idosubaru

If it starts with another vehicle then starter is likely fine Battery clamps and posts need clean and tight. Wiring needs to be good - see if starter is getting 12 volts. May need separate relay for starter signal from ignition switch.

I’m almost positive the owners manual has capacity @15.9 gallons and the low fuel light is designed to come on at 2.7 gallons remaining. And it’s been really close. In consistent and predictable driving I can multiply 2.7 gallons times my gas mileage and get basically right on the money. I wouldn’t trust my current XT6 that much but I no longer do those long predictable drives consistently like I used to. All 88-91s AWD are the same at 15.9. I’m unsure about FWD or earlier versions but I’d assume that didn’t change?

1. The pulleys should be relaced with aisin Subaru or Japanese brand. 2. “Spin freely” is relative term - a new pulley doesn’t spin freely because it has new functional grease in it. Old pulleys will spin easily but that’s because they’re too low on grease internally. Grease is the *only* failure mode of the pulleys so what you’re trying to gauge is how much grease is in there. On older subarus with unavailable pulleys I’ll regrease the pulleys with a needle gun since you can’t buy them. They’ll last indefinitely doing that. It’s just not worth it to most people to do that since new pulleys are cheap and you can damage the face seals trying to slide a needle fitting under there. I’m generally checking them at some point and they’re a 60,000 mike timing belt, not 100,000.

This is easy, there's a short: battery, battery terminals, starter/ground cable, starter connections. time for basic multimeter tests from battery, terminals, clamps, grounds, starter. check wiring of any related parts you've previously replaced - starter and any other related components recently worked on. a cursory search shows you replaced the ignition switch or something - check connections/fasteners there. as stated - the click-click-click and CEL are not related. CEL's are often artifacts of another issue rather than indicating any fault with that component. your cause and effect is backwards. the CEL isn't causing the starter issue - the starter issue is causing the CEL. The short, or current draw of the starter, may dirty up the sensor signals. or the abrupt "movements" of the starter are confusing the ECU. if you have your original starter i'd keep it and replace the contacts. aftermarket replacement starters fail all the time, a friends new Advance Auto starter failed within a month or two last year. happens all the time. you might get lucky, but the failure rates are much higher than OEM.

what he said - push the tensioner all the way to the left before tightening the bolts down, the holes are slotted. that's the older style tensioner which is more reliable than the newer one piece tensioners. the newer ones should be replaced every time, those older ones you can just leave them. crossover years and engine swaps notwithstanding - 96 and earlier are the old style tensioner like in your picture. 97+ are newer style tensioners.

Of course confirm it has the original engine type in it. Get a Subaru Factory Service Manual, they’re free online with very minor searching. It’ll have torque values and procedure and resurfacing limits.

NGK plugs and wires

Yes 97 outback’s are all DOHC EJ25s (also allows Phase I EJ25). Get an Aisin timing kit. Belt tensioner and pulleys and water pump. OEM water pump gasket only Reseal then Oil pump, tighten the backing plate screws and reseal the separator plate on the back of the engine. New OEM PCV and thermostat and rad cap while you’re at it. I’d EJ22 swap it as well. If you can find a good one they do run forever. GD sees them but he runs like two Subaru shops with huge volume and I’d bet those he sees were compromised or overheated at some point in their quarter century of life. Verifying history doesn’t favor either engine so that’s a nonissue.... Except that you can verify the current one you own has been overheated. As far as headgasket failures, EJ25s fail all the time and their failure life lends themselves to frequent and significant overheats., I’ve never bought, owned, worked on, come across an EJ18 or EJ22 headgasket failure. EJ25s you can buy one every day of the week, even 15 years ago when they weren’t ubiquitous I could buy one daily, they were a dime a dozen. I’d have to make a list of all of them I bought and people that offered me free blown engines. They throw rods and lower end bearings plenty of times after headgasket failures. Hole in block, yawn, seen it tons of times. Maybe you can at least have the oil tested via UOA or cut open the filter but I’d move onto to a more robust and easier and cheaper to maintain EJ22.

It’s hard for Subaru to check poor mileage. They could spend hours checking brakes, codes, O2 signal, vacuum, ignition, leaky injectors and you’ll be billed $300 with no improvement. They’d have a lot of POed customers. And many of those would have an unsolvable non-issue of perceived poor mileage due to job change, life change, driving habit, new house, new hobby, teenagers borrowing car, or some other variable, not actual poor mileage. I’m the odd event they could trust “customer diagnosis” there are too many culprits to easily and effectively rule out. Too many variables, Dealers are in a lose lose situation. While the MAF worked and is fine for free labor DIY it’s a really low percentage guess and dealers would loose money, customer satisfaction for doing it. They’d win your affection but loose it for the next 50 people it wouldn’t help.

Check engine light is on and there are no codes? It has the stock engine in it right? How are you checking for codes? What do you mean an “OBD1” code reader? These don’t require a code reader though it seems like you know how to look for the flashes.

It’s possible to exceed 800km on a tank in some XTs. Particularly a perfect running FWD manual. 35 or more mpg and run it for 15.2 gallons on highway trips. 600 km is only 380 miles or less than 25 mpg which is easy on many XTs for highway travel, which even a 6 cylinder XT6 can do. Again - we can cruise at highway speeds for an entire day with ideal conditions here where that’s probably less likely in some places.

