idosubaru

I would just get a used good drum/basket. They don’t really fail often enough to worry about unless driven with problems for too long. Did you look up on online Subaru parts places to check for part number?

I must be forgetting something or I haven’t seen a 00-04 but all the rear hatches and doors I’ve swapped or worked on were all easy and the same and I don’t recall much wiring worries. Pop out grommet in 10 seconds and pull and wiggle until the harness comes out. Disconnect the connector and swap away (or repair in the cases I was repairing broken wires. I don’t recall messing with trim or anything. Does the connector not come out when you pull and wiggle the wiring under the grommet on 00-04s? I wouldn’t even think to hesitate swapping the hatch. I’ve quite a few Subaru hatches and doors and other vehicles as well and they’ve all been really easy.

All that to say your idea that your current axles need replaced and junk yard axles are junk and worse than aftermarket is way out of touch with reality. I’ve seen lots of new aftermarket axles blow to pieces and fail and click and vibrate. It’s common. It happens if you lift and off-road but otherwise I’ve Never seen an OEM axle failure.

The original axles won’t ever fail. Just reboot them. Spend your time looking for OEM boots not axles. It would quite literally be stupid to replace them for a boot issue. Might as well replace all the doors and trunk and hood to get new hinges and windows. Aftermarket axles frequently have issues. “Researching” is futile because the way they label and “new” doesn’t mean donkey crack as the materials and manufacturing are lower grades than OEM which they are and you can’t prove otherwise based on marketing and low grade anecdotal reports. Also online opinions are largely anecdotal. The problem is there are too many people confusing online information and think that the magic unicorn exists and they’ll be the special one to find it. Then they act like they do find it when they have one good experience which is statistically irrelevant, anecdotally ignorant and clouds the Internet with low grade opinions that describe nothing about the overall market. There are like two or so providers of quality axles FWE in Colorado is one of them, but you won’t find them in stores.

Think there are any styles that are thinner than others, I’m thinking thick pipe won’t conduct as well? I’m wondering if the cheap harbor freight stuff is be thin haha.

Got it I’ll paint it for sure if I do that.

black hose is the current plan. Thanks for helping me talk this out. Tne long run of pipe would have no real leak points and probably more durable with no adapters or fittings needed and easier to move/store. I didn’t consider that. Does seem like it should work either direction though? I’d make the radiator black. I realize temp difference and air flow are lacking but hose will see same ambient conditions. Thermodynamics don’t know direction. I think the only practical variables are mostly the effective available surface area and materials properties (“rubber” verses aluminum). aluminum is pretty darn good at heat transfer and thin. I’ll go with hose but if I see an easy way to test it I may try both since I’ve got radiators.

I want to build a solar water heater to put on my garage roof for increasing water temps in a small pool for kids. I already know it’ll work. Black thin walled hose is the easy way. But I’m wondering..... Is there any way to determine which will transfer more heat - a radiator (or two) or a long coil of cheap (thin) black hose? Seems like a radiator painted black could transfer a lot of heat and that’s obviously easy for me to pull off.

1. Overheating. It’s not the water pump. Or rather - thats so rare on subarus that if you’re not really familiar with subarus and have seen it before or know this car sat in hurricane flooded seawater for 3 weeks, then it’s something else. A. Check coolant level. B. Make sure it’s properly bled of air. C. Check fans and tstat and rad cap 2. Rockauto - one personal issue is anecdotal. If you refused to shop at every auto parts store that has treated someone wrong or made a poor decision then you have no businesses to shop at. They’ve all made mistakes. Do you want me to list every store I’ve had issues with so you can cross them off your list? Of course not. You’re not actually doing yourself but want others to do. Rockauto is not necessarily to blame specifically, we would need to see all the data (receipt, links, email correspondence, etc) as interpretations and assumptions can be misunderstood. Also They are just a distributor like any other auto parts store. They acquire parts and resell them. Now - clearly they have a different business model - Their system and parts acquisition varies somewhat and may have a few more speed bumps than other stores but what do you expect for some of the best prices on the Internet? It’s just like a used car - it’s cheaper but no (or less) warranty and more issues statically. Rockauto is a great fit and excellent low cost resource, but don’t expect Penthouse suite perfection.

