idosubaru

kevin you meant to say EA82T right? not EA82? just checking, i'm getting half confused with these night shift hours and all these cars you keep buying!

you're the only one who can make the financial decision. the subaru itself should last along time. seems you are having more than average problems for your vehicle, is it super high mileage? if you're taking it to a shop - are you sure they are 100 percent reliable? i've put over 300,000 miles on XT6's and i've never had wheel bearings or brakes fail (i've never even replaced rotors) and 3 of those had 200,000 or more miles including my daily driver. the shop you take it too may be fixing items that don't need attention. with the calipers, wheel bearings and timing belts done you should be getting close to reliable. hopefully...with a good mechanic your water pump (and oil pump, but i bet they didn't) should have been addressed with the timing belt. older cars can be tough to maintain if you don't keep on top of it. for someone who is paying someone else to do the work (which i never do)...but i would recommend either keeping the car you got or getting something with very low mileage (almost new). why? because if you get an older car you're looking at timing belts, water pump and all that other stuff all over again. not really gaining anything over where you're at now. and i never recommend buying new cars. i'd try to have a plan of attack over the next year. replace (or have rebuilt) the alternator, starter, battery, spark plugs, wires, distributor cap, rotor, ignition coil and fuel pump. say...do one of these every month or every other month or all at once if you'd like. save some money by finding a decent place to rebuild your alternator and starter which would be much cheaper than buying new. these are critical items that may be nearing their lifespan. keep your old ones as spares or sell them for a few dollars to get some of your money back. you should be able to replace all of these for say - 250-400 dollars off the top of my head. i'd replace any of the above items well before replacing a CV boot myself. i have driven 50,000 miles on a broken CV boot, doesn't hurt anything (stay out of sand and other extremly gritty material). if it starts clicking while yo'ure driving straight then start thinking about replacing it. but those other items are much more important in terms of reliability. good luck whatever you choose,

sounds like you're doing good so far, gotten this far with no questions. it does get faster with time. if you have good tools to break the axle nut loose, this job can be very quick. best to use a new pin, that's what's always suggested though i've never heard of one breaking or coming loose and i wouldn't ever grease the roll pin. be sure you didn't mash one end of it out of round, that will prevent it from easily entering the *second* hole that you're trying to line up. the hole in the axle has to line up with the hole in the stubby shaft underneath. any lip or deformation on the pin can keep it from going smoothly. if tapping it doesn't work, then it's not lined up correctly. crawl under there with a flashlight and leave the axle pin and hammer alone for a minute. look through the holes and get them to line up by hand, until you can see through it, get an idea of where it should be.

on a recently acquired subaru i'd plan on frequent oil changes - keep checking it to see if it gets dirty prematurely. if the previous owner didn't change the oil much it could get dirty very quickly. if your lifters aren't dirty or stuck now, frequent changes after you start driving it will reverse whatever contamination they received by the previous owner. i have never replaced an oil pump on 5 XT6's in the past 10 years after many hundreds of thousands of miles of driving. i've had three motors with 200,000 + miles and no ticking. where i live subaru stocks oil pumps for the same reason they stock XT6 power steering pumps. they can charge 200 for an oil pump and 600 for a power steering pump.....but to fix either one of those pumps the parts are only a few dollars. dealers never rebuild parts for you. they won't rebuild your alternator, starter, power window motor, power steering pump, brake calipers....yet all of those parts (except the alternator) can be rebuilt for less than 10 bucks. and often an XT6 alternator just has a bad solder joint in it that can be cleaned up resoldered. maybe they will rebuild them if you ask, but most people just take the dealers word for it and replace the part with new.

bad engine mounts could cause additional stress to boots as well. my boots are breaking at 30,000 miles or less (which is less than a year of driving for me). time to try something else - like engine mounts as mine are toast. i've tried different manufacturers including original subaru axles and don't get much life out of any of them. i even had a brand new axle blow apart last summer. my cv joint ended up in about 87 pieces lying on the ground. balls rolling around and everything, glad it happened in a parking lot.

