idosubaru

great, thanks porc! those are easy enough to swap out and i have a few extra lying around. you're fairly certain it was for the crank and not the cam sensor? i'll start there.

1996 Legacy LSi. EJ18 and FWD (both swapped), been that way for 60,000 miles. runs and drives fine. cuts out sometimes right as i'm coming to a stop. it's only done it a few times and starts right back up immediately. it never cuts out while cruising or accelerating so it hasn't been that big of an issue. crank/cam sensor?

you said yours is an Outback wagon so i don't think installing Outback struts on an Outback will lift it? do you mean your 95 is a Legacy wagon? or do you have a 96 Outback wagon? if you have a regular wagon then just install outback struts on it and you're done. good idea to replace the axle boots if they have any age at all, they tend to break easily with the extra angle induced by the lift. used struts aren't likely to last long either, this would be a good time for new struts too.

this. the engine oil has probably been changed 50-100 times and the gear oil how many....?

i'm not sure what years it applies to but newer turbo motors must have synthetic oil in them. read the bottom of this website about Subaru Turbochargers: http://www.cars101.com/subaru/maintenance2.html

you should start your own thread first or PM him or post a link in here if you already did. cluttering up this thread will get confusing...it's not even about the same kind of motor you have. *what* Subaru gasket did you use? if it's a SOHC Ej25 and you installed the Subaru supplied gasket - that's the same gasket the car came with - the same gasket that failed the first time. i would have used Subaru's turbo gasket - it's a direct swap and those motors don't have headgasket issues, it's an MLS gasket. if it's a DOHC EJ25 you should use the 610 gasket (last three digits of the part number) - an updated gasket. no point in reinstalling the same gasket that's prone to failure to begin with...though it should hold longer that it appears yours might have. i have heard of the cylinder sleeves walking due to prior overheats...i'm not sure how to test that but it would be nice to make sure that's not the case for you since that's essentially not properly repairable. wonder how often Ivansimports has seen that - have you? i haven't yet but other folks that do tons of Subaru's (GD) has.

i agree to a point. those wheels are dangerous...but the same applies to razor blades - those easily gouge aluminum (i've done it). both can help - both can harm....comes down to the user...and most users are probably apt to go overboard more on the discs than blades. i think there's too many variables to blame something specific. EJ25's simply fail too often. and they re-fail too often. the engines are expensive, hard to find, and encourage folks to dig in for the first time. and given how many blown, failed, overheated, abused, and battered EJ25's are out there getting first headgasket attempts or flipped by shady mechanics (i know one right now trying to fix one - he bought cam pulleys from me - i would not want that car), i think it's hard to discern what is actually the fault of a tool or blatant disregard from lazy, cheap, and low quality jokers trying to make a buck.

what would be nice is to install a fuel pressure gauge that you can leave in place - like with a T fitting or something...heck even with the gauge ran to the cabin if you're having really strange symptoms/problems. in my experience Subaru fuel issues are very rare so i'm hesitant to be confident this is the fuel pump.

chased broken wires - you checked for continuity from the MAP to the ECU? what a mess.

what he said - sounds like headgaskets, a very common issue with that motor. overheating is just about the worst thing you can do to your engine, next to running it without oil. if it runs fine without the thermostat in place - leave it out. normally when the headgaskets fail on this particular motor pulling the thermostat doesn't help. so i suspect either it's a very early stage of failure and it just hasn't happened to overheat yet without the t-stat, but will in due time. or yours has already been replaced before you owned the vehicle and is having a non-traditional failure. the only way it could be "caused" by the tstat is if the tstat has failed.

i would keep driving it as-is and refilling the gas every 50-100 miles just to be sure it never happens again. at this point i wonder if the gas-station fill ups are just a time for it to cool down and set rather than the actual cause. correlation does not mean causation. the timing belt is due on that car and if it breaks it will have bent valves and major engine damage. if it hasn't been done it's due....by 3 years or more. you could install or have a fuel pressure gauge handy and check pressure next time it has issues running/starting. this will verify if you have proper fuel pressure to the engine.

all 2000+ Legacy/Outbacks are like that for the child seats. you pull the seat belt all the way out and it engages a feature that "locks" the belts for the use of car seats for children. once you allow it to fully retract all the way back it'll work again as normal - it "resets". seat belt failure is really odd....having two fail seems almost impossible. since they never fail they are almost worthless. http://www.car-part.com if they don't list seat belts much, then look for something else like rear seats and call places for the seat belts.

