idosubaru

i agree totally, that engine block looks horrific, where was that thing Tim? but i will say that there are situations where the cost is a factor. finding cheap machine shops in his area isn't easy (not impossible), but MD is rather on the pricey end of things...with some of the richest counties in the nation and high property values. and knowing that tim just went through a horrific cancer ordeal, chemo-therapy and not being able to work...i don't know all the details but i'm sure he's not way ahead right now. i'll give you a set of EA82 head gaskets i have if you want them. they are beck arnley though, not Fel-Pro permatorques which is what i would recommend.

that sounds like a stank deal, but this is the wrong forum and way to go about it. it's hard to believe you can't figure out his user name and search for some information. a RHD legacy in perfect condition for $2,000 - i think that's a bit of an exaggeration. they are rather hard to find and not cheap from what i've seen. (note - i didn't say you can't find them cheap or good deals). not too mention postal vehicles go through hell, it is certainly a huge responsibility on the buyer to look it over or make decisions accordingly on vehicles that are used for other-than-daily-driver activities. i based on your description i think a blind folded blind man at night in a hurricane could have ascertained that it wasn't perfect:

what kind of driving are you using these for? racing quality brakes are not good for daily driving and daily driving brakes are not good for racing. from what i've gathered drilled and slotted rotors are very minimal in adding anything significant to your actual braking unless you're on a track. the better upgrade option might be larger brakes. my knowledge of performance brakes is limited and i did a bunch of asking around and reading and that's the conclusion i came to. larger brakes will give you far better results than having drilled verses not drilled rotors. i have since bought a few sets of larger brakes.

anyone else know what i'm going to run into installing this non-EGR and non-Charcoal canister looking EJ22 intake??

they are very easy to replace. i think there's 4 bolts for the two brackets and the 2 nuts for the tie rod ends. very simple. i did one this year, didn't take long. you'll want to carefully measure the tie rod end placement...counting rotations if you want to try and do this without getting an alignment...come to think of it, i never did and so far so good. what really determines time and how hard is how rusted they are. tie rod nuts that are rusted can be annoying. i'll get reamed for saying this, but if the rack is that bad you could try a bottle of stop leak for kicks.

i buy subaru's for friends and myself of course, but i have a lot of experience with this, even this year. look for a late 90's impreza sedan or OBS or a Legacy wagon or sedan with a 2.2 (or 1.8). take a look at those and see which you like, many of my friends don't care, they just want a reliable vehicle. an EJ22 with a manual trans is about the cheapest reliability money can buy. i picked up a 80,000 mile 1997 Impreza Sedan for $3,000. I gave it a solid $400 tune, timing belts, water pump, timing pulleys, brakes, PCV, thermostat, air filter, etc. that's what i would aim for, no more than 100,000 miles and a late 90's EJ22. although 1996 and earlier EJ22's are not interference which is nice...up to you. if you're willing to do some work you can get them even cheaper. i've gotten a few Legacy GT sedans this year for under a $1,000...but they needed some work, like head gaskets. i'm looking at a couple others right now that i might pick up next week that need some work and are less than $1,000 as well.

what exactly does that mean? how does that work and what happens if i put it on a vehicle without that....guess my gas tank will implode? how many vehicles are like this, i've never seen one....except maybe this one, but it was before i really had a mind to check into it and i don't have it any more to look at (grrrr....). i've had 3 1997 OBS automatics - all identical, two with EGR and charcoal canister up front in the engine bay....like every other subaru i've ever seen. then one was a freak-a-zoid - it had no EGR and no charcoal canister stuff. was a one owner vehicle, guy lived 7 miles from me and never did anything out of the ordinary with it *that i know of*.

