idosubaru

if this is your first subaru then search first - folks often screw up and borrow philosophies from other makes/years and apply them incorrectly to subaru's. i'm sure it happens the other way around too. places like this get you the best bang for your buck for long term inexpensive reliability and repairs! like your torque bind debacle - you already bought a diff, so that's $160 wasted. that's a high price, someone on here would have sold you one for $50 or something. and they never fail, so that won't be your issue. i mean, i guess if it's out of gear oil maybe it failed, but that's pretty rare. stuff like that is easily avoidable with the vast experience of boards like this. welcome and good luck!

have you tried installing the FWD fuse int he engine bay to see if the torque bind/noise goes away? probably won't, but worth a shot, it takes 23 seconds.

highly unlikely the rear diff failed - subaru rear differentials almost never fail. if you have binding your issue is either the Duty C solenoid or clutches are hosed most likely. The noise is likely something straining...could be a driveshaft, carrier bearing, you haven't really described the noise, could be a bushing or axle too. Sounds like your Duty C solenoid is hosed and causing torque bind and the AT light. clutches won't typically cause the light to flash, the solenoid will. The secret handshake is a real debacle to get it to work right, good luck is about all i can say, it's a silly game that i've yet to get to work right.

verify that the fan(s) are coming on when it's overheating. are both hoses hot when it's overheating? do you have heat when it's running hot? when it's running hot does running the heat help bring it back down? radiators are usually really predictable - they don't overheat sometimes and then not others - it is clogged or it's not and it'll be load dependent. climb a steep grade - overheat. drive at night (cool outside), never overheats....etc. if it was previously overheating....which sounds like it has been, radiator replaced, etc - there's no telling how much overheating this engine has seen. 25 year old gaskets aren't the most forgiving.

nah, front diffs don't bind...or, they don't bind without any other symptoms. you're doing good trying something, that's better than ignoring it completely, you'll figure something out soon enough. "binding" front diffs are not subtle - they would have some noise since they are purely mechanical in nature unlike auto's and VLSD's which have fluid/hydraulic mechanisms. they can get very noisy and voilent quickly. front diffs get worse quickly are not considered good candidates for continued use like a traditional binding center diff. this suggests you don't have front diff failure. if the center diff is not the cause then the symptoms would differ. it would be very odd to have the exact same symptoms as torque bind and no others, yet an entirely different cause.

new, i had one installed for $160 a couple years ago and $201.40 in my legacy 2 months ago, they came to me and did it in my parking lot at work. if you're going used and then paying someone to install it - the savings are tiny considering the effort, risk, and then a used unwarrantied windshield you have to stare through every single time you drive. if you're doing it yourself the savings are still not that great. if you've never done it before then you may not realize how difficult they are to remove, maneuver, and install properly. if you're still up for it i'd use car-parts.com like mentioned above. 90-94 is what i believe works for yours.

first post says he's installing the SPFI injector into the EJ manifold, avoiding the MPFI stuffs.

no, not quite unfortunately. subaru front diffs don't fail like that, you would have other/different symptoms as the front is a front diff - it doesn't do anything to the rear drivetrain. changing gear oil can not help the torque bind on a manual trans. that would be akin to changing your gas and hoping it fixes your transmission because the viscous unit in a MT is sealed, changing the fluid in the transmission does not do anything to the center diff mechanism. once it's failing it's done.

what he said: just use R12 properly and you're golden. or - get another EA82 compressor and just convert that to 134a, that's what most folks over here do. there's little $10 kits that are basically just adapter that go over the ports so you can charge 134a into an R12 system via R12 ports. technically speaking i think 134a is a bit less efficient so they say it doesn't get quite as cold as R12 when used in older systems that weren't designed for the lesser capacity of 134a. but i think the difference isn't huge so personal preference there.

if it's within spec i would think it should be fine, they're spec's are conservative. i just installed an EJ25 head (that's the headgasket eating version too) that was poorly resurfaced to below spec's...then resurfaced again because it was a bad job....below spec's, holding just fine. but granted at least this one is flat. i would much rather have a thinner head (some say i do ) that's flat than a wavy block like you're saying.

+1, i've done that before. might want to practice stacking two first on something benign. you have to remove the wrong size helicoils? that sucks. what a mess but hopefully you're close. i don't recall them, particularly those huge ones, being super easy to remove but haven't had to do it much either. it's just an EA82....i think i'd just get the wrong size headbolt to match the wrong size helicoils ...i *know* that's a huge no-no and i deserve flaming for saying it.

wasn't my first thought but i bet Qman has your demon covered, so start there. you pulled the distributor? if so, double, triple...more...check the alignment, they're easy to mess up and seem unclear sometimes. i think you mean 360, which is what it should be, or i'm reading it wrong.

nope, not worth it. what's the phone number? that's a good price if it's a good motor. any hope of repairing yours? if it's an EJ25 and it's just headgaskets sometimes it's simpler to repair your motor than get unknown or source a good fit.

one important point - this code means nothing and does not cause any issues nor is there any mechanical concern about ignoring it for the remainder of the time you own the vehicle. like they said - take it to Subaru. it's sort of a debacle of an issue to work through sometimes. a small exhaust leak can cause it. sensor might fix it. there's a cheap $5 fix that ensures you'll never see that code again as long as you own the car 99% of the time. many of us do that for systems that don't respond to simple exhaust leak check and sensor replacements. .