all metric and regular bolts. be prepared for rust if you have any down there. the sliding pins are likely gummed up and seized. that's the most common issue. hopefully you can free them up, usually they just take some wrestling, but sometimes they are so bad you can't get them out of the bores without torching them...but i don't know how bad rust gets in TN? most early to mid 90's Subaru's around here can have some significant rust on them. i have also seen black build up/corrossion on the brake pad clips cause the pad to hang and not be able to press firmly against the rotor. replacing the caliper clips is a grand idea if you're up to finding them and ordering them. or clean your old ones.

parts wanted forum - someone has a radiator lying around? that doesn't even look that bad, bend it back>!? get a dedicated trans cooler? i've taken a few radiators apart - are you sure that nipple/hose isn't cast into the cooler inside the radiator? i've taken a few Subaru radiators apart - the ATF cooler sits behind the plastic in the tank and is submerged in coolant - i almost feel like the ATF cooler has those nipples all cast into the units as one assembly piece, it is slid into place in the plastic and then the plastic is crimped onto the metal radiator? but maybe they're not all like that or my memory is bad (both very possible).

i've never had a problem removing them as an assembly. they just unbolt from the head and all the intake manifold bolts are easily accessible. once the manifold is unbolted they are awkward and tricky to wiggle completely out if you don't have everything out of the way - like power steering lines, a/c hoses, cruise/throttle cables, coolant hoses, wiring, etc - the fuel rails and all get caught up, hung up in stuff, etc. other than that annoyance i'm not seeing it, it's just an intake manifold and i've never removed them in layers in order to pull one off. who and how many folks told you it couldn't be removed as a unit? got a link to a thread?

yep.

what are you concerned about or needing to do? remove it as an entire unit. in the event that you do have to remove the upper and lower pieces separate - it is so easy it doesn't matter. hard part will be if any of the bolts holding the manifold to the head shear off - that's a fairly common occurrence, a mess to deal with, and is independent of the upper and lower coming off separate or not.

subaru brakes are confusing, the brake designers forgot their OCD med's in the 90's. jamal has a great and very thorough brake write up. i believe it's posted here in the USRM - read that and use it. also peruse how unbelievably long it is and how convoluted it is that some brakes swap, some don't, some are the same but different pin set ups, some are the same caliper but different rotor sizes...i mean it's a crazy mess. the best thing to do is take the pads and rotors with you to verify. but that is inconvenient at best.

make sure it's not something else but i've seen this countless times - it's probably the new axle. it's not because you got them online or they were cheap - aftermarket axles (all of them) are a gamble. my time is too valuable and so i don't waste it on them any more. reboot Subaru axles or deal with MWE in Denver.

that stinks. ideally you're testing the actual circuit - like for resistance, but it could be inside the trans, not sure you can do that completely outside the trans. i recall one thread (on this forum) where someone pulled the trans pan and found a bad connector or wire for the solenoids. is your ATF pan dented or compromised at all? if there are no symptoms i would be tempted to leave it alone. has the fluid ever been changed? doubtful the battery is the issue, that would be weird.

LMAO!!!!!!

wish you were closer, i would sit with you over a drink indeed! it happens in Outbacks and Impreza OBS - with the swinging rear hatch, they'll break right where the wires flex. I've fixed that before and heard others talk about it. never seen/heard of it in a sedan. interesting - as i stripped the wiring to repair the wires - the metal was very fatigued and breaking off - i had to cut off some wire to get back to less fatigued metal. i guess all the flexing fatigued it over time.

*** Solved *** Had power to the trunk too... There were two cracked wires where the trunk swings, just past the connector. I had checked there before, early on, and no dice - today after narrowing it down to that area with the multimeter - I yanked and they finally pulled apart as if they had been sliced with a knife clean through making it difficult to see visually. Is it possible for the metal to be broken internally but some of the plastic still attached? I guess because of the two broken wires maybe that's why running a new power wire (which i had already done) didn't quite work - ground was bad too maybe, or shorting out...who knows. Otherwise that should have fixed it to begin with. Thanks for all the help getting me into tracking mode to nail this down. Off to finish cleaning this thing up!

I guess a dying battery was hosing up the testing, or there's some kind of intermittent thing going on. Voltages look much better today? Have continuity to the B99 connector from the inhibitor switch (wire color and pin numbers match up at this connector) 12.9 volts at battery 12.9 volts at fuse 12.3 volts at the inhibitor switch power supply pin 12.1 volts at the inhibitor switch reverse light pin (when car is in reverse - no voltage when not in reverse obviously) 12.1 volts at pin 10 in the B99 connector guess it's off to find and check the connectors after B99...

*** I found B99 24 pole connector. One problem I am likely to have is that so far the inhibitor switch pins and wire colors have not lined up with my 99 Legacy FSM...we'll see what happens here.