idosubaru

nah, it's pretty easy. i mean it's a total pain pulling engines or transmissions, but there's not much special about it. reseal the rear separator plate, particularly if it's wet/seeping at all. have the flywheel resurfaced. a competent machine shop will mic it, make sure it's in spec and resurface it for you for only $50 or something (rates vary). replace EVERYTHING. throw out bearing, pilot bearing, both retaining clips. those are all a few dollars and should not be left in there. most good clutch kits come with those parts, but if they don't go get them. should be a hydraulic clutch. they are notoriously difficult to bleed, i haven't personally come up with a repeatable method of getting them properly bled every single time. so - be very careful and don't break open the hydraulic lines. or, it would be good to bleed them and get new fluid in there as degraded fluid can probably cause premature wear of the slave cylinder and hoses. good time to do it while you got a new clutch going in. if you decide to flush the fluid - do it right away, first. that way you can let it sit awhile, while doing the trans pull/clutch job, and let air bubbles (if any) surface to the top.

it has gas in it right? good luck hopefully it's something simple like fuel supply.

guy at yard said to use a heat gun to remove the trim stickers (not sure what they're called) - the sticker/decals that go over the wheel well arch of OBW's. any other tips to remove these without damaging the paint? got an OBW fender to install on my SUS - the SUS has the same two tone paint but does not have the decal sticker that goes over the wheel well arch like the OBW so i want to remove that.

not sure if they're all the same, but the ones i've done the drivers side boot is always the most annoying to get seated/clamped right. hopefully that's the one you already did. either way, they're usually about the same, one side just needs a little more wrestling, not a big deal.

oh my goodness that's awesome, thanks.

"older" meaning EA or...? that's not how i remember it but maybe you're saying the same thing that i'm thinking? it's just a simple sheathed cable. the cable slides out of the sheath that holds it, that's it. the cable sticks out of the end of the sheath and slides into the speedo head. is that what you mean?

up front leaks (coming from under the timing belt cover) - would be crank seal or oil pump leaking (centrally located) or cam seals/orings (on the passengers or drivers side). other leaks will be valve covers or grommets (or both). the EJ22 has a rear cam cap oring too, those can leak. need to narrow it down by looking under the engine. what parts are wet with oil......??

what car, engine, etc is helpful. in general on these older models the crank angle sensor is integrated into the distributor. you can pull it apart and try to clean it (keep very good track of distributor orientation so it goes back in exactly how it was). or you can just get another distributor. they are easy to swap out and don't fail that often so going new is usually overkill. they can eventually cause no-start conditions so probably a good idea to replace it if it's showing codes. oddly enough i've actually had more fail than i've ever had give me codes. so they caused a no-start, got no code, but swapping them fixed it. maybe your 70hp is currently running 60 and it'll feel like a new car for a week after fixing it!

it's usually not too hard to fabricate a seat or make one subaru model fit another. sounds like you looked into it before? do you think just raising it an inch might help? probably wouldn't be hard to use some spacers to raise yours up a bit. this might verify for you that an adjustable seat would be good before buying one if height alone can help. find one for sale close by with power seats and test drive..or sit..in it? looks like electric seats were available for the baja, can you buy a used one of those?: $95 electric, cloth 1-800-686-5644 $135 for leather 1-800-662-6150 shipping will suck but better than $1,200.

sounds like you got it down to me, give it a whirl and see what happens. my favorite way to line up the disty is to look at another running vehicle with the same engine, those things are tricky to get right otherwise! i've always thought i should just take a picture of some orientations involved for the XT6 site for this issue. good luck

this is not an interference engine. all EA/ER series engines are non interference, no subaru engines are until 1996. good check pulling the plug wires like that, sounds like you're on to something. are you absolutely positive it wasn't running like this before the timing belt change? it would be really odd for something to break the exact second you do a timing belt job - so that makes it hard to differentiate since we only have words to go by. but - if that one plug isn't making a difference maybe you have a bad fuel injector or FPR (probably the former is more likely if it's isolated mostly to one cylinder).

$30 and change on ebay. it's between the engine/transmission and is huge. but it's between the housing on the front of the trans and the engine so you can't really see it. you can get glimpses of it and narrow access to remove the torque converter bolts (like if you're pullnig the engine/trans) but otherwise it's not a part you ever look at for any reason. if the TC is bad then you have to pull the engine/trans to replace it. subaru TC's almost never fail though, i'm sure it can but i've never seen it happen. they're really easy. an AWD subaru and FWD subaru are the same thing really - there's no difference in terms of "working on them" except just a few more parts on the back of the trans and the rear of the car. when i converted my AWD to FWD i didn't even change the ECU or TCU....been driving it 50,000 miles like that! you can convert AWD to FWD or FWD to AWD all day long, it's not that hard on a subaru because they're so similar. all that to say - hang in there for the learning curve, Subaru's and AWD are actually really easy to work on. i work on my friends cars all the time and it's a rare day when they seem easier than Subaru's except for subaru's horizontally opposed engine doubling the amount of work for a headgasket, seals, and valve work, etc. but that layout makes more common things really simple, like 15 minutes to replace an alternator, a/c or power steering pump, so it's a trade off. good luck keeping her on the road.

