idosubaru

I think we're going to stop at a state park north of NYC (awaiting your feedback), maybe Sherwood Island State Park, on Thursday afternoon on our way to Maine. Roughly 2-4pm depending how the 2 year old travels. Any tips on which roads to take through/around NYC? It's an extra 10 or 20 miles (depending on which way) to take 287 around new york city, is that worth it? Feedback on which beaches are easy access to the interstate, ones to avoid, etc? Sherwood Island State Park? How bad is traffic north of Bridgeport - when does it start getting bad? Like "You better be xy minutes north of Bport by...."? If anyone feels like dropping by the beach then, post here and I'll try to update from my phone what time we'll be there.

rattling is really common and can be a number of things. exhaust heat shields are most common and can vary, have those inspected. oil level and changes are very important on this vehicle with it's timing chain set up. like he said, no belt. if it is the engine then it's your timing chain guides probably and that is a rather large job but it's roughly the cost of a timing belt job so not the end of the world either. mine has a light whine when i floor it. it isn't likely to cause issue (i didn't say that it *can't*), mine has been that way for about 30,000 miles since i got it and no doubt for awhile before that.

have you ever changed your timing belt, it's due at 105,000 miles. sounds like a good time to just get all of that done now. i wouldn't worry too much about the cover, if it's in the middle i'd just leave it. i always run naked, without even reinstalling the timing covers at all. so surely a small hole won't matter. if you already have a new belt then the belt should be inspected to see if it's actually damaged at all - should be very easy to tell since it's new. side cover comes off in about one minute - 3 10mm screws, then just turn the engine over by hand a few times to inspect, only takes a few minutes so shouldn't cost much to thorougly inspect and decide. yours is an interference engine, if the timing belt breaks then you'll have internal damage - bent valves. so the mechanic is going to lean towards caution. imagine a customer saying, okay patch it, cool $50. then a year later they need a new $4,000 motor because of it - they'd be right back complaining they didn't fix it the right way first time.

while i didn't see the pic's that sounds extensive.

check ALL of the things that John just mentioned, those are the most common and likely places.

hey! says someone who advertises heated leather seats in their brat! you, like many of us, are strongly opinionated and have a very specific taste in vehicles (yours being different than mine), even an appetite for novelty, which in some ways points to the creating of the very trends you don't like - it just happens that our opinions/novelties are the minority ones. personally, i'm fine with that. the minute i start looking like the rest of americans i'll be very disappointed in myself!

tread cautiously with wrecks. sounds like a high price for a rolled vehicle. i can not imagine selling a 2003 forester for $8,500 that i bought from insurance. that gives me questions marks about the people selling it...unless i saw before pictures and it was minor. must have been thousands of dollars worth of damage to total it and they should have gotten for chump change i've bought several wrecked Subaru's from insurance - all at 3 digit price tags around the same year relatively speaking. i just looked on autotrader and i didnt' really search but in 10 seconds i found a 2003 forester with 98,000 miles for $8,450, probably lots of deals out there like that and better. i've bought wrecked subaru's and fixed them. i don't think they are a good fit for most folks. if you're mechanically inclined with an eye for this stuff then maybe it's a better fit. accidents cause things to rust later where they normally don't, things to make strange noises at a later date, parts being slightly out of alignment that aren't noticed until later, etc. (i dont' mean tire alignment). i would recommend before pictures and a very thorough inspection. and i'd want a great deal if buying a wreck - he's charging top dollar, that's odd. the OBW sounds like a decent deal. the EJ25 does have a small percentage of issues with blown motors (seized blocks, rod bearings, i just bought one a couple weeks ago, they're not hard to fine) and i'd guess it's because of the number of headgasket/overheating issues - which this one has had. it is a low percentage and not necessarily a reason not to buy, but just letting you know. it has a great chance of making another 100,000 maintenance free miles like Subaru's are known for.

the broken wire is a good starting point. how did you check the switch, they do fail from time to time?

if it's an aftermarket seal i would suspect that's your problem. i've had problems, and so have others, with aftermarket seals. if it's a subaru seal then probably either the surface is scarred, check for marks or a gouge from someone previous removing a seal. or you just got unlucky with it no seating evenly or dirt.

might post in that thread rather than here. user error will burn it up - use it properly and it'll be fine. if you're prone to forget and not pay attention or do bad wiring (although it's only one wire) this probably isn't a good idea. i think it typically goes like this - folks that don't want to do it claim it's bad and want you to be in their boat. the rest that have been doing it for years have never had a problem except one person who admittedly left it on. if a trans failure occurs it will be because something was already weak in a 10+ year old system, not because of a properly installed and used switch.

find out which side is stuck. first thing i'd do is just unstick it. remove tire, work it around. i did that once and it never came back.

