idosubaru

no, there's plenty of different dynamics involved. every day we work with products that work in their intended, designed, and engineered ways. and of course, there are risks depending on situations. "look at Coke products, they can eat away material, think of what it does to your body"....is everyone's body springing leaks? i know that's not a perfect analogy but the point remains the same.

awesome, good job Craig. i figured it would work, but you never know...well now you do. did you pull the engine too, or how did you do it?

They have *some* play to them by design. The better questions are: What problem are you trying to track down. Obviously you just didn't to go playing with a CV axle one day. And then what vehicle and details of it?

great, should be about the same for me, sounds EXACTLY how my work usually goes!!!

i'd test drive other vehicles before making a decision. if you're sticking with Subaru, test drive a legacy or two as well. i agree with a lot of his sentiments above comparing legacy verses impreza. you never need to ask about pricing - just check ebay, craigslist, autotrader and see what's out there.

that all sounds good to me bill, though i'm clueless about overtorquing those bolts. never done one, but the few i've read about, folks just put them together like they found them so to speak like you did. i have to do the same thing before winter, how long did it take you? an hour or a few?

Agreed - use Subaru gaskets, they're much better quality. The hard part is removing all the old nasty caked on gasket. If it weren't for that you could litterally unbolt the manifold, slide the old out, the new one in and be done in no time. But...as it is, the old gasket will take all of your time. You'll need to make room to clean it off really good. Straight forward job. Not sure how your motor will be but on XT's it's nice to have an extendable magnet, that allows you to extract the loose bolts and install them as well, there's a couple that are really tight. that might only be with the spider manifolds though and it's not a big deal.

good deal. did the CEL go away or stay off now? looks like my original speculation on the sea foam may not have been entirely inaccurate:

i have another recommendation. clean off the bottom of the engine and make absolutely sure the oil pan is leaking. you very well might be replacing something that doesnt' even need replaced. almost every other possible oil leak in the engine will allow drippage down to the edges of the oil pan, making it look wet, even when it's not leaking. that being said, i've done oil pan gaskets before too. i was able to do it by unbolting the motor mount (from cross member, leaving it on engine), and the rear transmission mount. this allows the entire engine/trans assembly to rock. i did that on an XT6, but for your concerns the EA engines and trans are essentially the same mounting wise except the spare tire is in the way of course. the engine and trans has the same mount set up.

i've always thought the same thing, would be nice to have that feature on both front windows...and from the drivers seat too. kind of silly to have different modes of operatinos for switches that do the same thign. anyway, i looked into this like 10 years ago on the XT6 and i don't recall any easy way to do it. now maybe i could disassemble the master switch and extract just the element i need, that might work. and maybe non-XT6's are simpler. let us know how it goes i'd like to try this again.

any time you're talking about older cars like these they don't really have a "going" or "market" rate. there's no value in the car, most of the value is in timing.

no love for the XT's! j/k.

yes, done all the time. spend some time searching, read a few threads, and ask questions once you have an idea of your options.

Okay, yeah some of them don't have the lines there, they are in the back. So you shouldn't need those, just cap them off or run them together and it should be fine. Or if you want to be "perfect" about it, get an EJ22 intake manifold without those....if they're available, I can't recall if that's an EJ25 specific trait or not (having it both ways).

Charcoal canister lines. Does your EJ25 have lines there at all (some don't) or they are different? A pic of your EJ25 might help or a good description of what is there. You could also search for charcoal canister here and find some good info on them.

i wouldn't expect it to help your problems, like Rooster said, the 99's are a special case.

i agree - that doesn't sound like headgaskets. more likely a radiator fan isn't coming on like it's supposed to. actually turning the defrost on might force one of the fans on which compensates for the other fan not turning on. anyway - let it start to get hot (not overheat/in the red) again at idle and see if the fans are kicking on. my bet is they are not. otherwise it still could be a clogged radiator or tstat issue.

these engines are notorious for getting air bubbles and overheating. was the system low, loosing coolant, or recently worked on - is that why it might have air lock? if you just fill up the radiator or cooling system, they often overheat. have to get the air out. lots of information on here about how to properly bleed the coolant, affectionately called "burping".

Might want to avoid the auto trans conditioner. Those additives usually aren't a good idea. They can help in the short term, seal up some leaks and bad tolerances inside the trans, but they aren't typically good long term for other internals. They are typically "good" for an old car that just isn't really worth much and isn't expected to last long. There are a few good ones and times to use them, but might want to wait a bit in this case. Has the ATF filter ever been change?

OBDII code readers are cheap. mine was $40 or less on ebay and is awesome. get one that tells you what the codes are and not just gives you a number. sensor on the front of the engine is the cam angle sensor if you're talking about the drivers side. doubtful that's your CEL. check engine light is usually cylinder misfire (spark plugs and wires - use Subaru only on wires), knock sensor (replace it), or oxygen sensor. those seals should be replaced with the timing belt. if they're just seaping and wet it's not a big deal, a drop a month over time accumulates but doesn't mean much. timing belt is a 100,000 mile item on that engine. interference engine, so do it right.

i would never throw money away on a rebuild. used is a much better option. has the the ATF and filter ever been changed and how many miles are on the car? There's only so much available power at idle to hold a car, so what kind of angles/grades are you talking about? Slight would be an issue, extreme angles i'd almost expect it. I could test with my H6 and see how it reacts.

If your cv axle is known bad it's always good to go ahead and address that first. i've had wavering steering from warn out steering rack bushings before. they're easy to replace and cheap too. end links will defintely cause wavering. and strut top mounts can cause pulling but would usually also give some light thumping noises on slow turns.

woah! worse than i expected. the suspension stuff would all be simple - i've replaced a few of those. just swap out whatever is bent - control arm, rods, struts, hubs. that's rather easy. that freaking fender though, woo, that thing got plowed. not a horrific fix but not a party either.

Your poor running motor isn't because the motor is bad or old, it just has a minor problem that needs to be tracked down. First - are you sure the engine is making it slow and not the transmission? it's running and shifting fine through gears? The first step should be to clear those codes (they probably did?) and check it immediately when the CEL comes back on. See which one comes back first. If it's all of them, drive it into the nearest brush and leave it. If the guy said it was overheating, I'm sure he didn't make that up. Coupled wiht the fact that these motors do just that at the onset of headgasket issues - overheat randomly and rarely - you likely have a headgasket issue. Of course you'd like to check the radiator out and replace the thermostat, but with the frequency of head gasket issues on this motor it's hard to ignore that. That being said - dumping $900 into another EJ25 is a horrendous idea. It could easily have head gasket issues in the next year - then you're really hosed. That $900 would be better spent repairing your existing engine if it really isn't overheating much. I don't know where youngsville is but if you were close i could possibly sell you an EJ25 with new headgaskets already installed for $1,000. Any EJ25 you end up with in the car needs to have new head gaskets. Or go with an EJ22 swap. Much cheaper and don't blow headgaskets.

yes. it'll be fine. the folks that have never done it will tell you horror stories that those of us that have done it have never experienced. so...limited (anecdotal?) experiences or armchair quarterbacks, take your pick! :lol: like chux said, i wouldn't pound the thing.