idosubaru

"do the timing belt kits"........depends which kit, there are many. you can buy: 1. just the timing belt 2. timing belt and tensioner 3. timing belt and pulleys without tensioner 4. timing belt and pulleys and tensioner 5. various combo's of 1-4 with a water pump 6. various combo's of 1-5 with seals etc....so there's dozens of possibilities. you are correct - aftermarket water pump gaskets are flimsy cardboard junk. use the Subaru metal gaskets. subaru seals are considered higher quality than some aftermarkets - i would get the timing components only through ebay, then get the seals you need from Subaru or a known Subaru OEM brand. sometimes the ebay kits come with Subaru OEM type seals. i get the seals from subaru so i'm getting a good seal and i can get exactly what i want - like subaru water pump gasket, stuff for an oil pump reseal as well. i don't even know if there's a cost savings going with ebay for the seals.

maybe, but it's different than my 1996 LSi sedan. doesn't seem like one hitch would fit them both when i look at them. i have another hitch thread about my LSi that some folks posted too, i'll search for that when i have better internet.

welcome aboard, you'll come right along in figuring it out. they're really easy - alternator, a/c compressor, power steering all take a matter of minutes to replace. timing belts are rather easy...etc, so just plug along and you'll come to like the car. 95 is a good year - don't run it hot or out of oil and they can last as long as you care to maintain them. which around here means rust kills them first.

Found a nice 99 SUS to keep for a daily driver. Want a hitch on it. Tried to put an outback hitch on it....it seems really stinking close but won't quite get into position. the forward vertical holes line up with two holes in the bumper beam, but won't get flush with them. Is it supposed to sit flush on those holes or are there supposed to be spacers? It does not appear like it could possibly sit flush. Does an SUS take a legacy hitch, outback hitch or maybe it's some combination of the two making it wacky?

really need to narrow down if this is front or rear noise - that shouldn't be too hard to do. have someone sit in the rear compartment, that usually makes it obvious. hopefully someone mechanically inclined at least a little bit, not someone that will hate you for asking! or you sit back there while they drive, that's what i do. louder with more weight sounds really bizarre to me. you could disconnect the Duty C solenoid completely so it's permanently binding - and then remove the rear half of the driveshaft. this would prevent further damage or possible rear internal trans hub shearing off (which happens), and might eliminate the noise if it's rear ujoint related.

hmmmm, does it "always" do this, or just sometimes? what does it do at really slow speeds? (parking lot) is it rear or front, central or side to side? lots of possibilities: i'm leaning towards a failing ujoint in the driveshaft, the torque bind would cause or infuriate that due to extra drivetrain stresses too. crawl under and yank it around really good and look for play/sounds. i've seen them fail before though where the joint is just seized and exhibits no issues until removed - but inspect closely visually too. need to fix that torque bind, it's not good and things can break. the internal hub can shear off. have you at least tried the FWD fuse just to alleviate it for now or some fluid changes, sometimes that fixes it. just leaving it go is a really bad idea.

nice detective work so far, you're on it. there's a tiny thin, quarter sized filter in line with a vacuum hose on the passengers side. it's $7 from Subaru and can cause EGR codes. it's rare, only heard of it happening one time (new valve, gasket, and solenoid did not fix the EGR code), but for $7 it's worth a shot if everything else spec's out. in the end maybe the EGR valve is bad, wouldn't be the first auto part within spec's that causes issues. XT6 throttle position sensors can never be within the spec's outlined in the FSM - so spec's aren't "perfect" did you replace the transducer and how did you know it was bad? curious since that's an odd failure.

P0400 is an EGR code. EGR valve may have failed. They usually don't cause any major issues but they can stick, get dirty, get clogged. You can try cleaning it out. You may need a new gasket for it if you remove it. I once had the small, quarter sized diameter filter on the passengers side cause EGR code and very poor shifting. It's inline with one of the vacuum hoses from the fender well to the engine and is black with a white-ish kind of material around it - though it might all be black with dirt now. Can't imagine that causing a no-start but it made mine difficult to climb a steep grade by my house.

