idosubaru

wow, you got hosed on that deal, that's terrible. that's way abnormal for that age. that i was intrigued at the amount of rust on an H6 OBW 2001 just friday that we test drove for a friend. we passed. it's really not *that* big of a deal to replace the rear subframe, not much to it really.....if you can find someone to do it. they aren't worth much money since there's zero demand for them, so cost of a used one shouldn't be high. rusted bolts could be annoying if the rust is that bad. inspect the rest of the car well, should be fine ,but no point in all the work if all sorts of other things are equally disastrous.

i've heard of people having tires shaved to match. shave the one that's larger, or shave a new one to match the other three. not sure who/where does that service though. FWD burnouts? you don't pull the driveshafts in EJ manual trans vehicles, only older generation stuff where you can lock the center diff. and when you do you don't need to cap the trans, just remove the rear half of the shaft, the front portion seals it so you leave it.

i've disassembled them before, they are very basic, unoiled units with cheezball heads/piston. the suspension computer shuts them down after a few minutes of running to prevent overheating and while they can actualy last a long time if not used much, frequent use kills them. i wouldn't consider them a last resort for a custom project.

if you're not positive of the cause i'd lean toward junk yards. even if you are, used isn't a terrible option considering how easy they are to replace and expensive new stuff is. i would consider the hundreds of dollars for new bearings and ujoints unless you were certain it's the driveshaft. if it started out as noise and now vibrates it could be a wheel bearing. if it started as vibration and has noise too now, then it's probably driveshaft. i guess you don't know how it started though. wheel bearing should be obvious, it's usually notable front/back or left/right.

what they all said. a properly tightened axle nut does not just come loose for no reason. install it properly and verify your splines are good.

sounds like what a driveshaft would do. the ujoints are even more common than the carrier bearing to fail. really hard to verify on the car. sometimes there's slop in the ujoints and you can tell by yanking, pulling, and shoving. but other times the joints are "seized" or so tight that it doesn't exhibit play on the vehicle, but is notably hosed when you take it off. so there's really no way to "verify" with 100% accuracy that the driveshaft is good without removing it. i don't know how often that happens, if it's rare or not, but i've seen it. every one i've seen gets worse over time, starts out lighter and eventually the drivers rear view mirror isn't usable it's bouncing so much. has this one gotten worse?

vibration is easy - rotors are warped, very common. have them turned or replaced when you replace the pads. EGR - easy. clean the EGR, replace the $7 filter on the passengers side, or worst case replace the EGR they're only $80 or so. car has a 105,000 mile timing belt. might have done it with the headgasket and you can do it yourself but it's a $700 job at Subaru. $59 for the belt. that sounds like a reasonable price. last 98 OBW i sold with similar mileage was for like $4,500 i think. price varies wildly and is also dependent on the area. good priced Subaru's sell quicker in Subaru saturated areas. factor in the work that needs done and pay that, sounds like a good plan to me. if it wasn't overheated, that's key. the overheating does bad things to the oil and bearings.

non-issue, that must be a relief! sounds like you got it nailed and should be good to go. that effect is not caused by piston compression. the cam gets loaded as the lobes on the cam compress the valve springs, which is why they snap even with the belt removed. maybe compression adds to it but considering the compression readings when turning a motor by hand i doubt it's much. if you have adjustable valves (which I think you do), i'd go ahead and adjust them. they are really easy to do on this car if they're the screw type. i used to just ignore it all the time, now i'm a big fan of this after recently seeing how tight all the valves i'm seeing are and how easy it is on certain Subaru engines.

what does the flashing CEL mean? it just means the catatlytic converter could be damaged, is that it? what all can cause it - any kind of mis-fires, anything else? test drove an H6 the other day with a friend and that's the first time i've ever seen a Subaru CEL flash.

have no clue what the limits are but i've run a few miles/days with no exhaust before without any issues. not sure if a 6 cylinder XT6 is worse but i doubt it, either way it is deafening.

that's a good recommendation in general as additives are generally a band aid and not good long term solutions. additives should be avoided at all cost unless you can find very specific non-anecdotal remedies for known issues. those instances are rare, but here's one of them. other than a mostly 99 year trans issue this is about the only additive that's regularly recommended for Subaru's.

