idosubaru

I know this sounds like a noob question. But I've always wondered how two pieces of metal rotate around thousands of times without completely destroying each other? How do they continually make contact without wearing faster than they do? Seems they would just destroy each other rather quickly. Okay end dumb question of the day.

EJ axles are really easy. All you need to do is not remove so much stuff. once the wheel is off you only need to remove ONE BOLT other than the axle nut to replace an axle. I've done multiple Impreza's and Legacy's like this, they're all the same so far. Remove the axle nut, remove the top strut mount bolt and loosen the bottom strut mount bolt. the hub will pivot far enough out to remove and replace the axle. Yes it's tight...but it's so easy and not worth messing with other parts that it's worth the 75 seconds to properly remove the axle. Be sure to mark the position of the top strut bolt HEAD (not the nut), as the bolt is cambered and affects alignment. I just chisel a mark in it and the strut bracket and make sure the head is in the same position when reinstalled, very simple.

swapped MAF and coil, no change. I bought a new cap and ordered the rotor today, so i'll find out soon if that's any help. The points in the cap are definitely warn, but i have no idea if it's "too much" just by looking. At idle the spark appeared to be fine, i could see it in broad day light and it would jump a good 4+ inches....any more than that and it *jumped* through me!

You need to replace the belt, it's 10 years old . And since I had this happen last year...i'll elaborate: Oil on the belt causes timing belt failures. Oil leaks do not. see the difference? just because oil is leaking or seaping doesn't mean it's getting onto the timing belt. oil seaping out the seals is very common on older subaru's. usually they leak very slowly and don't actually get on the timing belt. but...i installed a new timing belt on a friends car last year. the crank seal was leaking enough to actually get on the timing belt (it was leaking A LOT!). the brand new belt lasted less than 10,000 miles and only a couple months. you can even find my thread about it on this forum. it's titled something like "can oil cause timing belt failure" or something like that. and the overwhelming consensus, as well as my experience, is most definitely. Your belt is over due for a change anyway. Forget mileage, your belt is 10 years old, it needs replaced if you want a reliable vehicle. Of course you might make 2,000 more miles just fine, but i wouldn't be surprised if you didn't either. Also - your engine having 170,000 miles on it generally necessitates a full timing belt job - including all the pulleys and tensioner as well. if you don't do those now you're hoping the originals make it to 230,000 miles for the next timing belt change. that's too many miles to reliably expect out of a set of 20 year old pulleys, i can guarantee at least one (and probably more) are low on grease and noisey. actually...most even with only 100,000 and late 90's that i do need at least one pulley replaced - usually the toothed idler pulley seems to loose grease the fastest. or you can regrease or replace the bearings, but that's rather intensive for most people/mechanics to do. much easier to just replace. I go to ebay for these, you can buy an entire timing kit including the belt and all the idlers and tensioner for a reasonable price. Getting them all from subaru is cost prohibitive as they are very expensive. If you don't do it before your trip i'd plan on doing it before next summer. You've got a great engine that easily has a few more years in it, no point in having known maintenance issues strand you now.

1995 - is an EJ22 engine Yes there's no gasket between the trans and engine but i am betting that rather than them lying about it, that something just got lost in time and relaying the information to us. Either you forgot the exact details or they communicated it poorly. Either way, it doesn't matter, whatever leak was present most certainly caused the demise of this transmission. If it was an ATF leak, that definitely caused your failure. But of course we dont' know the history of the car, yo'uve only told us a brief snippet. was the fluid level ever checked during that time, have the tires been properly rotated? And yes - i'd get a used Subaru engine. Do not bother with JDM stuff, it's compeltely unnecessary for a transmission. Properly installed and warranted you should have no problem getting a decent low mileage trans that will last a long time. Subaru transmissions are very reliable, making it pointless to spend a ton of money replacing one.

the key with towing is not "can it do it"...but how risky you're willing to be. the subaru can handle it just fine. i think it's a VERY GOOD IDEA to have electric brakes on the trailer, that's HUGE plus. i don't think those tow ratings are made for trailers with brakes, i think they're made with no brake trailers in mind. it sounds to me like you're set up will be fine if you keep those brakes working well and drive safely. 2,000 isn't uber scarry with proper brakes and driving. keep in mind when you're at the limits, everything becomes much more dangerous. weather, other drivers, animals, etc all become much higher liabilities in terms of maintaining control. the eye rolling part of towing questions is that people always ask and answer in terms of "can it be done"....that's not the issue. it's not like 2,000 pounds is fine and then at 2001 pounds it all of a sudden becomes some hazzard and car parts will fall off, things will blow up, and you'll wreck. there's no magic number. there's too many dynamics for this to be a black and white issue, and the most important is the drivers attitude and decision making ability. i doubt we'll be changing that any time soon!!!!!

i'm not sure there's any benefit. they're not more reliable and you can essentially get as much hp you want out of a subaru engine. and that without all the custom work you'd need for a porsche motor. but sure it can be done, people have put 350 V8's in an XT before!! or go find pictures of Taterheads old XT6 from 10 or 15 years ago, crazy machine. Eric Tisch...Tischer...something like that (you can look up his website), put an ER27 in his porsche, and i think it was because the porsche engines are not very reliable..or maybe they're just expensive. but i don't know anything about them so i could be wrong. it's been a number or years since i talked to him. my roommate had 3 in college. he needed it...in the hopes one was actually running any given day. Subaru's are being put in a lot of things. Porsche's, VW's, Vanagon's, airplanes, boats.....Subaru's have two ideal characeteristics. You get the reliability of a Japanese company (something not typically attributed to german cars any more) with the space favorable horizontally opposed engine layout.