the air suspension isn't all that difficult to maintain. you need to be able to source parts and do some work. but once you get it working and understand it, it's not that bad. don't let it seem confusing - it's only a computer that uses the solenoids, compressor and tank to fill up the struts. not really that complicated. i put off working on it for too long, thinking it was difficult. make sure the compressor and the solenoids for each strut work. the solenoids are likely in the engine bay right next to the top of the struts in the front and connected to the struts in the rear (i have only worked on XT6's so im not 100 percent sure of the XT). buy a bunch of o-rings and replace ALL of them. at each air line fitting you'll find o-rings. at the air tank, compressor, solenoids, replace them all. these are common leakage points. if your compressor is bad, it's likely because it ran too long because of an exisiting leak. the orings aren't hard to replace but do not break the air lines fittings. they are fragile. a piece of tubing with a slit cut down the length of it so you can wrap it around the air line will slide down and pry all the fingers apart if you can find the right sized tubing at a hardware store. imagine a short piece of straw cut down the length so you can slide it over the air line....slide it down and it will pry the fingers open without damaging them. now with that picture in your mind, find some better material than a plastic stray at the hardware store and you'll have an air line removal tool. or borrow/buy one from subaru. if you want your struts to last and they have any age to them...pull them off and use some fittings from the parts store to extend them all the way with an air compressor. you'll see where the rubber air bag meets the metal lower portion of the strut. be sure to wire brush this really good, make is smooth and paint it with some type of very resilient paint. rust at this juncture is what ruins most struts. the rust builds up and will gradually break down the rubber where it meets the rusted metal portion of the lower strut. i've yet to have any struts leak air from anywhere else but this point where the rust forms. take care of that and your struts will last a long time. best bet is to find a cheap source for parts and buy one of everything, that way you have it on hand just in case. you already checked the compressor, right? and yo'ure sure it wasn't putting out any air? again if your compressor is indeed bad, be sure to replace all of your o-rings and keep your eyese out for leaky struts - any leak will cause the compressor to cycle on all the time and shorten it's lifespan. give 12 volts to each solenoid - you should hear them click open and close. i'm not familiar with the relays so follow the instructions from others for that as i've never had issues with them. now that i've said too much.....make sure your compressor does or does not work and we'll go from there. with the compressor off, be sure to remove all the old orings and replace them with new. also - apply grease to the new orings when you install them.

i've read that bad engine mounts can stress cv axles. one cv manufacturer suggests that bad engine mounts are the leading cause of axle failure. which got me wondering because my engine mounts are in bad shape and i too have replaced numerous axles.

keith, unfortunately i don't know the answer, but you are wise to find out. i know for the XT6 AWD auto (4EAT) transmission, messing with that retainer is critical. only thing i've been told that is if you're just removing it and reinstalling it, to mark the retainer and housing and count how many turns it takes to come off. then install it the same way it was. as for new bearings i don't know. in my case it wasn't necessary so i didn't end up doing it.

check your cv boots...see if one is ripped. clicking while turning is almost always a cv boot. very rarely is it something else. they CAN click even if the boots are not torn, but usually they'll be torn. check behind each wheel and look for clicking. should be in the front, i've never heard the backs click but check them as well. i think you're wasting time looking at anything until you're positive your cv joints are fine.

can you just install the head and gasket properly? the oil pump was turning when you cranked it, so the engine block should be fine. it never ran, so it didn't over heat. i can't imagine the head is damaged. if this is an EA 82, these motors are really easy to work on.

i resealed (head gaskets and up) an EA82 this summer and them things are super easy to do. i've owned 5 XT6's so i'm used to the 6 cylinder, more work, more parts, bigger parts, less space. the 4 cylinders are AWESOME. so much so that i wouldn't mind having one now because they are so freaking easy and better gas mileage. you could easily crank that job out in a day, i do without air tools. the headgasket could easily be done in a day as well. (a long day, but a day) are you planning on cleaning the lifters out while you're in there? it's time consuming but a really good idea once you're in there. if a lifter gets dirty, stuck or noisey there's no way to address it externally. i'd seriously consider doing this if you plan on keeping the car for any length of time. now...getting it done without encountering problems is nice. i'll address the common problems i encounter. rust - bolts get rusty, they shear or become stuck. and many EA82's are older than my ER27's, the ones i worked on are always more rusty than my XT6's. have a bottle of liquid wrench. don't use WD-40. go the day before and spray down every rusty bolt you can see that you think you'll touch. spray it down 2 or 3 times before you actually start the job if you can. timing belt cover bolts are notoriously rusty and tricky. cam pulley bolts, radiator fan bolts, timing cover bolts....all suspect to rust. timing cover bolts - you will turn the bolt and the insert that the bolt it's threaded into will turn...so the bolt never backs out. you can play with it and sometimes get it to break loose - but it's tricky. often i'll punch the insert out from the back and just slide the insert back into it's spot when i reassemble. so i never actually remove the bolt, i just leave the insert attaced to the bolt when i remove the cover. as you can tell, some don't even leave the covers on anyway so maybe that won't matter. but you can keep your covers in tact by punch or pushing the insert out from the back. i drive off road and through snow alot - in my experience the covers will keep the cam sprockets from rusting. leave the covers in place and mine stay nice and clean. i have the covers off now because of something i've been meaning to get to for months and they are rusty. but it's just rust. have some grease available to hang the rocker arms from the valve springs.

