idosubaru

check the shaft and make sure it's not set up to only go on one-way. i didn't think they were but i haven't pulled a ton of EJ shafts...or more correctly I haven't reinstalled very many. Anyway - sometimes shafts will have a groove or such so that it can only install in one orientation, check for that. Splines/shaft isn't rusted right?

wow, really? tell them to take my racquetball class, i teach them for WVU! i can teach them subaru's too.

i wouldn't say "any darkness" in the tank since age can land plenty of debris in there. no special tools. look up "burping" on here, that's what it's called to get the air bubbles out. if it drove for a long time though it should have been fine and i doubt that's your issue. air bubbles don't just randomly appear on a perfectly fine running engine. i'm betting headgasket, but hope it's not of course. it's common. buy one of the vent-release radiator caps at an autoparts store. if that works to keep it from overheating then it's your headgaskets and it'll allow you to drive it for awhile as it allows the pressurized exhaust gases blowing into your coolant to escape. don't let a mechanic try a compression test, these don't fail that way and I can almost promise you it will past, most of them do.

$300 hood, $200 fender, $100 lights, $200 bumper...you'll get to $1,000 in parts quickly even with minimum stuff and assuming cheap prices. radiator, condensor, radiator support, fender liner and the bars that support it usually bend. add labor and any painting to match at $200 per panel. stuff isn't going to "Bolt up", it will need massaged to line up and bolt on. if you decide to sell, let me know what you want out of it, i'm in Morgantown.

was overheating the reason the water pump and radiator were replaced? how many overheats before those and then since those were replaced? when did the overheating start? did you use a Subaru thermostat? (aftermarkets are known to fail and are visually cheap) if not - was it overheating before you swapped the t-stat (i'm assuming yes but trying to figure out the history here, it may help a lot to know). definitely make sure it's not something simple but sounds like DOHC EJ25 headgasket failure, which is quite common for that engine. blackness in the overflow or coolant pushing into the overflow after you turn the car off are classic symptoms as well. it is odd that it's been doing this "for months" so maybe it's not? that's a long time for something that's shooting up into the red overheating? given the known high failure rate of the headgaskets i'd try to track this down sooner rather than later and keep it from getting into the red. running a headgasket prone 15 year old motor hot is risky. these also get air pockets and can be tricky to burp the air bubbles out of and a rather small amount will lock up the cooling. nose up and fill, nose up and fill, keep checking and opening the cap to let air out. some radiators have a plastic bleeder screw on the passengers side top, just unscrew that and fill until air comes out.

what do you mean "struts are compressed"? i'm not sure you do anything with the struts to do this job, just unbolt it from the hub housing, two bolts that's it. unbolt the hub housing and replace the bearings. two lower strut mount bolts, lateral link bolt, transverse link bolt and one bolt for the ABS sensor and the hub is free to do whatever you want with it. newer soobs have different suspension, but i thought your 03 OBS is like the older style suspension. even still the bearing procedure doesn't look like it would vary by much...unbolt hub housing and go to town.

if you're getting knocking/questionable noises then definitely check the knock sensor or replace it. it's a frequent EJ failure, i've seen a bunch of them. quite a few things can cause noises so you may want to look into it further. you can inspect them by removing and looking at the base. it's often corroded and/or the outer material is beginning to separate or crack away from the inner metal. they can still "look" okay but still be flawed too. not sure how the FSM says to check them?

there are larger swaybars you can upgrade too. with spirited driving i believe heavier sway bars do put more strain on the struts so good thing you have new ones. you can't upgrade your front brakes then, no larger brakes will fit under 15" steel rims. there are some 15" alloys that the larger brakes will fit under so if you could snag a set of those you could swap the tires onto them.

if you want to retain your ABS then make sure the hubs you get are ABS equippped hubs.

can you get the correct drive shaft or is this a swap? if you have it shortened that won't affect installation at all. that involves cutting out a portion of the middle, not the ends - so all the stuff that's necessary is still left in place. shorten it and then bolt it in just like normal. if this is your driveshaft: 123456789 you shorten it by removing 5 and 6 and putting it back together to get: 1234789 1 and 9 are still the same ends and connections for fitting to the vehicle, assuming it's the right driveshaft for the given components.

there are some existing threads about converting to rear disc and that's a good option. you'd need to swap the entire rear hub though including the ebrake cables unless you like to fabricate and custom make the drum ones fit onto the disc. fronts are easy, just get whatever you want. except - the larger you go the larger wheels you're going to need to clear the front calipers. you said 100% stock so that means 15" wheels i believe? most, if not all, dual piston calipers will not fit under 15" steel wheels. jamal (user name) has a great thread detailing which ones fit under what wheels). if you get larger wheels, lots of dual piston calipers out there - the early legacy turbo's and tons of mid to late 90's stuff had dual piston front calipers - legacy LSi, GT, OBW, RS. you'll want the caliper and rotor - it'll bolt right up to your existing knuckle, very easy swap on the fronts. there's dozens of different brake combo's for the front so make sure you know what you're getting and keep track when you pull the parts so it's easy to get the right pads and stuff. Subaru was mentally out of whack with all their brake changes. jamal's write up details most of it. there's no substitute for skimming his thread if you're going to do this.