speedo's/odo's tend to be off by more than tread depth would affect it. on XT6's i've found the speedo/odom to be more accurate with larger tires. haven't spent time calculating newer gen stuff but someone with a GPS could maybe help. my 1996 Legacy LSi is the most accurate speedo/odo i've had. there are a few gas mileage threads if you wanted to compare what others are getting. my mileage in flatland is far better than traversing the interstates through the mountains which i often do. my 4 banger auto gets 32 on flat ground but gets pummeled by the mountains - 25 or 26 tops if i keep speeds down.

there's no typical mileage. it varies much with driving conditions/speed. miles per tank isn't that accurate for calculating. tank is 15.9 gallons and the light comes on with about 2.9 gallons left in the tank - so roughly 13 gallons difference. all of that is in the owners manual. if you don't have one, they're very helpful for fluid types, amounts, tons of other useful info. if you assume that's accurate at all you're at 27 and change or round up to 28mpg. that's about normal depending on driving. my 02 OBW auto 6 cylinder will get 28 if i cruise at 55 mph which we do on one trip we frequently make. decreases quickly at higher speed. if you drove straight highway at 60mph you'd get over 30 mpg. it decreases quickly the faster you travel or obviously with city/stop and go trips.

yeah anything 86-88 is a really quirky transition period for subarus. it's EA82 right? anyway - car-parts.com has a fairly extensive Engine Computer selection for that year, should be able to identify something there. takes some detective work, select what you want - if you see 15 listings of one part number and 4 of another - the one with 15 is usually what you need....if that makes any sense, or just match up the exact vehile/year/model/vin number/letter. some of the places delineate information well on there.

maybe it's not rod knock. could be a cracked flex plate or the timing tensioner failing - they sound like rod knock too. fix it....we'll be seeing an engine for sale thread soon? guess you don't know if it's original engine/trans?

yeah drop one in there. if it gets dirty it's working! i bought mine off of ebay, i went ahead and bought a couple while i was at it. it was a few years ago but i think they're spendy from Subaru. it could have been even that it was removed at some point by a previous owner? they can stink if they get old and lay in there and someone may have just yanked it. my 02 OBW smelled bad when the vent was on when we first got it - replacing the filter solved it. highly doubt subaru would make different HVAC systems for cars with and without the filter, like you're saying they'd just not install the filter. 2000 was the first year it was offered ever so it's likely all models did not get it. not sure about trim/option levels though. cars101.com has good info on stuff like this.

good points about the valve adjusts and tight exhaust valves. they do ocassionally burn up so they should be adjusted, they're just super annoying to do. there's no accurate mileage for them to blow, but there are some reasons it might *seem* like it. many were blowing at 30k, 50k, replaced under warranty by subaru, etc and some will last the life of the vehicle. of all the ones i've bought (a lot, i don't even know how many) - the earliest headgasket replacement was 33,000 replaced under warranty by Subaru on a 1998 Legacy GT. so you're estimates are about 100,000 miles off on the low side and about the same on the high side too. but we can also ascertain why it might appear as you say, it is actually quite reasonable to see and think that. it may seem that the mileage is meaningful but there are reasons for that: 1) there are few low mileage units around, but they were blowing far earlier than 100k when there were a lot of them still on the road with that few mileage. 2) the mileage you state is a good mileage to sell and be on the market for repair/sale. higher miles often ends up in the junk yard, lower mileages may still be worth repairing to many owners without getting voiced in forums or for sale. EJ25D's are roughly 13 years old - at the national average of 12,000 miles per year - they're right smack in the middle of the range you mentioned - so a high percentage of them are going to be in the mileage range you specified. that doesn't mean they all fail - that just means most of them are 12-15 years old right now and likely to hit the market/repair bench with this mileage. so - the numbers you suggest do come from somewhere - but they aren't actually indicative of "when" EJ25D headgaskets fail - they have no mileage preferences and some do make it the life of the car.

if both fronts do the same then it might be that the motors are not the problem. sounds too coincidental for not only for them both to be failing, but both to be failing in the same way? i'd look elsewhere for the issues - power, grounding, controls. swap the master control switch maybe?

the door cards/panels are easy. pop out from bottom and sides, lift out from the top. window motors are really annoying, i'll let others comment on that. last failed window i just replaced the entire door because i had one! much simpler than a window motor replacement. make sure the switch/grounding isn't bad for the windows before you go tearing into it. both sides are bad and doing the same thing?

little over won't hurt. the tapping is benign.....doesn't sound like it, sounds terrible, but it won't hurt anything. i've seen those cars rack up tons of miles on tapping engines easily. but yeah just follow what i outlined above and you should be golden.