check your air filter. how is the ignition system? coil, plugs, wires, cap rotor? fuel filter (i doubt it, but easy to replace) anytime i'm faced with a problem i like to replace all this stuff to start, because it's cheap, keeps the car running good and eliminates them from the possibility. except the wires, i have magnecor wires that will never need replacing. everything else, i replace often. i don't know jack about brats...i guess it's carbed but if it is not - how are your fuel injectors, fuel pump? see any fuel leaking around the fuel injector seals? if it's carbed i can't help you much on fuel supply.

unless i missed it, i didn't see a front crank seal in the list. if you pull the cam carrier there are a couple clip-on orings for oil ports on each side (i think there are 2 on each side for the 4 cylinders) that you may want to replace. and you will DEFINITELY want to replace the cam-carrier to head reinforced oring (one on each side). it's at the bottom corner of the cam carrier where it meets the head. this oring can be purchased from subaru or www.thepartsbin.com. i've ordered a number of them from thepartsbin. the actual mating surface of the head and cam carrier is sealed with a tube of sealant as mentioned in another post. and if you pull the cam carrier you can also clean all the HLA's. there's also a small spring under the bolt that retains the oil rail on the cam...just pulling the valve covers will give you access to that. clean that out while you're in there. oil pump has a spring in it as well, just clean them out, no need to replace. when you reseal the oil pump be sure to apply a very tiny bit of sealant behind the oil pump (do not let it touch the gasket) where the 2 halves of the block come together. get some good light and run your finger across the block, you'll see a zig zag pattern behind the oil pump where the two halves of the block come together. apply a small amount of sealant to that area. i'd check the cost and compare it to a complete head gasket kit. a good head gasket kit will come with all of that stuff and more (for the XT6, corteco kits come with the timing cover seals as well - fel pro does not) and might be cheaper if you can find a good supplier or somewhere on-line. i've had 5 XT6's and resealed one XT4 and each time i've replaced the oil pump seals it's cleared up all lifter nosie. clean everything up good and torque it down properly. installing a new oil pump is overkill....kind of like: "hey, installing a new engine will take care of that tapping noise". there's also a way to construct a very small metal tube so to speak and insert out of muffler tape or something....insert it in the 2 oil ports to prevent the mickey mouse gasket o rings from getting sucked into the oil ports. but i've never actually done it. if you have deformation problems with your gasket or like getting it done while you're in there, that's what you would want to consider. probably a good time to replace the PCV valve. not sure about your surging problem. how's your water temp sensor and assocaited wiring harness connections? if it doesn't accelerate that could be your HLA's not functioning up to spec's.

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FWD XT6's have coil overs from the factory so they will work as well. They are nice because you get all 4 struts and you're done. Be advised the car will lean forward with this set up. Cutting the rear coils down will level the car out. But it will sit much lower than the air suspenion XT6. I advise addressing this issue somehow, as the braking and handling of the car are not what it should be if it's riding with the rear up higher than it should. Probably minor, but I did notice a difference. I drove one of my old ones like this for awhile. The Impreza struts need to be modified ever so slightly - easy to do. just spread the bottom flange out a little bit as needed to fit. Nice thing about this set up is to get find the newest Impreza stuts you can because you can get later years than the 1991 XT6 FWD struts so the struts will be newer. These struts are all old, so parts are hit or miss. Usually fine, but not as nice as getting low mileage or new.

if it's 4WD i'd check U-joints on your rear drive shaft. sometimes you can crawl under and tell it's siezed by looking at it. if you remove the axle (not very difficult) you can check for a seized ujoint or a lumpy feeling in the ujoints, this indicates they are on the way out.