oh wow, flake out my bad. - you're right i'm completely off my rocker. ABS, not SRS. i'll edit that. the front SRS sensors are not all that hard to find. they are attached on the front down below the bottom of the radiator-ish area. on some vehicles, like the 2003 Legacy wagon I have you can pop the hood and see the little yellow jokers bolted on down there. Air bag connectors are always bright yellow and easily identified that way. The sensors are really easy to replace if it comes to that. I'd just get a used one, i've never heard of one failing. Air bag connectors are really goofy, they don't make them easy to come apart, so take your time and inspect what you need to push, pull, depress all at the same time to remove them.

i don't know what it is - i would just get the stuff that Subaru sells given the unforgiving nature of EJ25 headgaskets. it's a blue bottle - folks have posted pictures of it here - Subaru Coolant Conditioner, believe me they'll know exactly what you're talking about. Dealer I stopped in a couple weeks ago had them sitting out on a shelf by the check out counter. 2003 engines might be different? i never noticed valve adjustment stuff in the engine bay, nice find. where was that, on the hood or on that strut plate with the VIN on it? mine were really tight and i couldn't get any feelers between any of the valves so either of those measurements would ahve been a good thing.

front struts will definitely swap, not positive about rears. the axles should swap too, i'd grab the fronts to have an extra set. aftermarket axles are terrible quality so having a good spare set of what might possibly be original subaru axles is awesome. keep them booted and they'll last the life of the car. i'd keep the hubs too if the'yre not too rusty and you can get them off in case your wheel bearings start to go. of course if the car needs to be movable then you won't take the hub assemblies off. front calipers and rotors if they're good on the legacy. the mid pipe of the exhaust has the converter in it and is a common failure item as they rust and break at the flange. keep that if it's in good shape....or sell it to me, i actually need one as of last week! please? grab a bunch of engine sensors - MAF, crank sensor, cam sensor, and ignition coil and igniter. particularly the coil and igniter. knock sensors fail too and would be nice to have off the legacy but your impreza probably doesn't have one. or just yank the entire intake manifold off with all the sensors on the engine too and you have extra everything. head light bulbs if they're the same, they always need replaced at some point. gas - at $4 a gallon that might be the most valuable thing in it!

glad it's going smooth that's awesome. that's strange. the 2000 Forester engine I just did was .008" intake and 0.010" exhaust? i just checked and my 2000 Subaru Factory Service Manual says .008 and .010. same SOHC EJ25 engine as yours but maybe yours is a bit different being a 2003? i would just change the coolant without touching those drain plugs, i've never removed one or drained the engine to do a flush. haven't ever replaced a lower coolant hose yet so not sure about that. Subaru requires a coolant additive for your motor, but you probably know that already.

wow. edit.

subaru has a website called opposedforces that allows you to look up part numbers. some online subaru vendors do part numbers. checking things like ebay and aftermarket places sometimes yields interchangability results but you need to know what you're looking for. you could ask here for specific parts. you don't mention FWD/AWD or auto/manual? pretty much the entire suspension (not sure about rear struts though), brake stuff, drivetrain (axles, driveshaft), and engine will be mostly interchangeable. some soobs have rear drums and some have rear disc, so that obviously won't interchange although you can convert one to the other relatively easy...and you've got all the parts. the transmission will be interchangeable too if they're both auto or both manual. the final drive ratio may vary though - they're probably 3.9's, but the legacy might be 4.11? even if they're different it's still interchangeable if you just swap the rear diff with it so the final drive ratios match front and back. well actually they're even interchangeable auto to manual if you wanted to do a conversion. your 93 impreza is an EJ18 probably? the EJ22 from the legacy will drop right into the impreza and it can be a plug and play affair as your EJ18 intake will bolt right on top of it so it'll plug right in. though there might be a few technical considerations. i have your 93 impreza engine (EJ18) in my 1996 Legacy (orginally EJ25). lots of subaru stuff swaps. it's been said that subarus=lego's. so yeah - lots of stuff interchanges mechanically and almost nothing of the body obviously. as for your leaking wheels. if the tires are still good just have a shop install new valve stems and reseat the wheel. corrossion on the rim will causes slow leaks sometimes. removing the tire and cleaning it takes care of it. then you're good to go for the next set of tires too.

how would one verify it's interference or not? google shows examples of folks with 97 EJ22 bent valves on various subaru forums.

type in those codes like on google or something "airbag code 23" or a few variations like that and let us know what you get. the code will tell you what the problem is. was the car every wrecked/repaired?

i had a friend pick up a matching fender while he was traveling a long ways away. they gave him the wrong side. fortunately the yard was really nice to work with and was able to get it to another yard where i could swap it relatively close by (an hour and i happened to be headed that way for something else). would have been a real pain if they hadn't been cool about it and tried to work it out.