that wasn't a GT sedan in excellent condition was it? there's a huge difference between wagons and GT sedans. the GT is harder to find and easier to sell. look them up on autotrader, etc....finding a great condition GT sedan with maintenance records and relatively low miles for under $5,000 isn't nearly as easy as a wagon. I sold an older one, a 1997 Legacy GT sedan for $5,500 just a few months ago. now, i wouldn't pay it, but if i'm selling them for $5,500 then the market price is close to what he's talking. i wouldn't consider it a good deal (unless the headgaskets have been replaced), but $5,200 is not a terrible price in and of itself. remember there's a big difference between people like us that are sniffing the market every day looking for deals. he probably likes the look of a GT sedan. if it's in excellent condition, leather seats, everything works, with service records, one owner...a healthy combination of those items make GT sedans very easy to sell (been there, done that). i say it's a decent price, but i wouldn't recommend paying it due to the head gasket issue...again, that's just me, make your decisions accordingly.

12 ftlb, i verified with a 1997 FSM. just to make sure, you're talking about the cam cap that holds the cam seal right? are you at all curious why the cam seized or do you know? did it run out of oil? most likely the cam was starved of oil. if it didn't run out or have a major leak i'd suspect something contaminated the oil supply.

Type in "Subaru head gasket" into Yahoo, Google, or just type "head gasket" in here on the search function. The GT is a great car, but the EJ25 is prone to head gasket issues. It's about a $1,500 repair. I wouldn't pay top dollar for one and I wouldn't let my wife drive one, unless I could verify it has already had them replaced. Two of the ones I bought this year already had them replaced. That being said, they are awesome vehicles. Drive the car for a very long time, let it idle the entire time you're looking at it and keep an eye on the temperature gauge. If it go up above 1/2 way, be very concerned. You would not be the first person to buy a car only to find out a week or month later that the head gaskets are bad...I recall one recently on here. I am not trying to scare you, but thoroughly test drive it and check it out. Drive it very, very slowly in very tight circles (steering wheel turned to full lock). That check is for torque bind. That is rare in manual transmissions but a very bad thing. Check that all the tires match in size, tread and wear. These AWD transmissions are best to keep matched tires and rotated frequently. Subaru specifically calls for all the tires being within 1/4" circumference of each other. Knock sensors are a common issue, but very, very minor. The rubber housing gets old and cracks. The CEL comes on and you replace it. They're $80 and require removing one 12mm bolt to replace so even if you pay to have it done it's cheap.

I have an intake manifold that came off a 97 EJ22 OBS I am going to be installing in another vehicle. Thing is this manifold does not have any metal or rubber lines coming to the front passengers side of the engine bay for the charcoal canister. I owned this car a few years ago and recall it didn't have a charcoal canister up front. So where are the lines for this stuff?

for the EJ25, when the head gaskets first start to go the only way to get them to cool down is to turn the car off. even letting it idle while drifting down a long grade mountain will make them continue to overheat. i have yet to see/drive one that did something different. so if you had a different experience, this may point to yours not being the head gasket and it being something else.

you may be able to find someone in the $1,000 - $1,200 ballpark to fix the head gasket, dealers are usually the top end of the spectrum and are not always very nice when it comes to pricing a new water pump and other bits to go with it. they typically add exorbitantly to the job, but can be talked down some. it's tough to find, but a good shop/mechanic can get you in the $1,000 area and will only charge costs for any extra parts you may want/need - like water pump, oil pump seals, pulleys and such. i'm well-versed in subaru's, so i know all about "some" and EJ series engines. i get lots of subaru requests and questions locally, i shop weekly for them and have bought quite a few this year. my experience is well above anecdotal and what i read/see on the internet.