sounds like it's not going into the correct gear. does the gear light on the dash read the correct shifter position? there's no front u joint so i'm guessing it was the front axle or am i missing something? have you checked all the circuits to the inhibitor switch? seems like if that thing was compromised at one point, it or it's associated wiring could be damaged as well. have another one to swap out? there are plastic parts on the inhibitor which are not the most resilient pieces after 15 years of operation. i think this switch is an excellent place to start. are there any actual shifting problem to indicate internal issues? the FSM has tons of information for stall speed and line pressure testing if you have the patience to do that.

not sure what it is...but i tried a spiral max years ago on 2 different XT6's and definetly did not notice any difference.

awesome. thanks. i'll be doing that to mine.

dude i got a drivers side door dent just like that. PLEASE provide details on how you did that. my door has stripping and decals that will never match the rest of the car if i just swap doors...plus the whole key thing is a pain as well. mine also has protective molding like that. i've pulled motors, trans....just about everything but i've never done jack with body work. TIPS PLEASE!

as for the CV boots, i'd ignore them if you're sick of them, the time and the money spent. especially the inner joints. i have owned 5 XT6's.....i've driven up to 50,000 miles on a completey torn and missing front CV boot. if they start clicking while driving straight...then think about replacing them. otherwise i don't see any reason to worry about it. i have had a split rear cv for 2 years now, and that's through driving in snow, mud, off road, and about 50,000 miles. the outer front cv won't last quite as long because of all the movement. and by *last long* i just mean they will start clicking sooner - i've never actually had one fail. the only axle i ever had fail was BRAND NEW (completely blew apart into lots of pieces)?? anyway - depends on driving, you drive all highway it will last a long time...off road, less time.....in sand, very little time. like i said...i drive 10's of thousands of miles with broken boots - who cares, i just replace the entire axle when i have something else to do down there. for the coolant....fill it up and look for the leak. you want to look for it before the engine i warm - that's when it smokes, burns and is difficult to pinpoint. when you first start it and the outside of the motor is cool, it's easier to see leaks. 1. remove oil cap and look at underside of cap and in the filler tube. see any white foamy stuff? 2. fill cooling system and look for leaks. 3. fill cooling system and start car and look for leaks. also look under car, at the exhaust manifold and out the exhaust pipe and look for coolant coming out. 4. change your oil - look for coolant mixed with the oil. 5. do a compression test

it's done all the time on jeeps. the XT6 is a little light duty for them, but they use it because they can pick them up for 50 bucks. it's just an electric motor - give it 12 volts and you're good to go. running constantly it probably won't last long, have it cut on when you turn the wheel. the power controller isn't necessary, adjusts boost for different speeds and conditions. without it you just get the same boost all the time.

insurance companies are flexible - but you have to be persistent. they won't budge unless you're serious...but if you are, they will up the amount. there is no *law* that says they can't give more. they will give whatever it takes for them to avoid being sued, but as little as they can get away with in general. a friend had someone total his 80's volkswagen with a ton of miles that he had spent a ton of time rebuilding...all stock, nothing performance really. but the motor was perfect. it was totalled. of course the insurance said they'd give him like less than a thousand for it. he gave them hell and they eventually coughed up to actually fix the thing in entirety...a few thousand dollars on an early 80's VW. he had to threaten to sue, but they eventually caved. have a lawyer write a letter and results may go your way. talk to a real estate attorney or a *nice* attorney, they'll do legitimate stuff for cheap, but they're still a lawyer. or write it yourself and send it return receipt verification mail.

oh and i have that transmission code pulling saved on my computer...otherwise you would have never seen it! i wouldn't have typed all that out, i have it so i can copy and paste for occassions such as these. now quit reading this and go change your fluid and filter.

yes the POWER light flashing at start up indicates a problem. if it flashes the 16 or 17 times at start up - it is essentially the same as the Check Engine light for the transmission. in the end there's not much you can do to a transmission. best to replace the fluid and filter, install a tranny cooler and make sure you don't have any leaks. there's a few solenoids that aren't too hard to get to throught the transmission pan, but other than that there's alot involved in working on a transmission. it could be benign...meaning you're not causing any problems by driving it and there is nothing functionally wrong with it. mine blinks every time because of the mods i have to the electronics so i just ignore it but i keep an eye on my transmission. the TCU thinks there is a problem, but i know it's okay.