idosubaru

Standard fluid remarks ATF, brake fluid, and EJ25 stuff: Headgaskets. That year can get External oil leaks that slowly get worse over many thousands of miles. Nothing you can do preventatively but there’s no immediate worry and they won’t strand you so it’s benign. Takes a long time to slowly get worse. Timing components - notice I said components. They all need replaced, they’re 12 years old now. Belt pulleys tensioner and water pump ideally. Bare minimum it needs a Subaru belt and lower cogged pulley. That’s the one part that frequently fails more than all the others combined. 05-09 legacy power steering pumps suck, I mean they just don’t last as long as most subaru models. They’re fine when new. If 09 Forester is similar do not buy aftermarket units. Get used, new oem or see if there’s a rebuild kit (not available for legacy).

Yeah all EJ25 short blocks are interchangeable. That 96-99 DOHC blocks but the pistons protrude above the block and I think I used a thicker gasket when using them in later engines. They’re all rusted away around here so I haven’t touched one in five years but still have one lying in my garage.

Good that might be a start. With how quickly your stuff is burning up I’d be checking that power/fusible link side of the injectors circuits really good. That white wire looks like maybe rubbed through as if it sat against a running pulley or belt.

Thanks for letting us knew. That’s not like any cracks I’ve seen in EA82(T) heads and I assumed the worst.

Something isn’t right here all 03 and 04 EJ25s are dual port exhaust. So that’s not a stock engine if it’s single port. It’s not an EJ25 or something is wrong with the information we have been given Other than that problem with information/description/engine - all 03 and 04 EJ25 blocks swap all day long without question.

My weak understanding is that the ignition either turns the engine over or not. It’s not fuel related. 1. No one asked about check engine lights? What codes do you have? 2. when you turn the key do you hear the relay and pump prime? The pump should turn on for one second. 3. Check that brake booster vacuum hose - people often miss that on engine work. 4. Spray the starting fluid around intake hose, air box, PCV hoses to see if you have a vacuum leak.

I would look over that section i posted rather than the larger diagram. It’s really simple - shows the couple connectors and ECU and fusible links feed and exactly the test sequence to use. I would start at the very beginning of the test and work your way through each step.

Each injector wire is actually connected to another injector wire. Both of them. if you PM your email I can email you the FSM section. USMB isn’t allowing me attach If you have the FSM grab the largest book 2 & 3 (they call the book “section 2 & 3”) Its on page 77 in Section 2-7.

Can piece together by searching online and asking your local dealer to meet other low cost sellers to avoid shipping for some, or all of the items. Often you can get most things off of eBay for low cost. Find part number and search. Then google it as well and check the well known OEM online retailers. Liberty in PA and the big one in CT would be close, well known ones, to you. There are often a few retailers selling kits as well at good prices. If it doesn’t have a pump, or their kit with a pump is too costly, just source that somewhere else. multiple local dealers discount to the lower online prices for me. most of the parts staff know me. But I’ve asked dealers that I’ve only been to once. I inquire and let them decide - I don’t expect or demand or persuade. I shouldn’t speak for him but it can’t be worth GDs time to ship and deal with shipping, returns, fitment questions, 3rd party mechanic/customer comm issues, and warranty issues for pocket change. I wouldn’t do it, too much effort and liability for zero return.

I looked In the FSM. You probably know this. Yes there’s power feeding the injectors directly *and* if pulling one connector - power can still back feed from another injector from the fusible link. I’ll post pics later when I have internet access and if I can figure out why usmb isn’t allowing me to attach any images over 0.000026 kB. It says my limits is so small that I can attach a usable image.

Check for vacuum leaks - Brake booster hose particularly. Very common on Subaru’s to get pulled or forgotten.

Some of your assumptions are incorrect but this is a long thread I’m not going to respond to each one. Weak batteries reduce alternator life. Subaru alternators are quality units and I don’t see any failures before 10 years old. So it’s basically like eating terrible and being morbidly obese - sure that’s fine for a 20 year old with good blood work and oxygen and cholesterol can test perfectly fine. But you will pay for it later and eventually those numbers will tank fast. A well taken care of daily driver Subaru will have an alternator last the life of the vehicle. Playing battery roulette it will not. If “frugal” means keeping this car 10 more years then running a weak battery now matters as it could cost you an alternator in the future. If you’re not going to keep the car much longer then the battery doesn’t matter, and that might not be frugal.

