idosubaru

It’s only a few dollars pocket change so probably a few variable impact it, but maybe a market difference. Overall many aftermarkets are cheaper than OEM here. If you don’t compare prices OEM can typically be more. If there’s $2 per filter difference and 20 changes in 100000 miles that’s $40 or $4/year, not much gain to be had. Does the dealer give you a personal discount? A dealer does that for me, but that’s not necessarily a fair comparison. And I have friends that get special discounts at national chain stores that I don’t get. Do all dealers there have identical pricing? The same part can vary by 30% or more in price depending which dealer we buy from. The higher end filters are roughly comparable in price to OEM but in the end it depends how you shop - online, bulk, amazon subscription, locally, manage online discounts/coupons/points, all of which can be a moving target. If you’re not going to check prices or look for those lower cost options, OEM can be high locally, but we’re only talking a few dollars pocket change either way so it doesn’t pay to play for most people.

No tool necessary for the crank. I’ve done hundreds without a tool. A socket, long pipe over the handle for clearance and a solid whack with a heavy hammer is a great make shift impact socket. Lock the flex plate or clutch/flywheel. Yes you can probably get away with just a belt change next time. Personally I’d just replace the lower idler every time - it’s $30 and by far the most failure prone and the belt can’t slide over it if it seizes like it can all the other pulleys. I’ve seen seized smooth idlers with the belt sliding over it and the pulley not turning. One was driven well over a thousand miles until parts/costs were doable and it was fine. In retrospect that’s hard to believe! The toothed idler would fail immediately. install the lower passenger side idler after the belt is hung. It’s outside the belt and under light tension, easily installed afterwards. Alignment is easy, no need to make marks or count teeth. The engine doesn’t use paint marks or tooth counts which have no benefit. Too many cooks in the kitchen and learned helplessness IMO. The engine uses data on the cams so I use those too and cover notches/cam seam if applicable. If the car is a hacked up or wrecked POS demolition derby queen with belt covers hanging crooked then maybe belt installation needs some tweaking. Align the cam and crank sprocket. Install belt. Check. Done. Thats it. No need to add steps or complicate.

Just change the filter, it’s not sitting under the sump and won’t drain it. I’ll give some heart attacks and trigger some amygdala’s this morning. You can change your filter the next time you change the oil. *gasp*. On Subarus Im keeping beyond 200,000 miles (i have a rotating fleet) that will be rust prone when I finally ditch them anyway - i change the filter every other oil change. I don’t do that to ones I own short term since I know that would freak some future owners out. I change every 5k, so that means every 10k for filters. This is in alignment with long interval synthetic changes and still under the ratings of the higher end filters. So I’m still under specs. residual oil can’t be a determinant factor since oil is held captive throughout various oil supply lines and orifices, cam carriers, valve solenoids and switches, oil pump, etc and long term oil analyses shows nothing noteworthy.

GD has posted significantly about oil filter design and function. Read his other posts if you’re interested. there isn’t much evidence of failures or longevity due to oil filter choices in nonturbo daily drivers.

I don’t know what it is but doubt it’s the struts? Is the ride height different? Measure from center of axle nut to fender arch and compare driver and passenger side. Could any of the parts be the wrong and different - like for an Impreza/forester/legacy instead of outback? How far/much time between strut change and alignment was the vehicle driven to allow it to settle? Tie rods and ball joints are just about the scariest parts to have fail, I’ve seen 4 non-Subaru failures, I stick with Subaru for those.

It’s benign. They do that, I ignore them and have seen zero correlation to issues. Of course you can just check them real quick with every oil change rather than believe some unknown possible whack job on the internet (me). It won’t take long and you’ll realize it’s not progressing and there’s no symptoms. That’s a normal Subaru tie rod end, circlip at the base and not at the top. All Subaru tie rod ends are like this for 40 years. You can probably inject grease with a needle fitting if you want but I’ve never bothered. OEM outer joint failure is almost unheard of, Ive never seen one with play or replaced one for any reasons except torn boots or damaged threads. They all “rock”, they’re suppose to articulate. I almost guarantee you don’t have any wear, failure or actual play in the joint itself beyond what you’ll find that one does the moment you remove it from a new box and install it. Go to a new car dealer and pry low mileage ones - they’ll rock too. That you’re suggesting both sides have identical characteristics and mention no drivability symptoms, points to this being the case, and they’re functioning like millions of other outbacks of the past 20 years on the road today with original tie rod ends.

