factory service manual if you're looking to learn more and do other maintenance yourself.

a tool to gap spark plugs costs like 2 dollars. buy one that measures the gap as well. all auto parts stores carry them, very simple. i'd return the accel wires and buy magnecor wires. great wires and you'll never need to replace them. excellent customer service as well.

what makes you think you need such an exhaustive fuel system treatment? fuel delivery should be fine on your car. send the injectors off to RC engineering to be professionally cleaned, rebuilt and flow tested if you have legitimate reasons for concern. i've used lots of different fuel additives, with no result. i've also never experienced any fuel related issues with 3 motors at 200,000+ miles, so it really didn't matter.

thermostat

have you checked the fluid level? 1-800-946-5787 these guys have 2 auto trans for the 2.2 liter for 575.00. in ny.

could the compression tester be dirty, clogged, or broke? i'd try it on another motor and see what you get. then i'd check your timing belts alignment.