idosubaru

What if pulley "failure" is not the issue but bearing grease is? For sure the EA82 seems less robust and i'm all for early replacement. Seems they weren't failing under warranty so my opinion is it's also causative with maybe some recourse options. Pulley failure may not be the only concern, I've never seen an EA82 or XT6 with what were obviously replaced pulleys - they all appear to have original pulleys and lack grease which work and spin just fine but definitely are nothing close to new, tightly greased pulleys. If they generate more heat that may quicken the degradation of belts (particularly aftermarket or old belts?). That's speculative, i've never hit them with a temp gun. I almost always installed complete kits - new belts, pulleys, tensioners at the same time and regrease XT6 pulleys and have never seen failures. the people replacing multiple belts back to back - i don't see them installing new bearings each time. one recent guy was complaining about 3 broken belts back to back and eventually says he installs used ones laying around the garage...typical for us cheap old gen subaru owners, but maybe there's more than just "bad belt design" going on....which seems the likely starting point if they weren't doing this 25 years ago under warranty. Not without custom work. The drivers side is completely different set up and would require custom fitment. Passengers side is very similar but not substantially different nor the most problematic one.

That’s interesting in valves - how common is that and can he check that without pulling the head? Why would that height vary? OP - grease the pulleys with a needle fitting on a grease gun or replace the pulleys every 30k or 50k. All that’s been said in this thread is “belt break, belt replace, order belt...belt”....the pulleys lack grease, run hot and seize. I can’t see the car and wasn’t there for the work but I’ve seen countless EA/ER belts and pulleys and tensioners with issues and zero valve issues. I’d at least first rule out the very common issue EA82 belts aren’t forgiving and are a weak point with abysmal excuses for tensioning but replace or grease pulley bearings, don’t get fluids on the belt, use good belts replaced every 50k, and they’re reliable. It seems they weren’t regularly blowing belts off the show room floor under warranty so frequent breakage should point to a causative issue. having driven XT(6)s as daily drivers for a quarter century this has been my experience.

As he said drivers side turns the oil pump and wraps around more pulleys. Were you turning the cam with or without the belt installed? The cam lobes are compressing the valve springs and very tight to turn. It is hard to know just by reading this if what you’re describing is a problem or not. But like Dave said they’re to tight to turn to use the 10mm cam sprocket bolts. They can strip if used to turn the cam. These heads are simple and rarely have valve issues. If it ends up being the valve/head I’d be tempted to install a used head rather than one that needs multiple trips to the machine shop. I’d wonder if the first shop/rebuild caused the issue.

Not worth it if you really want speed. Put the cash for those upgrades somewhere more effective. If you want suspension then legacygt and nasioc are probably a better place. No real gains so you can basically do whatever you want for fun or learning or play or bling bling. There’s no practical gains to be had on NA, law of diminishing returns every step of the way.

Take and post pictures underneath the car - all of it, not just the area that’s most wet and we may be able to help

How familiar is this area, or shop, with Subaru’s? It’s fairly easy to get a misdiagnosis, valve cover leaks always blow/flow/drip/gravitate back and center where it looks like it’s the rear main seal. if the shop isn’t really familiar with Subaru’s and sees them all the time they might see that central leak and just assume the cause is also centered, which often isn’t accurate for Subaru’s Unless they’re really familiar with Subaru’s I would assume we really don’t know if this is a $50 valve cover or $1,000 rear separator plate issue.

1988 XT6 clutch works and shifts fine. But it’s really hard to push the pedal the initial 1/3rd or 1/2 way. Is that the clutch cable seizing up?

1988 XT6 clutch works and shifts fine. But it’s really hard to push the pedal the initial 1/3rd or 1/2 way. Is that the clutch cable seizing up?

nice. Good eye on the TC, that’s a common painful error “cam saddle” - is that the cam support under the valve covers? Doesn’t matter probably - a left handed drill bit will back the bolt right out, no extractor needed. I’ve even drilled in reverse with a normal right handed bit. At 200,000 all Subaru’s show original crosshatching unless terribly neglected. I only work on Subaru’s and assume it’s normal for others too, is that weird or different from other cars?

Make absolutely sure it’s fully seated. 1/4” matters no seat and the oil pump cracks inside the trans The flex plate and torque converter should not touch when you install the engine. This fact makes it easy to check before installing. Measure distance from torque converter to trans housing and flex plate to engine housing and make sure the numbers ensure they won’t touch. The bolts draw them together and close the gap once it’s installed. Did you consider an EJ22 swap over the head work?

After doing some...never again. My time is too valuable to try and scrape value out of rusty northeast subarus. In Oregon it's probably surface, light, easy. In the northeast, usually a rust spot means poke your finger through it and surrounding paint, rubber trim, internal metal all disintegrate to a hole 4 times bigger than you thought. We don't know how bad it is - if it's just a small hole or the corner section - cut out another section, use a punch flanger, and weld it in. Nibbler is nice for chewing through sheet metal or an angle grinder, dremel, sawzall, which you'll probably need to get the hidden sections cut anyway if needed. Cut it larger than the area you're replacing. A punch flanger creates a step so that the edge of the new piece slides behind the existing metal, giving you two layers of metal overlap which saves time trying to get the metal exactly the right size/shape/orientation, you don't have any gaps to fill with body filler, and provides a little more heat sink for welding. But you can get away without one particularly if it's a small one off job. A welder, not too hot or you'll burn through it. Spot weld, you don't need a continuous seam. But really if it's bad it's a miserable job - it's often much worse than you think - once the outside sheet metal is off the rust behind it can be atrocious - falling apart, rusted all back into the crevices and folds and joints that come together, it's untreatable and you can't get to it all.

direct fit seals aren't available. a friend had a 2003 leaking from a big notch out of the gasket. i got a used assembly for $75, it was super easy to just swap the entire assembly. few bolts and done.