If the clutch cable is notably tight to press down then you might assume it’s getting crusty and hanging up inside the sheathing, and therefore replace. And of course if you want to then have at it, they are cheap and easy to replace. But i probably wouldn’t. There’s enough 300,000 mile concerns I probably wouldn’t worry about a clutch cable. They don’t strand you, that’s my big litmus test for preventative maintenance. Not fun to start in gear and rev match but it’s drivable.

I’m a big EJ22 fan but I doubt I’d yank a perfectly good EJ18, jump into all that work, dump $500+ for an unknown engine with over a quarter million miles. If reliability and daily driver duties are part of the decision. Otherwise, how did the coolant and spark plugs PCV and intake look and intake/exhaust port carbon build up?

No you don’t need the computer. A different computer won’t have the right pin outs so that’s positively not what you want. The computer is meaningless for what you’re trying to do, ignore it. Match the trans to the vehicle (aka the trans needs to the computer and wiring). For what you’re doing, you can not swap computers to make a trans compatible 1. You need a transmission compatible with the existing vehicle (aka computer and wiring) - you can’t swap computers without gutting the entire vehicle and doing a full wiring conversion with it. You match the trans to the vehicle - so any 99-03 Forster or 00-03 outback. Maybe even 04s Those vehicles match the wiring, TCU and final drive ratio of the original rear diff in the vehicle. Determine your current rear diff final drive ratio and tell us what it is. Should be 4.44, which is what I think all those other transmissions are but check first. There are.a few oddball final drives around 03 but I forget which model and years exactly and maybe it’s only manual trans

Rear diff - count how many times the rear driveshaft rotates for each wheel rotation by hand. Front diff - i believe you can do the same thing by peaking through the diff plug at the ring and pinion teeth. Or, if the front diff is already bad just yank the axle stubs and look through there or bash the casing open with a sledgehammer and count the R&P.

Scott is a long time member here making lift bits for a long time now. Ive bought mine from him. SJR lifts.

all the northeast rust bucket people are drooling....

get a cheap gauge, see how much is in it. it's probably low. sometimes you can top them off and they're good for a long time. if it's leaking/loosing refrigerant, replace the orings at the comrpessor, schrader valves and hoses that go to the A/C compressor and that fixes most problems. what I wrote above is for an 01-04 H6 engine and will be different but the principles and locations of the parts are the same.

what larry said - if you're guessing you probably have a 2.5 engine and blown headgaskets. like he said - 2.2 it. but yeah - just keep the nose of the car up, fill up the radiator, run car, cool down, top off, run car, cool down, top off and it'll be bled.

Okay this looks like a front strut - wide springs, I think I see a third mount stud poking out the back that's barely visible and a castle nut suggests it came off the front....at first I was thinking it was a rear due to the two obvious studs on the top. Yes, it needs offset for camber. "engineered" and they didn't check camber? that's funny!

I'd strongly suggest doing what he just said - verify you've got enough good material to work with. it's not a bolt on part so you can't just remove the old one and bolt in the new one. it's not that common. rust usually gets to the rear quarters, brakes, doglegs, front fenders, and exhaust long before the radiator support. it was probably parked nose first over some grass or something if that's the only area of rot. i've seen my share of rusty cars and the only one i've seen that absolutely required lower rad support replacement had so much rust everywhere else the car wasn't worth repairing and ended up as a parts car.

Subaru Search USMB for EA81 thermostat part number:

You can swap used compressors, not add any oil and it’ll be perfectly fine. Existing fluid in the compressor and system will constantly redistribute evenly and as needed without issue. That’s just an illustration of how forgiving they are - obviously you’re going to add some and that’s smart. So, it doesn’t much matter. Whatever you choose within reason will be fine. First wild stab id guess in the 10 mL range for a used compressor that hasn’t been sprayed/cleaned out - it’ll have residual oil all over the insides.

