idosubaru

do it. that's the first thing i'd check. EA/ER belt systems aren't the most robust in stock form, aftermarket parts can fail, and an event like you're describing can easily jump time. both side covers have 3 10mm bolts and come off in just a couple minutes very easily. takes very little time to pull those and check timing.

Check the timing belt alignment marks.

Yeah good idea, take a new ball joint and picture of the knuckle to a local machine shop and they can do this with their eyes closed. A machine shop in the rust belt should know, but if they’re real bad these things bend rods, strip threads and sheer metal. So use appropriate stock. Ive got thick bent solid steel digging rods and sent sheared and stripped tools to the scrap yard broken from ball joints. Use generous grease on all the threads to reduce friction tp help keep threads from strip or shear.

significant whine is usually going to be front diff or wheel bearings, but they definitely sound different and are usually locationally obvious. You seem certain the sound is central and not on the corners? Check the fluid for debris or sparkles. Change the fluid and check for the same. Yeah put the FWD fuse in - takes 20 seconds.

Nice. Is that for setting toe? What do you mean by side to side? where do you take measurements on that rig? I pull a string across two jack stands, offset for front/rear track widths, and measure front and rear of front tire for toe. I haven’t made a camber rig yet.

OEM is much different and more robust than standard stant. Can you Pressure test it? If you do replace put the old one in boiling water and see what it does. Smell suggests some external leak. While it’s apart flow test the radiator, it should flow all of a standard garden hose.

It depends how bad it is. Might want to go get a used knuckle. jaw puller won’t work. Sometimes no tool will work. The tool will break or it’ll apply enough force to pull the ball out of the ballpoint socket and leave the socket remnants rust welded into the knuckle - I don’t know of any tools that will apply that much force before breaking. Did you open up the pinch area of the knuckle first? That needs to be done. do you still have it attached to the strut? Here is how it works - 8 out of 10 will come out by *seriously* pounding the $@¥{+* out of it. You need heavy blunt force directed directly down. 1 out of 10 you’ll need heat or to work the circumference of the ball joint right where it enters the knuckle with a chisel Work all the way around and bash the life out of it. Go back to pounding down. If yours ears don’t feel the banging you’re not hitting it hard enough. In a very few cases nothing will really get it out until you heat the hell out of it and/or give it so much force that it rips the ball out of the socket and then go in and drill and chisel the remaining rust-welded-fossilized bits of the ball shell out from inside the knuckle piece by piece. it just depends how bad it is that’s why some methods work and others don’t and online commentary is so varied. Some people haven’t seen hard ones ever, some have seen a few levels...etc. We don’t know how bad yours is so it’s hard to say but I’d increase your efforts, attack and Arsenal very fast in case you have a beast

nah - they're all garbage. you just happened to get one bad one out of the box at AZ and one...*for now*...good one at OR, but your assumption about all of them universally from one experience is off. this has been ongoing for decades, aftermarket axles are plain annoying. buy a few over 5 years and put some miles on them and you'll have plenty of issues with both. here are people with bad OR axle experiences, I'm sure there's plenty more:

Sure, most on here are familiar with reading and clearing codes. "flash" is confusing as it implies tuning. google subaru flash ECU and it'll show COBB, tactrix, open source...us old school owners know the real 'flashing' ECU's - counting LED's to get our codes, haha.

you don't, not sure what they have in his country, but that is not an appropriate course of action for any 1990's US market Subaru. swap sensors and carry on just like you did. the ECU has no idea what sensor is in there, there's no identifying data for a specific sensor. you can swap ECU's (which thereby changes *all* the sensors) - plug in another ECU and drive immediately. which, since you have additional vehicles and an untraceable issue you could try. plug in another ECU and see what happens. model and EJ22 or EJ25 doesn't matter as long as they're all 1995-1998 legacy/outbacks/foresters - all the ECU's are plug and play interchangeable.