Save your ramps for the dinner plate..... If you can't pull it, which is more ideal - use jack stands for sure. You will need to crawl under there, move things around, get access, and lift the engine/trans/push/position it around - you don't want those big clunky ramps in the way. I've never done it but there's no reason ramps "can" be used if you're willing to tolerate it.

you can pull the starter solenoid apart and look at the contacts - but for $15 you might as well install new ones while it's apart. they'll be pitted and warn, not smooth and shiny copper.

There's probably proper ways of testing, I'm not an electrical testing guru but it's good to be able to test. Maybe someone else will post. You can probably test resistance of the cable maybe? I've run a jumper cable right to the starter +12volt connection before for "testing" purposes - to make sure the starter is getting full amperage. This assumes you've got a really good set of cables/connections and power supply. It's possible to "read 12 volts" but not be able to pull enough amps for the starter if the cable/ground are the problem.

that is truly classic. good eye spotting that buffoon.

i try to decline the former and accept the latter. hahahahaaa. wait - "basketcase" of a car or customer? i guess it reads as the car, but i was thinking 'customers'...

A few threads vaguely mention Superpro bushings for rear EA82 control arms, but Superpro lists them as EA81 bushings. But EA81 and EA82 rear arms are not the same. Are the bushings usable in both EA81 and EA82? https://www.superpro.com.au/find/superpro-control-arm-bush-kit-for-a-superpro-suspension-parts-and-poly-bushings-for-subaru-leone-1979-1994-gen-ii-sedan-wagon-/productnr-SPF1144K/cid-999500431/vid-

2" lifted XT6 with 225 60 16 tires. Sitting stationary there's no rubbing and it doesn't even look obvious and close where it's rubbing. When driving under load (weight in the rear, up a steep grade, or hitting a large bump), the drivers side rear tire will rub on the extreme outer corner of the tire against the body sheet metal in front of the tire. It appears that the top of the tire is "going inward" driving under load and carrying weight, driving up grades (more weight shifts to the rear) or hitting large bumps. I assume this is a bushing - will it be obvious once I get under there and load and push things around which one is bad? Is that likely to be the inner arm (the big one with the bearing housing) or the outer arm (the one that extends forward from the rear arm)?

You need to verify the battery, cable, and starter first - these are the most common items by a looooooong shot: *** Does it "click" when you turn the key to start it and it doesn't turn over? 1. clean the battery posts where they touch the clamps 2. clean the terminal clamps on the inside 3. the starter contacts are bad. $15 new contacts and you're done. don't replace the starter with any aftermarket unit - they're all cheaply made and prone to failure down the road. just replace the contacts. if you have full battery voltage at the starter and no excessive resistance (corrosion/dirty) at the posts/terminals/cable - this is the most likely problem. https://smile.amazon.com/Victory-Lap-ND-34SOL-Solenoid-Repair/dp/B0031HMS7C/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=starter+contacts&pid=6xnCnSU&qid=1563977552&s=gateway&sr=1-1&vehicle=2002-13-66-162--1-6-6-204-108-1-1-2601--6&vehicleName=2002+Subaru+Outback 4. This isn't as common as the above, but if there's tons of corrossion it can propogate up the battery cable inside the insulation where you can't see it and cause too much resistance for the starter but everything else works fine.

same here - i've seen one as well. it was running, driving, and slapping and i replaced it with no damage. it was at least loud enough most people aren't going to wait long to address it! i'm sure that can't be expected every time but at least it's rare and not always ominous. I usually replace it all - but as a rule I only work for free, so my "customers" gladly pay for the parts. If it's a rusty swiss cheese car and/or they're not financially stable, I'll do the belt and lower cogged idler only.

headgaskets. interference engine - needs to have new Subaru timing belt and pulleys. but those are easy to do so not a big deal. everything else is easy or standard general maintenance items - rust, boots, fluids.

1990-2004..and even later, so basically lots and lots of them.

It’s a nonissue. It’s basically an extension of ones personality. If you like conspiracy theories or hedging your bets on unlikely scenarios - yes there’s a 0.000000000000000003% chance it could cause some issues. In which case those people would need to also carry a helmet for escalators and elevators and go out of the way to avoid left hand turns while driving. The more practical type will learn and ask people that have actually done it for years across more subarus than they can remember , realize nothing at all will happens, and carry on. That being said the FWD fuse isn’t ideal to be used as a cloak or to limp along to mask known, undiagnosed, symptoms - that’s not a recipe for long term success. So if you’re going to do it - it’s ideal to know why you’re doing and that it’s appropriate. It’s not a magic fuse.

What he said with the 2016+. If rust is any issue, favor newer cars, that's usually the long term issue and i see swiss cheese every time I drive to Canton, Ohio which has issues Cincy doesn't. 1. H6 engines with the 5EAT transmission (which I think is all 2005-2014 6 cylinder Outbacks) 2. 2016+ 3. 2009 4 cylinders with properly addressed headgaskets (resurfaced heads, new Subaru gaskets) and timing belt (subaru belt, pulleys, tensioner, water pump).