It’s a moot point but Calling dealers has limitations and is heavily biased towards 10 years or newer vehicles. The people answering the phone have probably never touched a timing belt. The techs don’t answer phones. Dealers rarely work on anything of age because few people take older cars to dealers in many areas, to the point it’s as if 80s and 90s stuff doesn’t exist. Even my 2006 Tribeca is a dinosaur around here, I rarely see anything even that old at my dealer. You can install either tensioner on either vehicle, like GD said just get the $35 bracket for whichever one you want to install. You can return the one you bought from the dealer. The older style two piece is more reliable so if they’re both new OEM that’s a good one to install. follow Gloyales lead on the crank pulley. They fall off all the time. I use a 3 foot pipe and go bonkers on it. It’s a steel crank so you won’t strip it like the rest of the aluminum of the block.

Hey man, I got your XT6. Had it a few years, a friend has been driving it a few years, and I’m about to get it back. I didn’t like the headlights not staying down, couldn’t figure out why it was doing that.

1. New timing belt and pulleys from Subaru or Aisin 2. Ignition tune up and fluids like you said 3. Add front diff fluid Fuel filter is pointless to replace. Around 2005 they moved the filter to the tank, so if that's yours you can't just easily swap it in the engine bay like older ones. But it doesn't matter, it's pointless as Subaru filters dont' clog unless you have some massive catastrophic causative issue. I have 285,000 on my daily driver and 200k on gobs of subaru's with original fuel filters, yaaaawn, never gonna matter. If the filters are getting clogged then you better pull your entire pump and replace the pump due to the pre-filter, sock/screen. Inspect the headgaskets first. I bought a 2005 for a friend, she drove it for years and I sold it for her this year. Always dry as a bone, nothing but plugs, wires, and timing belt.

Doing cam towers in the engine bay is not a short cut. Tats absurd. They’re easy. It’s like saying pull the engine for a timing belt job. Sure if you want to go for it but they’re cake. If there’s more work to be done then seriously consider doing it all now if you can. Doing a job then another then another can be draining on older vehicles. But that’s somewhat of an “if” - the oil leak is ambiguous so far, he doesn’t know. and valave covers and cams always end up center and rearward. So it could all end the cam tower. Clutch was mentioned - why? If that’s a reality coming soon then yeah yank the engine.

+1 clean it up good and use an OEM gasket. They’re super easy. I can have a timing belt off in 30 minutes and have completely swapped a DOHC belt in 45 minutes before. Not hard at all and all the timing cover bolts will come out easy if it’s been recently done. Belt needs to come off to replace the pulleys that weren’t replaced and probably the non OEM belt too. That’s an interference engine and replacing the water pump was pointless, those pumps never fail, the timing pulleys fail all the time, particularly the lower toothed idler. If it’s an aftermarket pump its probably less reliable than leaving the original in place (what you’re already dealing with for instance). Should have put that water pump money into pulleys which will bend valves if they fail. at 20 years old they’re devoid of grease and will free wheel whhhhhiiiirrrrr in your fingers. Not good.

Very easy to do in the vehicle. Especially an EA82. Cam towers are cake, I wouldn’t pull an engine for that. annoying part is cleaning but that’s annoying either way. Hang rocker arms with thick grease. Tilting engine via lifting that side of car and/or engine helps but isn’t required. Lower the cam towers in place “dry” a couple times for practice. Here’s why: The only point in the car that’s harder is the few seconds installing the drivers side tower to head and lining it up without rubbing that new bead of sealant going all the way around the tower before setting it. Go slow and careful if you got a steady hand and good perception it’s not hard. But I’ve done a zillion XT6s and they’re bigger so EA82s do seem really easy now. Air tools help doing it in the car but it’s easy by hand. You can have the passengers side off in under an hour easiky. Fans, Crank pulley, timing covers, valve cover and off comes the cam tower. Drivers side is longer a tiny bit more work due to additional length to support disty. 10mm ratcheting wrench makes that one lower rear valve cover bolt easy instead of annoying. But then you can’t get to the rear main. Ideally you confirm what’s leaking and how bad. Andit makes sense to do it all at once for time and other reasons. Clutch rear main reseal. Rear mains don’t leak that often are you sure that’s leaking? Most other oil leaks blow and drip back and center and look like they’re coming from the rear main or it could be the oil pan gasket?