like he said, EJ22 headgaskets really don't fail. they blow when the engine has been previously overheated which stresses them, but they don't typically just fail on their own accord with no provocation. sounds like you diagnosed it already though - clogged radiator, fan not coming on, grille/radiator fins clogged (someone just fixed this issue on another subaru forum - blew out the fins and all is well), low on coolant, tstat, bad radiator cap? aftermarket tstats can be problematic out of the box. visually comparing them the subaru tstat looks like a fine piece of machinery while the aftermarkets look like things my 3 year old plays with. but of course they work most of the time too. if the headgaskets are blown then more then likely it was overheated previously, not that hard to imagine on 20+ year old cars.

many users comment that thoroughly oiling the threads makes them much easier to use. i've seen folks mention the welds breaking on the HF units (and my assumption is most of the cheaper ones available anywhere else), so i would be liberal with the oil (let the political jokes fly! :lol:)

check fuel pressure? check those injector pulses GD mentioned with a noid light? did the engine that was previously in it run fine (meaning exhaust is fine?) 85 is FI, not carb, right?

i just bought two rear KYB GR-2's for my 02 OBW. thepartsbin.com currently has them for only $55 each - so $110 for both. order in the next 5 days and use this code on check out, enter it in the coupon area/box for a $15 discount: MIDSUMMER15 you'll have both for close to the price of one at most stores. my OBW is driving about like you're describing as well and my tire is scalloping on the one side from the bad strut too. i also ordered strut spring compressors off ebay for $22 shipped.

who wants to continue battery drain diagnosis? mine (XT6, i know wrong gen) was off the charts until i unplugged my aftermarket stereo last night. i only unplugged the harness though - all the sliced in wiring is still in place. the drain is now 200 mA is the spliced in hack job wiring enough to cause a drain or is this something completely different? i narrowed it down to one fuse and have just about every item powered off of that fuse unplugged.

what is "branded" - is that a salvage title, totaled by the insurance, or a mark that it has been repaired? i bought almost the exact car but a 1997 impreza with a branded title. it was 8 years old in 2005 with 60,000 miles on it and i paid $3,600. that was from a used car dealer too. subaru's are fairly popular here and that sounds like an absolutely terrible price, i wouldn't even think about it if it was a clean title. did you try kelly blue book and see what it says? and what are cars going for on autotrader, etc? maybe the market out there is that crazy, i don't know. if that's the car you want and none others can be had for that price, then it comes down to just taking a little extra precautions and you should be fine. salvage/branded R title is not the end of the world. i've bought and sold a few and fixed some myself. many are totally benign and just replacing body panels. i would try to inspect it and see if that's the case. there are ways to visually look for these things. if it's just body panels getting replaced that's definitely not a big deal and rather easy to do it properly. but it does indicate damage and have some low risk associated with it. there's no way to predict the future or promise anything, risk is what it is. the main issues i've seen is that tires may wear funny due to suspension components that visually pass inspection and alignment, but will still cause issues in the future or wiring that gets crimped/damaged and falls apart, corrodes, or causes problems later. this 98 though sounds low grade enough that those things are not as likely. i'd be mostly concerned with suspension - did the wheel/knuckle get replaced? in the case where states inspect them it's a really low grade and menial inspection in the states i've done it in. they walk around it, make sure the air bag light comes on and goes out when the car is turned on....and that's it. i remember the first time rebuilding a wrecked car and trying to get it recertified so i could drive it (the 02 H6 OBW in my sig) i was being all anal hoping it would pass the first time and not have to come back...they never even started or drove the car - it would have passed with the engine, transmission, struts, bearings, steering, lights, all blown to pieces. wow. good for me, makes it easy to recertify one....but a little unnerving if i was more of a consumer.

if you got heat - use it. heat up the outer quickly and then quickly try to loosen it while it's hot and the inner that's threaded into it is not yet. put a wrench on the nut that's on the inner tie rod holding it tight to the outer and then the outer has a flat spot on it for a wrench as well. use those to crank away. i am guessing you probably already tried that. definitely put some heat on it - that should get it to come off. typically don't have a lot of room to work with but get a good bite with a wrench and then interlock it with another wrench for leverage - so you're torquing it with two wrench lengths so to speak, i'm sure you know that trick. should be able to get the other one to rest/secure against a sway bar or something like that. i feel like maybe i've even used a plumbers wrench/monkey wrench before as well.

bad news is that it does indeed sound like torque bind. good news is that yes your center diff from the 98 should bolt right onto the 99. it's doable on the car too, no need to remove the transmission.

agreed - what codes do you have? hopefully you have codes and don't have to throw parts at it but: were the plugs/wires replaced at all during the swap or are they original/unknown miles? are they aftermarket or Subaru wires? how long did it run great?

okay i think i've seen the grounds before, from memory on the back of the clusters, though i've never looked at an H6 i bet there are not huge variations. i'm sure i could find a power something somewhere. will look for stickers if they can't come up with anything tomorrow morning.

+1 minus my machinist. 1 in 100, i was surprised by that. subaru does not do a red check. some don't even machine or pressure test, so that's even overkill compared to what Subaru does. pressure tests are most common on here i believe and it's assumed if that is good the head is going to last the life of the vehicle.

does it make the noise also when you press the clutch pedal to the floor or does the noise go away (like while coasting/drifting down a hill)? have you drained the gear oil and checked for signs of metal, sparkles, shavings, or worse? could be clutch related too.