Why didn’t you look up the tank size in the owners manual or FSM? the tanks are all the same part and 15.7 or 15.9 gallons or approx 60 liters. I’ve refilled with over 15 gallons (57+ liters) many times. If you have a consistent drive - say a highway trip you can easily calculate how far you can drive and assuming hills and running condition are favorable you can dial in how far you can drive very accurately based on that tank size. put a gallon of gas in your trunk and try it a few times until you get a feel for it. That might be easier to do here where 1,000 km consistent speed/elevation/flatness road trips are common.

List the current symptoms and codes. Why were you tightening the throttle cable? Any issues? Why bother with the EGR if it was running right? Are you looking for a reason as lost people do and chasing a suspicion of issues?

Follow the check engine light and symptomatic leads and ignore what a previous owner did. Maybe they were guessing, or given bad advice from a neighbors friends oil change guy, or had an EGR code due to some battery issue or prior work and misdiagnosed it....theres no telling. Making assumptions or decisions on that could be pointless if nothing else else is known.

That’s some easy welding so any competent shop can do that, about as easy as it gets. I personally wouldn’t bother with JB weld. I realize people swear by it but I find it’s generally a poor substitute or anecdotal celebration. It has its uses ocassionaly but in any kind of real world need with loads and vibrations it’s not often helpful and other situations are easily resolved another way. I see it as pointless here, weld it or use one bolt and call it good. I’ve seen JB welded timing pulley bolt holes fall apart in short order, doesn’t last under real loads and stressful conditions which don’t describe a power steering pump bracket.

stethoscope remove belts to rule out various components remove belt and spin each pulley - what's it feel like?

same here. blocks, heads, timing chain covers, this will be an easy one for them.

Clean all the surfaces, smear The Right Stuff (or something else adhesive) all over the contact points underneath and bolt it down with the remaining bolt up top. Just leave those two out. I've seen tons of EJ power steering pumps and A/C brackets not have all their bolts in them, it's almost normal. Granted I would want two fixed points, but meh if it was my car i'd give it a go as-is as a thought experiment. Check and make sure the existing bolt hole/bolt isn't fatigued from the original failure and if not there's no way it's going to shear just from a pump spinning. "welder or machine shop"....whichever one has extensive automotive experience with aluminum. you can always stop in and show them pictures and ask. a machine shop that works on mining equipment nor a welder that does no automotive work would necessarily win my immediate attention.

that. as long as you don't allow the engine to overheat you'll be fine. don't worry about "serious engine damage". it's not mystical - it either overheats or it does not. that will only happen if the coolant gets too low. that being said - keep topping off the radiator coolant level (always when the engine is cold) . do this at the radiator cap, not the overflow tank.

those are the correct pulleys, tensioner, and water pump for your car. Aisin says this, which is probably all the ebay guys are looking at: http://www.aisinaftermarket.com/uploads/68y84rq7_TKF-001_TIMING_BELT_KIT.10-07-11.pdf I think it comes down to the "2 timing belt" thing. prepare to be even more confused, this was a confusing topic for a while..and well, it still is: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/90803-new-timing-belt-delivered-important-information-inclosed/ http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/105911-question-about-gates-timing-belt-differences/

wow. I'd first guess the first and second failure are both related. what ever caused, or resulted from, the first failure precipitating the second. Maybe, who knows. shops routinely replace parts, or assemblies, that can be repaired, particularly dealers. i wouldn't assume too much from a part replacement. like fairtax said it's good practice and there's quite a few reasons they may have chosen that.

Need a picture. There’s a lot of options and variations for each option dependent on the specific application needs. Need to see it to decide. “Broken bolt hole” - I am assuming you mean a chunk of metal came out of the block? Or do you mean it cracked or a sheared bolt is left in the block or just threads are mangled? Also we should know what engine and what happened? Broke while removing or dropped the engine or an accident....any other collateral damage? Also - verify it’s the block. If it’s the timing tensioner bolt that is just a bracket and not the bolt. It deceives people who think it’s the block but it’s just a bracket. Remove a couple bolts and swap in another bracket. Used or $25 from Subaru. Also if it’s the head and not the block then you can always swap heads as a last resort or take the head to a good machine shop and they’ll fix it for $150 or less. If a chunk came out of the block you or a machine shop can essentially make a plug that threads into the block. Drill and tap the block to accept a large diameter thread. The outside of the plug will have that same thread and then thread into the block. Then the plug has threads to match the original bolt threads. Or leave the inside hole unthreaded and timesert it after the fact. Welding and pinning and fastener changes can play a role as well in superseding or working in conjunction with a “plug”. As can other methods depending which bolt, what size, how much, and more. Again we need pictures for specific help unless you’re Resourced enough to run with what I’ve given you so far.

Oh yeah the title says rear springs so that’s the first thing that comes to my mind. I guess you’ve seen Jesek’s post about front springs?

Thanks Bennie. That looks higher than stock - is that just Honda springs on EA82 4WD struts and that’s it? How much do those springs “lift” if over stock? Do you recall year/model? Funny that such a low old school Honda has long springs suitable for this. Haha

+1 it’s dual port heads so those are 1990-1995 EJ22 heads. One of the best engines Subaru ever made. Don’t run out oil or overheat and they run forever. Not sure what they do with forces induction and racing but they’re reasonably tough engines. If it doesn’t have an EGR valve location on the rear of the drivers side head and intake manifold the it’s a 1995 EJ22 as the 95 manuals are the only ones without EGR right? All EJ22 heads and blocks are essentially interchangeable so the block and heads aren’t required to be the same, you’ll have to guess the heads intake and block are from the same engine. 90-95 are all noninterference. 90-95 timing kits are all the same and will be the older version two piece timing tensioner and timing kits. All 90-95 EJ22s are interchangeable, Impreza legacy wagon sedan etc.