cool. you're about to learn something even though you thought you were poking fun of my question. some outer parts of the engine get hottest AFTER you turn the car off. the heat from the combustion chamber migrates outwardly the instant you turn the car off. the coolant is no longer flowing and some "outer" parts of the engine will begin to rise in temperature. it is not uncommon, i've even seen it in Subaru's, to see the temperature gauge higher than normal if you have recently driven it. start the engine and the gauge will drop back down to normal very quickly as the coolant circulates. this is normal and is why i asked about your excursion into the store. this is also why many vehicle fires actually start after the engine is turned off. many people reply or tell stories indicating how "weird" or "strange" this is, but it really makes complete sense. you always want to check obvious things first, and while this sounds like HG stuff, you haven't seen bubbles in the overflow yet - that is a sure indicator usually. these don't typically show coolant/oil mixing, that's not how they fail, you saw just what you guessed - hot oil that was very thin, normal as you guessed. be sure to get a subaru thermostat and check the inlet and outlet hoses...make sure they are both hot. the radiator is 10 years old and could be partially clogged. i would not install a used EJ25, that's about the worst thing you could do unless you know it's in great condition and has new headgaskets, but those are hard to find (though i have one). because of head gaskets blowing, the motors are in high demand and the going rate is $1,000 for any off the shelf motor with the original head gaskets. way too much for something that might blow. your motor sounds good, i'd have it fixed. $1,000 - $1,500 the average price for a dealer to fix it and yo'uve got yourself a great motor. in my opinion, if you can't find a cheap EJ25 and refuse getting it fixed the only other option in my opinion is a rebuilt from CCR (top of the line Subaru specialist rebuilders, with a 3 year 36k warranty). i'm not well versed in the turbo swaps, NASIOC is a great resource for that kind of stuff. they have all that information outlined fairly well there.

don't forget to answer the important question - was the car running the entire time?

my guess is that the radiator is clogged. a very, very simple fix and new/used ones are easily found. i agree on the maintenance being way behind. i have a friend going on 250,000 miles and he's never changed his timing belt yet either. at this point though it might be worth putting in a $50 used radiator and driving it another year or two! new radiators aren't that expensive either, but they're all over the place used.

i highly doubt the belt is slipping on the water pump. it's possible but i'm betting it's something else.

that was funny. i was a bit annoyed you weren't going to share considering the efforts some have put in distributing information and the lack of it from others. so yeah, funny stuff. but you don't have to worry, not many people will do this. if 50 people do it (which they won't) that's still only 1 per state. wow, 4 hours. do something nice for your wife out of appreciation for tolerating that, like a 30 minute back massage or something. $25.00 is a nice price. people pay $100+ for scoops on ebay and such, i've sold some for that much before.

make absoltely certain all of your other bolts are out of course. drill it out through the manifold hole opening. get a high quality drill bit and go to town. but you'll just need to pull the manifold off, there's nothing else to it.

double post

you never say whether you turned the car off when you went into the store. bubbling in the overflow tank after the car is shut off and overheating are the initial indications. they both get worse with time.

usually alternator but could be related to battery, cables or connections. autozone or advanced auto parts have battery and alternator testing equipment. there's an off change the belt could be loose, but you would probably hear that as well. and the rarer alternative is that the crank pulley is separating. also - check out the search function or the "similar threads" listed below. look down to the bottom right of this page, there are threads listed with your exact same issues. some quick searches often solves easy or common issues like this one.

Subaru thermostats are way better than after markets - people have posted pictures of them side-by-side before, the difference is enormous.

AH!!! more information - some GL wagons are EA82 - GL hatches are EA81!!!!! remember - helping over the internet is hard enough, no touchy, no heary, no feely...we can't hear, see, touch or do anything physically. so information and helping are very tightly knit here.

22060AA061 is the part number for a 1997-1999 Legacy EJ25 (i just bought one), they are 71.70 from subarugenuineparts.com. that's the DOHC engine, not sure if your forester is the same but the price will be nearly identical. typical online prices should be %20 lower than MSRP, that's standard. seen that in multiple states all over the east coast of the US from Georgia to PA. your local dealer may give you these same discounted prices as the online Subaru parts dealers. you can ask if you have a good relationship with them or take in a printed pricing from the online guys and ask if they will match it. i've never been turned down. tell them you like the ease of not needing to drive but would rather have a relationship with the dealer. that's good for both parties and they should oblige. they give all the local shops that discounted rate anyway, so they really shouldn't care (at least in areas where there are a lot of Subaru's). i prefer the online purchasing myself most of the time, saves time.