I don’t see where this is a rear hatch fuse. I’ve had no problem repairing them. splice/solder them well with high quality wire and splices and enough extra slack to get it as close to stock routing as possible and push the excess back into the body cavity. test them all with a voltmeter. The metal can break before the insulation/sheathing. On some, Ive traced all the wires with a volt meter, and found 2 completely broken and one intact wire that was broken inside the sheathing. It tested bad and when I trimmed back the insulation the copper wire was broken inside. I think if you pull hard enough the sheathing stretches and breaks but an intact wire won’t. I think I’ve done that before as well. But you don’t want to pull it out of a connector so you have to be careful how you pull and this will only work in situations where you have enough access to make sure you can pull it without damaging anything. Need to be able to grab both sides or ensure it’s secured tightly repeat failures are a poor job or someone missing one of these internal breaks. or just repair them all! I’ve never done that. pulling and installing the harness to install a new one is a terrible job. I’ve done it twice and will avoid it every day of the week over splicing a few simple wires.

Is there any custom or added on electrical device? If there is that item likely has a problem. Then do what lmdew said. Look up everything that fuse feeds - unplug each device one at a time and see which one causes the fuse to blow. Unplug clock spring, insert fuse. Unplug stereo - insert fuse.

Look up the ECU codes for fuel injectors and then look at the diagnostic section for them in the FSM. It’ll give the proper wire testing steps and values for that wires. Thats where I should have pointed you in the first place!

It’s deceptive - seems easy, but not once you’re under there.

I missed that. That would look strange. Maybe the rear drum (whatever it’s called?) is sheared off. It’s the one that slides into the trans. They rarely shear and I’m uncertain of the symptoms when they do. But I’ve sold that part from trans I’ve disassembled to people who had it happen. That would prevent 4WD but the two shafts rubbing might have enough friction to move free hanging wheels. Has a shaft that slides into the trans and can be hard to pull out sometimes They might be turning when in the air, but I have doubts if it’s really doing anything. Maybe there’s bleed over pressure or residual rotation to spin the wheels in the air, but there’s no real usable torque being applied. Either way it is strange - but if you disconnected the correct duty c pin then that guarantees the problem is in that rear extension housing I believe.

XT6 are all the same and 14” aluminum wheels directional wheels. Salad slicers I’ve heard people call them Junk yard, here, eBay. I’m sure people on here have one. But we don’t know what you have. Post a link or pic. If it’s a daily driver you just want to have covered and be complete I have a used XT6 one with wear I’ll ship for $25.

so removing power form the Duty C didn’t lock it? I have no idea. Check the clutch basket - they get ridges you can sand down. I thought they encouraged binding but Maybe they’re hanging the plates in a way that prevents them from engaging?

If too much damage wasn’t done I’d try to trace and repair the smaller patch of wire you can like I described above. I don’t understand the injector wiring enough to know if it’s a straight shot from ECU to injector so I wouldn’t Want to run dedicated wires. I’d rather find exactly where it failed. once you do - you may learn something else very important. Like: 1. other wires are also failed. (I’ve had this happen before when tracing bad wires - rodents chew through some wires and partially through others, broken wires from movement/prior repair work, etc) 2. It was caused by a crack or corrsoion or rodent damage so wiring is probably the issue (ive found this before too) 3. it’s all brown and melted therefore something else might be causing the circuit to overheat. This would be the most complicated and least helpful but I also think it’s the least likely of these three scenarios.

Holy smokes. This is nuts, sounds like a British car. convert it to carburetor - get an EA82 carb intake and swap it out. it would run and avoid all electrical issues Sounds like bleeding injector filled the cylinder with gas and it’s hydrolocked. It’ll probably drain over night or pull a plug and blow/draw the fuel out. have you swapped injectors? I wonder if you should try 4 other injectors or swap the pairs that fire together. I forget which ones fire together but if 1-3 and 2-4 fire together then swap those pairs and see if your issues “move” from cylinder 3 pair to the other pair. This would verify the injector without needing to buy anything except the incinerated one I’m not sure why this happened but maybe the injectors don’t make a perfectly straight run from the ECU to the injectors? I think the the next step would be tracing that wiring to exactly where it failed. Expose a piece of the wiring by cutting back the wire insulation and exposing the wire but not cutting the wire. Do this at a random point like inside the cabin. Then test from there to ECU and there to engine to see which side it’s on. Then do the same thing - test from under the dash to the engine and under dash to previous exposure. Seats pulled and you have the testing equipment - this would only take a few minutes. But the one down side might be that maybe the overheating injector ruined the wiring and the wiring isn’t the causative issue. does anyone know what all is a part of the injector circuit?

These types of issues are hard to track down. That corroded ground you found under the carpeting is a common culprit to slow and weak electric windows on XT's - I assume you're going to clean that up but just in case , others have had to track that same ground before to remedy flakey devices not working properly. Johninky is a member here and I know he's seen it and talked about it before for XT's.

Thanks. That might be similar on EA/ER engines too?

Those fail so rarely on Subaru's - how did you diagnose it? I always wonder how I'll track that down if I run across one.

SJR has lift kits for these too, so maybe he's got some stuff that would helpful. He's who I buy my parts from for Subaru lifts: https://www.sjrlift.com/