won't be fast without a turbo or massively expensive modifications. hp ends up not being worth it in my opinion for non turbo engines. the cams are probably your best bet. even then it'll be closer to "i think it's faster" than "wow" and no significant track time improvements. just the nature of a non-turbo engine. no need to even consider the crank. if you just like to tweak or novelty and get like 8 more hp then tear it up, but that's personal preference. get a cone filter, exhaust etc. suspension you'll have tons of options. struts i guess are already spoken for since you already did them? sway bars would be next, with a focus on the rears and bushings i think for the OBS. subaru does a good job of offering a wide assortment of sway bars so you can even get Subaru bars off of used subarus that are a significant improvement and some aftermarket bushings. you'll have to find some swaybar threads to verify sizes and all but i'd bet there are some WRX options for you that would be good. OBS tends to handle well given it's low stance, i always liked ours when we used to own one, also a 97. bigger is not always better so you'll want to be balanced with the sway bars and possibly do the front and rears at the same time if you're looking for huge changes. suspension is not at all my strong point though so consider that a starting point at best.

sure. i put these off until i'm doing something else to get the tools out.

it's actually the other way around, what is being said almost verifies that there's nothing wrong with the engine, assuming nothing is wrong with the bottom end which is highly unlikely. if the belt is broken then the engine can't really make any noise - the belt isn't turning any cams or valves. it's probably just leftover bits of the belt flopping around under the timing covers. i would want to avoid like a cracked flexplate, which is really rare and only possible on an auto. this sounds simple - the timing belt broke and now it's making noise. improbable for it to be something else. but you obviously have some misgivings to turn away too, so first hand sight is worth a lot.

nope, they often run for a very long time like that. they can rarely cause drivability issues...stumbling, etc...but most of the time just the light. wait 'til it's convenient, nothing to worry about.

those instructions i posted are for older stuff....newer OBDII stuff like yours could be completely different. have someone post the FSM info for you? i think i have 97 impreza but i don't have time to post it today.....it's not easy for me with having dial up (no cable, dsl or anything available at my house) at home, posting stuff like that isn't really an option.

hmmmm, not sure about your readings. can you take some readings at just the TPS and bypass it being plugged in? like verify continuity at a certain angle? then try and do that the same exact way at the ECU - this might show a bad wire?

take out ECM may be just so you can have access to the end terminals of the TPS that are the input of the TPS to the ECM(ECU). once i've seen the wiring be bad, it was where the wire went around the bend, about 4 inches (roughly) from the TPS. massaging the wiring between two fingers and working down the length of it the problem would reveal itself by changing how the engine ran - running well it would stall or nearly stalling it would start to run just fine when i pressed in a certain spot. i got a used harness and cut off a foot of wiring and spliced it in to fix. maybe as a test if you continue to have problems, buy a throttle body that has the TPS already mounted and therefore already calibrated. bolt it up as an assembly. TPS failure is so rare that the cost of a new one is completely pointless anyway. and since they never fail, there's zero demand so they're not worth anything. i paid like $20 for an EJ TPS when I broken one with a chain while removing an engine. doesn't matter in this case but in case anyone else ever reads this, maybe it'll be helpful. i haven't done an EJ yet, accept just swapping the entire throttle body, but on the earlier ones you essentially do it by ear - you run the car, have the TPS "open" so to speak and gradually adjust it by hand. keep turning it in littles swathes such that you're causing it to almost shut off (throttle plate just barely closed)...you'll get it to the point where just a hair in one direction makes it stall while idling, back it off a hair from that stall point and that's where you want it. you have to do that on the XT6 as the FSM spec's are actually incorrect. not sure if the EJ is the same though.

folks may ask if it was bought from Subaru or just a "Subaru brand" from an aftermarket store. no exhaust leak?

mike is correct the 3 digit code will translate into two other codes - one for the base paint, one for the trim. i think any place that does paint can do that decoding though, so you just need the 3 digit code. i took my 3 digit code from my two tone OBW to NAPA and they could get the paint for it. you have to be careful going by the names though, generally it's best to stick with the number only when communicating or looking stuff up at all. sometimes there are multiple colors with the same "name". Subaru may not do it, but i know other makes will have the same name "Jack Leg Silver" but 3 or 5 different codes for that same name.

two 2011/2010 owners tell me today that the de-icer comes on with the rear defrost...which is what mine does. so i'm thinking that is "the button" your manual is talking about? they seemed rather confident and not confused, but they probably didn't read the manual that was printed in Japan. maybe yours is hosed - why couldn't the dealer figure that one out? doesn't matter what you think regarding years/models, lots of stuff interchanges and carries over. lots of stuff doesn't too, but it's a helpful starting point many times for those of us that do Subaru stuff all the time. Subaru doesn't make money by reinventing the wheel...though sometimes you have to wonder? The earlier reponses probably would have answered your question, we are trying to help. there's more talent on this board than any dealer....more nonsense too and everything in between so reader beware. WJM said "Subaru's = Lego's" subaruoutback.org is a great outback website and has a forum dedicated to the 2010/2011 model which you'll like.

so nothing on the strut towers or door jambs? i saw mention one that the paint code would be on the inner front drivers side fender, but that was hard to believe?

you did your homework, good job! looks like a good list and i'd do exactly what you got with what they said, use subaru seals, thermostat and pump gasket. they are of even visually higher quality and experience verifies this. i'd request the mechanic tigthen the rear oil pump backing plate screws if he's not already familiar with those. EJ22 a/c and accessory belts are so easy to replace that inspection is a good option. takes 15 seconds to see if they're cracked or aged, not much to gain by replacing them with this job so you can get some more years/miles out of them if you'd like.

if two do the same thing it's likely a typo, not a mechanical defect. i've never taken note when mine comes on, but it's an earlier OBW. i thought it came on with the front or rear defrost, not the heated mirror switch. did anyone try the front/rear defrost buttons yet?

most subarus, and the baja, should be on one of the top of the strut towers in the engine bay, on the door jamb, or the edge of the door itself. it's a 3 digit code, you'll have to use that code to extract the lower trim code. did you try asking the dealer? they should be able to find it exactly via your VIN number.