subaru rear main seals almost never leak, very rarely. but you've already done well to identify where it appears to be leaking and it doesn't sound like the rear main. you're obviously loosing gear oil, so it's not the rear main seal which would be engine oil. and it appears to be leaking around the axles. there are seals there for gear oil to leak through. seems like those are leaking. they actually aren't difficult to replace but you have to be very careful to do it exactly right as it affects the gear mesh of the front diff. with the axle removed from the trans there's a large retaining ring. that spins off and then you replace the seal, that's it. that ring is huge. but - you have to mark the location of that ring and install exactly as it was before you touched anything. mark it and count exactly how many turns it takes to remove it. then when you're done installing the new seal count the same number of turns and install it to the same mark you made. this will retain the proper settings for the front diff gears.

what is awesome is that the original poster never replied and this thread just keeps chugging along. that may not put this to bed. i've seen Subaru state that all EJ22's are non-interference, which is not true. so if the $8/hour person that has never changed their own oil before gets your email and finds that info (probably archaic i guess?) it will be wrong....if they stumble across something else, maybe they'll be right. you can put this to bed by googling it and seeing all the board threads with 1997 broken timing belts and bent valves. don't get much more definitive than that.

I've done Autocad and CATIA which is used in automotive/aerospace engineering circles. Have you tried looking on ebay for old autocad textbooks? I'd start there, get some used textbook from a college class from someone like me that has a bunch lying around - i don't have any of my CAD books though i hated those classes! older versions are worthless but they're outdated quickly in college so shouldn't be hard to get a relatively new one. college students can often get cheap deals on software, student versions. they will be limited in scope and not the full on product, but will be more than enough to learn...but still not free. ebay? focus on the big picture as much as you can.rather than just draw with it. try working with someone, with others, interfacing the files with other programs, extracting data from the files to be used by other programs...if possible, etc. here's what most college students don't do and will set you apart: you are most marketable not when you can use the software (or learn something) but when you can implement it in the real world environment, with products, people, teams, financial considerations, timing, etc. most people aren't good at the latter (though they think they are), so if you can do that you'll find getting jobs very easy. find a local company that uses it and take a guy to lunch and ask him what it's like, what he does, etc. the drafting idea is a good one, though i wouldn't call it necessary it could be very helpful depending on you. i never did but i went to an engineering school so i had plenty of other experience. sometimes companies will hire interns to get a few simple tasks done, maybe not even paid, but you get to learn while yo'ure doing it. once you're proficient with Autocad start thinking about what you want to do, what industry, find out what they use and maybe dabble in other products like CATIA, or others. it's nice to be really proficient in one thing but still be able to put something like "comfortable in a UNIX, CATIA, etc environment" on your resume. at least show that you are familiar with it and can work/learn in that environment. this part is a long way off, but at least you can create some metrics to shoot for as you're working. do what you need to do to stay fresh, confident and energetic about it - that will pay off as you connect with people and continue heading in this directions. good luck!

you probably already know but the manuals have fairly common input shaft bearing issues. my buddy changed the fluid in his 97 legacy about a year ago and the noise went away completely after having been there for awhile. i believe he's got a thread on here about it too. maybe you'll get lucky too? *** if it goes away when you press the clutch pedal all the way to the floor then it's probalby the input shaft bearing. actually his is an EJ22 and he needs spark plug wires - i gave him a brand new set of the wrong thing - not sure if they're EJ25's or not but maybe you and I can do a trade or something. LOL! just PM me, i might even buy them from you if they're Subaru wires.

Have you gotten under it and check for any signs of wetness or just going by no oil on the ground? Are you absolutely positive it's dry underneath? With only a few months under the belt since all that headgasket work, it might not be dripping down yet. Oil tends to slowly cover things, drip while driving, fill up the crossmember and then eventually starts to drip down on the ground when you park. Otherwise you're probably burning it like they just said. Oil coats the cylinder walls as the piston goes up and down so it's technically impossible not to burn any oil for any car, it's just a matter of how much and usually it's a tiny amount. It's likely getting lost there or the valve stem seals. Did they do a valve job on the heads? Probably not as it's really expensive and annoying on the DOHC's. Have the PCV valve replaced - it's like $7 from Subaru and takes about 20 minutes. It reduces pressures in the crankcase which can cause oil to get pushed around more than necessary where it doesn't need to go.