shouldn't be those, i think i replaced them. but i honestly don't know so i probably should give it a whirl. actually i might have a minute to go buy those parts now before we leave!

a good starting point would be to determine whether the HLA's are not receiving enough oil pressure or just sticky/frozen. if it's oil pressure related it'll vary a lot and could be any/multiple HLA's. if it's a sticky or frozen HLA it should be just one HLA making the noise. a mechanics stethoscope helps but often you can just tell by listening too. if it's on one side and one cylinder then you know it's one or two HLA's and probably not oil supply related. have you resealed the oil pump yet and tightened as well as tighten the backing plate screws on the back of it? this as well as fixing any bad oil leaks would be a good first step. after that - try some oil treatment if you want to avoid the work. for such a high mileage easy to find car i personally wouldn't want to put a ton of work into it. i'd probably try a can or two of sea foam or marvel mystery oil in the crankcase oil and see if that helps.

drive it, run it or drain it and run it with fresh gas. there's no point speculating about what bad gas can or can not do on a 10+ year old car. my guess is highly unlikey this would do it. as for the sensor, just clear the code and see if it comes back. if it comes back a couple times, then replace the sensor. did you install it at the proper angle and torque? the knock sensor is intended to be installed at a certain angle (the pigtail - pictures and info will come up with a search of USMB) and a particular torque. did you check the bottom of the sensor for any cracks when you removed it? knock sensors are essentially replacement items, rarely lasting the life of the engine. not that i want to see you throw parts at it or anything. maybe you have another motor to grab a knock sensor off of?

you'll need the alignment. something moved or is off after the work. you could attempt to adjust it yourself a couple turns either way and see if you get it straight again.

MAF - car won't run without it TPS - it ran but wouldn't idle. the problem still existed once moving O2 - no change either fairly certain we ruled out two of those three. i'm now looking into spark issues - distributor. though i'm still checking the FPR when i get a chance, going to look for fuel in the vacuum line.

only the front half of the driveshaft (driveshaft is two pieces) needs to be in place to keep fluid from leaking out, so install that and you're golden to run it FWD. the driveshafts are two piece - the front halves are different manual to auto and the rear halves are identical (interchangeable). so you'll need the front half from a manual trans vehicle. as for the axles, just use axles from whichever trans you're running, you have both parts cars? i'd reboot whatever you install, particularly if it's from any axle that has been sitting unused for awhile. most i've tried to install start to crack or loose grease in less than a year. not worth my time, i just reboot them now.

recalibrate a 96 ECU - definitely not. just ignore whoever said that, just regurgitating or CYA in effect. first of all i know...second of all i've even done it on a 96 even.

wow...i didn't mean that..i mean...(hole getting bigger)....

you're golden - it's a free wheelin' non inteference engine. no damage, replace the belt and keep going. your 2000 forester though is most defintely and interference EJ25 SOHC engine. when they break, bad things happen. when replacing timing belts i almost always buy the ebay kits - reasonably priced and include not just the belt and new tensioner but all new pulleys as well (all of which can seize and fry a belt too). keep that in mind at your first 105,000 mile timing belt replacementin the forester. if you don't...you're essentially asking all those pulleys, tensioner and water pump to last to the next change at 210,000 miles - the odds aren't good. not impossible, but not good either.

what really gets me is that someone from NY is cracking those jokes. it's normal for adjacent states to make fun of each other, but WV has a reputation that's quite widespread.

as a test you can try unplugging the O2 sensor to see if that gets rid of any hesitation or noticeable issues. the car should run fine (bad gas mileage) with the O2 sensor unplugged. that's an easy no-cost test you can try. it won't tell you if the O2 is giving you bad gas mileage but might tell you if it's causing noticeable drivability issues (i doubt it). is the engine all stock...stock air filter, hose, etc?

yes cam belt = timing belt. hmmm...exhaust stuff going on? plug wires, PCV, air filter, and fuel treatment. i'd start there, they need done anyway, are easy and cost very little.

wow i had a funny reply but it's probably mean...

it's the only part threaded into the exhaust that has a wire coming out of it, very easy to find. crawl under the car and look where the two sides of the exhaust come out of the engine (exhaust manifold/headers). where those two sides meet at a 'Y' is essentially where the O2 sensor will be. depending the vehicle, some are easier to access from the engine bay, some from underneath. on your impreza i'm thinking it'll be easier from the engine bay (how i did the last impreza i did).

not in my experience. not all NGK's come pregapped. i'm not sure what or why, but i do know i bought a set a week or two ago that were not gapped out of the box, and that's not the first time. i'd say more often than not they are not gapped. it is annoying that some are and some are not, but most i'm buying are not pre-gapped. of course who knows, WV is still in the 50's in many ways, maybe they send all the old stock plugs here, i never use smileys but here's my tribute to poor WV:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

i can't leave one of your thread un-replied too, just makes me feel dirty....so i'll come up with something..... if you can't access them with what you have you'll need a better driver selection. sears (and others) carry right angle screw drivers or you could attach a bit to a socket if you have appropriate adapters.

have we met before!?!?! If by "does it affect performance of my car" you mean "can it cause my current engine problems?" that first depends on what problems you're having, but yes it can affect performance. with an old O2 sensor you'll usually have bad gas mileage, that's about it. doubt it's causing your problem...unless your problem is bad gas mileage.

welcome to USMB SDT! no need for a torque wrench on the spark plugs. just make sure the engine isn't warm when you remove or tigthen them. the threads are aluminum and strip easily. as for the gap - that shouldn't be ignored, they should be gapped to spec's when installed. the gap should be in the owners manual if you have it or check the underside of the engine hood - often it's printed on their somewhere.