Newer Subaru's are notorious for wheel bearing issues. They fail all the time, way more than older gen stuff. What makes it even more fun is what you're experiencing - I've replaced gobs of them and other than noise I'm fairly certain not one has ever had any typical wheel bearing signs. They seem to hold tight for a very long time - like many thousands of miles. Grab, shake, rotate, listen, I even have a stethocope and somehow they just never show any signs when you jack them up. I've had them feel terrible once I remove them, but on the car was nothing, zip. I have been able to see some extra generated heat with a infrared temp gun, takes quite a few readings to get a feel for it though as the heat dissipating is quite substantial and the heat changes drastically over the cross section of the rotor/hub - small movements make large changes in temps making it hard to compare side to side - but it can be done. my guess, based on replacing tons of EJ wheel bearings, is wheel bearings.

make sure the pulley spins freely and it's not locked up. might have to engage the clutch (just give it 12 volts) and rotate the compressor by hand with your fingers over the port. if you hear/feel air pressure pushing out past your finger, then it's making compression and 99% probably works fine.

even easier is to unplug the trans harness in the engine bay, one plug, no trim or anything to remove. was this car worked on previously? sounds like what happens when an engine/trans is installed incorrectly and the trans pump is cracked. was there a recent engine/trans removal on this car? or was it running perfectly fine prior?

+1 except i use a 3 foot pipe over my ratchet to tigthen it. lock the engine down so it doesn't give/turn and then tighten. there's no locktite or special trick needed, just need to get it tighter. i put some serious stank on it with a 3 foot pipe, no way they ever come off.

i would totally go with one piece unit just for the fact that it's simple and fewer parts. one less carrier bearing and two less ujoints. but i've always wondered how stable that is? i think i asked once before but part of me just wonder what keeps that thing sealed up inside the transmission, seems like something could go wrong. but i think older brats or some other subaru has a one piece unit. you'll loose a bit of clearance in that area as the driveshaft immediately begins to angle down as opposed to stock where it goes through the carrier first.

yes.

stick to auto would be a hard core swap. you'd need the entire transmission body side wiring harness and TCU. not sure how it's all integrated but i'd imagine you've got some splicing and stuff to do, not sure how much is plug and play or not. i'd have the FSM and wiring diagrams available to compare MT and AT stuff. easiest route is to get an entire car - like a wreck or blown motor - blown EJ25's are easy enough to find cheap so you'd just need to find one with a manual trans. piecing together the swap gets really annoying as you start needing all sorts of little things to complete it.

that's typically soldered/brazed from what i've seen. i would not view JB weld as a long term solution regardless of all the amazing success stories that are shared on the interweb. if there's still any radiator shops in your area they can be really cheap and do it in no time, with a nice tank and set up to make sure they get it all plugged up. it just happened to be separated? no damage, rust, etc?

i've driven both in XT6 and multiple EJ stuff. if i could only have one, i'd prefer an automatic because i'm lazy and dont' like having a stick in traffic, when i'm drinking my coffee, on the cell phone, or towing. auto's with the duty C mod are excellent for the off road i'm doing - but mine is all functional/utilitarian, not play/hobby/rock crawl kind of stuff.

any used places around? call around and buy a used one and throw it in temporarily. they're super cheap and subaru alternators take about 15...maybe 30 minutes to replace for someone less comfortable. or, i'd buy one and throw it in the trunk just to be sure or put an extra good battery or two in the trunk, the car will run awhile on that if you have too. running like this is not doing any favors to your battery. you'll be reducing it's life span - not in any predictable way. yeah one day or one year, there's not really a quantitative way to guess (irony at no charge). if buying new from Subaru doesn't scare you...or the price tag on that bar exam.....then renting/borrowing a car shouldn't either. i don't know how i feel about helping someone that's becoming a lawyer.

Classic warped front EJ rotors. Probably gets worse with heat or hard braking, coming off a ramp on the highway, etc? Have the rotors turned, the shop across the street does it for me for $15 each. It's worth a call to see if anywhere does it.

MWE also sells top notch Subaru axles out of Colorado. Great guy to deal with.

what he said - it's HLA's ticking. they can sound insanely loud. personally i'd reseal or replace the oil pump. i've had quiet a few quiet up with that and it's much quicker than HLA replacement. i'm not aware of any definitive test, except experience i suppose. i'm sure those of us on here would diagnose it. usually if it's really bad there's just one or two that are noticeably loud from either side or front/back. get a mechanics stethoscope and try to narrow it down that way. how long has it been doing this? was it fine for 20 years then one day started being really loud (probably not?)? have the headgaskets ever failed or has the engine ever been overheated? there's all sorts of possibilities with HLA's. resealing or replacing oil pumps can quiet noisy HLA's. resealing the cam carrier can quiet things down. replacing the HLA's should obviously fix it. doing all of the above would certainly solve the issue. given the age i wouldn't worry about which ones are good or bad as there's a company Mizpah Engineering that rebuilds them for like $5. given the extensive job involved in replacing it would be silly not to just replace them all. __________________

what they said - it's really easy to do - but if you do it wrong you got a good chance of hosing your front diff. if there's noise after the fact you can try to adjust accordingly, but you'll do it right so no worries. i've had one that the notches were just chipping off as i wailed them with a hammer, it wouldn't budge, but that's an anomaly and not the norm. luckily that was a trans i was throwing away anyway.