when the headgaskets were replaced the first time do you know if subaru headgaskets were used and the heads were resurfaced? just curious for mental notes aspect of things. rattling could be something simple - heat shields, timing tensioner, etc. but i hear you in being done with a problematic engine. leakdown test is about as good as you can do on an unknown engine. no way to verify mileage really. i forget if EJ22 and EJ25 flywheels are different....someone will have an EJ25 flywheel for you though if you need one. i have one lying around, many others do too.

leaking SOHC EJ25's are best to repair. if you put the money towards a proper repair - subaru headgaskets, complete timing kit (pulleys, belt, tensioner) - you've got a really good chance of the motor making another inexpensive 100,000 miles. engine needs to be a 99+ Phase II EJ22. Phase II EJ22's have the spark plug wires going through the valve covers on the side of the engine. make sure it's one of those. EJ25 should be dual port exhaust and the EJ22 will be single so you'll need a single port exhaust. they can be difficult to find for some folks since yards won't (or can't legally) sell them. but on forums like this should be able to score one. other than dual/single port style - all the exhaust manifolds easily interchange and bolt right up.

installing another seal will probably do the trick. can you tell where it's leaking, from the ID or OD? if the belt is getting oil on it - be sure to replace it. belts can break in a matter of months when soaked in automotive chemicals.

get an Ebay kit, they're awesome. only $60-$80 for both belts and all pulleys. replacing just the belts is really silly on an engine this old.

ah! yeah, has the fluid ever been changed in this thing? that might be the first step if it's the original 10 year old 130,000 mile transmission fluid.

what he said, change the fluid. do all your tires match in size and tread depth? does the AT light ever blink 16 times at first start up? there's a FWD fuse holder in the engine bay - installing a fuse in that and telling us if the binding goes away or not is very informative. automatics dont' have a viscous coupler, those are only found on manuals. if you see people talking about viscous couplers you can pretty much ignore it, because auto trans work completely differently. a failing viscous coupler is not fixable - it has to be replaced. so consider it good news that you might not have to get into something that expensive. yours, being an automatic, still has a really good chance of being repaired. it utilizes clutch packs and a duty C solenoid to control pressure to them.

you mount a distributor to the rear cam cap area. unbolt the rear passengers side cam cap that retains the sealing oring. take it off and pre-1998 or so EJ22's have a slotted cam ready for a distributor. i believe it's ford and maybe escort comes to mind but it won't be hard for you to figure that out and make something work. be nice to just splice the EA82 wiring onto the EJ22 intake manifold, though i don't know if things will be happy. TPS would definitely need to be figured out - maybe the EA82 throttle body would fit or could be tweaked to work on the EJ22? that's easy enough that i'd probably be dumb enough to just splice the injectors in place, idle controller, play with the TPS and see what happens! LOL

my speedometer didn't work but the odometer did. i fixed it last night by replacing the entire instrument cluster it's actually not that hard on an XT6 and probably not much different on an EA81 brat, some things haven't changed much over time and i think this might be one of them. 4 screws for an under cover panel, then four 12mm bolts hold it in place from underneath and then remove some extraneous other things and disconnect plugs to get it out. i'm sure there are other failure modes but in mine it turns out the speedo cable was allowing grease to travel all the way up from the trans/diff, through the cable, into where it attaches to the instrument cluster. this ruins the speedometer apparatus but allows the odometer to still work...or sometimes it does. so i needed a new cable to better seal the grease from getting up into the cable. maybe it would be possible to clean it all up in the cluster and reassemble but installing another cluster was far simpler. i've taken them apart before and those parts are tedious to me and my time is valuable too. if you can grab a spare cluster you could disassemble it and see if it's something you'd like to dig into or not.

i don't think you can move the condensor very much....it's only a couple bolts though so you can try, but i wouldn't want to tweak those fittings as much either - i think the fittings on those sides have metal lines on them sometimes and not the more pliable rubber lines like the compressor that you can just flop over on the sides. but - i've never...nor does anyone else really...remove the condensor anyway unless the car was wrecked or it's leaking. so should be fine just leaving it. then again - it's not that big of a deal either to recharge it, but you'll get a lesser "product" so to speak probably because you don't have a professional vaccuum puller nor access to R12 so you'll have to convert. but i highly recommend not opening it if it's a good working a/c system, particularly if it's still original R12, don't touch it.

i just did this exact same swap - same year 2000 vehicle even. i used the 610 headgasket (last 3 digits of the part number). guy at subaru wanted to give me the other, had to ask for help as he didn't know what they were. having the heads machined to the minimum would bump the compression somewhat. the shop machined mine below the minimum spec's (not on purpose...long story like yours no doubt, thread with pictures on here). seemed like it wouldn't affect the gasket sealing so i used them as is. maybe i got *some* compression back. either way - the car ran and drove fine, felt great to me. seems weird - from one small inaccurate angle no doubt - that compression would be lowered so much. if the pistons are touching the heads it seems like the volume is about as small as you can get - if the other heads allow more clearance - they should allow more volume and less compression ratio? i know that's not accurate but hard to think around that sometimes....

he's very familiar with adding the Subaru Coolant Conditioner, i know he's done it before, so he'll know what's best. you're getting a much better value from him than any dealer or shop so you're in good hands at this point.