I’d guess the difference is EA81 and EA82? Find the length of your engine in similar year/model. Yours is an EA82 right? Look up other EA82s online, eBay, rockauto. Try to find the lengths or their differences.

bratman gave you the rundown of parts. swap away. the biggest issue is making sure you get the correct engine. the JDM year engines dont' always follow US market engines, so just make sure you get the right phase/generation electronics, which should be easy for 02. the H6 engine i just did was plug and play, no swapping of any engine part needed. A/C, power steering just plan on swapping your existing parts into but if they're the same you can retain them. i think the A/C was slightly different on the JDM, but no matter just install the US A/C onto the JDM engine. you're in college, the lessons above are really really good, probably more business, career, professional, and personally developmental than most college courses if understood properly, but i get that they're currently not practical (also like college courses hahaha) and you're a few years from any of that making sense. opportunity costs i was referring to was the opportunity costs of being in college, not installing an engine. but no matter, under the bridge.

this is mostly academic and pointless for you, i get that - if i drove 4 cylinders i'd do new subaru blocks in my daily drivers but i'm not scared of JDM or used engines and have used them most of the time. they have plenty of useful fits and yours is probably it. . get your JDM engine but just for fun....here's another way to look at it... he is blunt, but it's just a different way to look at it and over 5-10 years and average outcomes - it's probably true. it's common to spend thousands every couple years on a used old car, repair, repair, (this is where you're at right now), repair, then another used old car, tow, stranded, miss days, need rides, repair, repair.... cost to own a car (usually a few) over 10 years can be high. cost per mile or cost per year are better financial figures to work off of. most people can look back at how many cars and repairs they've done over 10 years and get a rough idea how much they're paying per year...driving that cost down is the best math, not just circumstantial moments. that math is worse IMO. if you have that time and are competent - buy a cheap car, fix it, sell it for profit and fix the car you own with a new motor and you'll probably make money, save time, and have the new short block with warranty over your current approach. ***although if you do it yourself Subaru may not be obliged to stand by the warranty since it probably has to be installed by an ASE certified location? $2,000 is chump change. the opportunity costs to go to college are huge. you could be working and making $100,000+ in 4 years time but you choose to give up $100,000+ of economic employment. in those terms the difference between $700 and $2,000 is rather dinky and $1300 premium could be well spent on maximizing outcomes of that 6 figure opportunity cost. but....most americans, particularly college students, fluidly go through cash, don't manage finances well, don't plan, think short term, and live month to month so all of this is mostly pointless commentary...

that's awesome, makes it more appealing given how inexpensive they are. i've never seen any failures but it's anecdotal on my scale. i've wondered if rough roads/struts impact *bang bang bang* the radiators similar to what you've said - i feel like i see more cracked radiators on cars driven on poor (gravel/pot hole) roads or cars with terrible 200,000 mile never replaced struts, but again my scale is too small to know if that's real or perceived.

Have you guys seen that aftermarket radiators have higher failure rates than OEM? Do radiators in previously overheated vehicles have higher failure rates? We all understand they fail, no one is saying they don’t, sure replace those plastic side tank crusty jokers. But with gobs of 200,000 and 300,000 mile running and driving original radiators the rates are such that universal replacement won’t be ubiquitous. I’ve done it but I can understand why most don’t.

EGRs are avoided and blocked off all the time on EJs, I’ve done it, I doubt it matters on EA82s, I think I’ve done an EA82 once years ago as well.

What he said - call around or get a used hatch

I don’t understand your notations of dashes and o’s, what do they mean? 1. Clear the codes 2. Run vehicle 3. Check codes as soon as light trips again to see which one comes back first 4. Address that code first

The one I see rarely fail that early but it happens. I’ve seen a few early failures but most are 200,000+.

it is a little early. But also It’s 9 years old, no big deal to replace now either. I thought it was 105,000 miles or 105 months which is just under 9 years so it’s past the age limit. The chances of most owners owning it another 9 years are slim - so for those people they will only ever need one timing belt change wether it’s now or next year. It’s not like people are routinely buying new subarus and owning them for multiple timing belt changes so parsing it finely isn’t gaining much mechanically speaking - you’re going to basically own it for one belt change and in rare cases two or three. Doing it now is preventative in your favor but risk of possible benefit if the car is totaled or stolen in the next year before when it *could* have been changed, then you just wasted your money for little gain. Small change either way.