Cracksmoking monkeys! Thats about the worst decision possible for a 37 year old car besides drive it off a cliff or drain all the fluids and race across the Sahara. With no temp gauge, in all likelihood it was running hot for awhile and you didn’t know it, and you were beating an injured elderly man while he’s down every time you drove it Hopefully you’ll find a simple solution...I’d want to diagnose it before guessing and throwing a bunch of parts and diagnosing it with money. Look for bubbling in the coolant overflow right after you start it (before the engine gets to normal operating temp or above Radiator - Run a garden hose to the radiator with both hoses pulled. Can it flow the volume of the garden hose (assuming you have a normally spec’d water supply)? If it’s clogged the inlet side will get all backed up, flow out and only a trickle or partial flow comes out the other side. Thermostat can be tested in boiling water. Install a new Subaru one if replaced. make sure radiator and everything in front of it is free of debris, bugs, clogs and not preventing airflow to the radiator

Subaru 4EAT transmissions (the topic of this thread) easily go 200,000 miles with almost no maintenance. They've been in use since the late 1980's and have been excellent transmission since year those late 1980's models. They're solidly reliable, the engines need far more attention to detail to make 200,000+ reliably. Don't run them hot or low on fluid and change the fluid every 60-100,000 miles. Two of my daily drivers have 200k and 230k 4EAT's and i'm not worried at all, not even a little bit. I haven't even ever changed the fluid in the 200k one. Not wise, actually pretty dumb, I have a case of fluid ready to change it out, but not really concerned about it either.

Ohio and the NE are substantially different. Subaru's are ubiquitous in the NE, relatively unknown in OH (that's increasing rapidly recently- but that's not going to drive older Subaru prices as much). OH housing and property prices are dirt cheap. Dealers have to pay for property, taxes, storing and having a business and therefore sales pricing and inventory structures...and this then has bearing on the overall market My opinion is CL has lessened in traffic recently and car sales should tick up a notch right around now.

Ah yeah. You can also look for one that's already an MT that needs some simpler work - like a bumper or doors to be swapped from a wreck and come out ahead with almost no work. or needs an engine and just swap yours in place. Although if it's a rust free MI gem then i suppose you want to try and keep it, or look further south/west for a rust-free option. Easiest swap solution is to find a rust bucket manual transmission for cheap and you'll have all the components - cables, brackets, mounts, instrument cluster, driveshaft, interior shifter and surround and center console to match, cruise control computer (they diff auto to manual). Then it's just a massive amount of time to swap it all, the only non plug and play part is wiring in the reverse lights which is easy. They're really cheap - rusty or blown engine stuff sitting around until the owner finally realizes it's worthless and needs to go. $200-$500 and you'll have all the parts, plus any extra parts, and you can recoupe some of the cost when you scrap it and sell the converter.

we have a two hugs for every 5 kicks rule. once we suffer ourselves to be nice two times we then let you really have it.... For the ATF looks can be deceiving and you have an existing issue - change it. It's really easy to do, a class isn't needed for anything, you can learn all this stuff on your own. Put pan under transmission drain plug. Remove drain plug and let fluid drain into pan. Screw drain plug back in place. Fill ATF through filler tube in the engine compartment. Because the fulid doesn't all sit in the transmission pan you need to repeat this step 3 or so times to get a significant amount of fluid changed in aggregate. It's kind of time consuming and fluid management heavy and the expense of all that fluid without a complete fluid change due to mixing - sometimes something like this might be best done at a shop who can flush it for $75-$100 for a first timer who's going to end up paying half that or more for transmission fluid anyway. Here's your steps to learning how to do this stuff yourself: 1. download a free Subaru FSM (factory service manual) online for your vehicle, they're available with minor searching for free. 2. look for what you want to do - and read through the procedures. 3. ask here about anything that doesn't make sense or for tips (there's often a number of steps you can skip, specials tools often aren't needed, etc) 4. be wary of rust - that's the biggest show stopper to DIY

What he said - you can generally get an idea of the condition of the ATF by looking at it. if it's never been changed it'll probably look and smell terrible compared to fresh ATF.

Change it. It's no big deal. People often ignore fluids until there's a noise, shifting weird, vibration, etc. *Then* they decide to change fluids in a desperate attempt to avoid an expensive repair. They change the ATF and the trans gets worse and the ATF is blamed. This is a common scenario but as usual people are terrible at assessing causation and correlation. The transmission was going to fail anyway, no matter what they did and the ATF change had nothing to do with it.