200 miles from Washington DC wow, that's funny how that works. i've shipped parts all over the world for similar reasons. my wife is fluent. i speak no spanish but i could sing pearl jam songs with Chilean's who didn't speak english, it was awesome!

do not use engine additives, that's a really bad idea particularly for a car you just bought. if you want it long term as a daily driver then proper maintenance is best. honestly - you are better of ignoring the TOD, getting a louder radio even, then adding those off the shelf engine additives. first step to TOD is simply to change the oil and change it regularly. if TOD doesn't go away here is the best sequence of events to get rid of it: 1. reseal the oil pump (3 parts - shaft seal, oring, and pump housing gasket/oring) 2. replace the oil pump 3. continue on to HLA related solutions sometimes it's simplest to just combine steps 1 and 2 so you're not doing the job twice. but only you can judge if you're more interested in saving time or money. never reuse any of the seals, particularly the oil pump housing gasket. steps one and 2 work most of the time, so i'm not going to elaborate on the various options for 3 since they're not likely. it is pointless to try anything else but those things which are likely.

really tight! rare to use an actual torque wrench but 140 will do it. i go with the 2 foot pipe and put some stank in it ft-pounds. a quick google/search here gives: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=87075 http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=114416 http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=109532

the original axles generally last a really long time. i've put 50,000 miles on broken boot and clicking front axles. i don't recommend it, i'm just saying it's not an emergency. stay out of sand and coal dust though, that will chew them up quick. not all old gen stuff is the same, so tell us what vehicle you got/what you're working on. most likely an EA and it's been a long time for me since they've all rusted away around here , so i'm going to let someone else comment on the particulars of those.

yes some folks have done it. it works but it's hard to remove the bearing seals without compromising them. they end up slightly dimpled and not "perfect". i use a needle fitting for a grease gun. don't overpack. the grease will expand and push the seal out or creep out around the edges and sling everywhere. so far the ones i've done have held up fine. i haven't kept track enough to know how many miles/condition afterwards though. what would be sweet would be if you could buy new bearing seals so you could pry the old off and install a new one.

a bolt isn't properly tightened - axle nut or wheel nut...or any others you may have removed to do this. or one/both of the axles are bad. if you still have the old axles your best bet for long term reliability is to have them rebooted and avoid the after market axles, they are notoriously problematic. if they were clicking then they're probably not worth keeping but if the boots were just torn, save the origianals. not just out of the box either - long term reliability isn't good either. i buy used subaru axles and reboot them. i get them for $25-$33 each and reboot them. extra effort but it's worth the time saved from dealing with the endless aftermarket issues. i've seen it all - vibration, exploding to pieces, leaking, noises.....it can happen on day one, 100, or 10,000. subaru axles are beefy and do not fail unless you abuse them. MWE is the only other good option for axles.

you are correct, i'm rarely confident leaving pulleys for another 100,000 miles. i did one vehicle recently, a 2000-2004 generation (forget which one it was) where the pulleys were in really good shape, but that's more the exception than the rule. almost never do they feel "like new", so it's ambiguous to some degree. it is heat that destroys the pulleys. they loose grease, overheat, and seize or fail or both. they loose grease - if you repack them, which i've done, they feel just as smooth as brand new ones. one method to test may be to come up with some kind of temperature test - see how hot they're getting under load - but who wants to do that? i almost always replace them all. another option for the extremely frugal is to check the pulleys/belt once or twice between change intervals - it's not that hard to just pull the belt itself if you can do the work yourself.

Outback front fenders have the gold cladding/trim/vinyl/sticker continuing up and around the wheel well. This trim/cladding on the outbacks and SUS, is it just a sticker over the paint? If it is just a sticker, would the paint underneath be in good condition? I need a front SUS fender but they're an oddball because they have the two tone paint scheme of the outbacks, but they don't have the cladding/trim continuing up above the wheel like the Outback wagon does. So I'm looking for a green fender I can affix the SUS cladding too. Either a green legacy fender or an Outback, which would require removing and leaving off the above the wheel sticker.