since it's intermittent i think you're guaranteed to find them lined up. what might be off is the tensioner - but if it's intermittent it's going to look fine when you look in there. if you do go in there look at the tensioner that's the only part that could be failing intermittently - see if the hydraulic pin is wet or deformed in any way. i've seen loose EJ tensioners (new style) and the drivers side belt will slop around while driving. you could leave the drivers side timing cover off (it's only 3 10mm botls and takes a couple minutes to remove, very easy) and try to look at it when the car has symptoms.

check for a vacuum leak. ideally when it's having issues. spray appropriate fluid around the engine and see if the idle reacts. good job pulling some numbers. i'd guess the ECU is just pulling timing due to poor signals/issues elsewhere and does not tell us much. but others will know better and maybe tell you what to look for on that data.

Swap or test: coil, oxygen sensor, and TPS But testing will probably be intermittent and only fail if it happens to be currently exhibiting issues. (rear O2 sensor isn't used by the ECU for fuel control so you can ignore that). You've swapped most sensors so might as well swap the rest. What exactly does it do: how does it start and how long does it last? does it restart or have trouble restarting or have trouble driving...? if it's more common when it's humid/raining/parked over grass/sitting in deep shade - then it's ignition related - coil/wires/plugs

nah - CHEERS for easy fixes! good on you for getting in there and solving it and not blaming the government.

Vibration under load (when hitting the gas pedal) is often front diff or front inner axle joint. whining is more typical of diffs than axles. But given it’s lifted and has age id consider those inner axle joints. Sometimes the inner joints can be made to exhibit symptoms if while facing up a steep slope on a road, from a stop, with the steering wheel turned all the way - floor it. Wheel bearing - does it sound like it’s on the left or right? Is one side hotter than the other after driving? Does the noise change if you turn the steering wheel while it’s making the noise? Does either front wheel have play?

yep, that's what i did on the one i ran into. easy, took very little time. they don't fail often, even most earlier generation outback sunroofs are still original. it should easily last the life of the vehicle just based on statistics.

sometimes the gasket around the sunroof is hosed and i guess if it's bad enough it'll let it more water than those tubes are designed to flow.

is anyone else laughing at this? you found a battery? that's awesome! but i'd also be a little suspicious. is there a way to load test that or do a more thorough test than basic voltage/starts the car test? in my experience batteries don't take well to sitting or being exposed.

Excellent

1. It ran fine 2. You changed the timing 3. It runs poorly Keep in mind we only have words to work with but that looks glaringly obvious. put the timing back where it was. Are you using the wrong marks - it’s the dash not the dot, which has been confused before. Tensioner isn’t holding but you seem confident that’s not it, so describe or post photos of the timing marks.

If oxy torch isnt an option Hammer and large chisel in exact direction it needs to move and it’ll come off without compromising damage if it’s now moving. The ones that don’t move at all until WAILING a few dozens times are the ones that start getting damaged. Ive mangled a few of those pins good but always reusable. Work it back and forth rotating and pounding it out and it’ll come I guarantee it. Just keep at it.

The EA81 doesn’t have timing belts. but they’re easily and routinely done in the vehicle.

Copy that - if they're wearing fine now then you don't need one. If you think about it - if alignment magically "went out" frequently - you'd have issues even getting an alignment once a year or with every tire change - if the alignment went out shortly after those times you'd be driving 10 months or years with bad alignment. As it happens, that's not really common. Rough roads and driving conditions can be more detrimental on alignment than really good roads, vehicle conditions, and light vehicle use. I routinely ran 100,000 miles without even thinking about alignments in maryland and georgia on well maintained surfaces. Now in WV with far worse roads I tend to see more alignment issues. it's wise to consider the vehicle use (roads, towing, work, loads, aggressiveness) and proactively keep an eye on how they're wearing somewhat regularly.

wow, bizarre. that's got to feel good it's hopefully done with! if it was doing this before the aftermarket MC and then doing the same thing after the aftermarket MC, then the MC probably wasn't the root cause. two different MC's would be unbelievably unlikely to have the same, otherwise unknown, failure mode. doing the replacement probably remedied a fluid or other issue?