idosubaru

do you already have 2WD rear struts? due to differences in mounting, the 2WD struts are longer than the 4WD. so if you install them on a 4WD vehicle they will lift it. or convert to air suspension! ha ha!!

now...remember, i'm not recommending this, because without seeing and knowing what's going on i can't really make a good call. but...this might comfort you some. you can install crank pulleys without any key or any pin to hold it in place. if you crank it on tight enough...very, very tight to the crank, it won't move anyway. line it up perfectly without anything to hold it, and crank it tight. it's not aluminum like the block. the crank and bolt are cast iron and can take quite a bit of tigthening. make sure the bolt threads and hole threads are nice and clean and torque it. i take a 1/2" socket wrench with a 3 foot pipe and give it some good stank. again, i'm not recommending doing it without a key, but i'm just saying that if it can hold without a key, that might comfort you some about yours being a little messed up.

no that slit in the flywheel under cover is supposed to be there, i've seen them before. goofy aint it? i assume it's to allow for drainage.

so you already have the engine out i think? the oil pan gasket can be replaced without pulling the engine, but it is a bit annoying. but still beats separating and re-mating the engine and trans. also...sometimes it doesn't hurt to just snug up the bolts at the rear of the pan, but if you already have it out that doesn't matter. the oil pan gasket is really annoying. i'd use a Subaru gasket, they tend to be thicker and higher quality than most aftermarkets. i'd probably consider using RTV or anaerobic (more proper sealant) sealant on both sides if you want to make sure it seals. otherwise, be careful to note the oil pan bolt holes, if they are concave at all, they may leak with a new gasket. and make sure the block and pan are perfectly clean and the pan is flat, smooth and not bent. don't snug the bolts too much when installing, that's how the thin metal bolt holes of the pan get concave, from overtightening.

an 88 with an airbag? loyale's don't have airbags, is it a legacy? loyales are good cars, so are newer subaru's, just depends what you're looking for and what you're in the market for. keep the loyale or legacy from overheating and running out of oil and they'll outlive the rest of the vehicle given proper maintenance.

price everything out and do the job right. don't try to do the minimum, do it right and it'll last another 100,000 miles. skip something and you'll be kicking yourself later for wasting the time and money. well i should ask first, what kind of shape is the car in and how long do you want to keep it. if you want another few years out of it, it will make it if you do a complete job now. take the heads to a shop - $40-$80 to mill and test them. replace both gasket, not just one. replace any and every seal you can while yo'ur ein there. specifically replace - cam seals, oil pump seals (tighten the oil pump screws on the back of the oil pump), and the water pump, and the timing belt. also, check all of your timing belt pulleys. most likely one or more will need replacing, they will be noisey and spin way too freely because they lack grease. for a 1991 non-interference engine like you have i would get a cheap aftermarket Ebay kit and install that, they come with all new pulleys and bearings. yo'ure not likely going to want to spend $400 just on pulleys, so $80 for all new pulleys is still better than your 17 year old stock pulleys with no grease. or...you can regrease them yourself for a few dollars in grease, i have a thread posted on how to do that. replace the thermostat, radiator hoses and radiator caps and any hose you can find....at least check them thoroughly. use Subaru only on the headgaskets, intake manifold gaskets and exhaust manifold gaskets and i'm starting to lean towards Subaru only on seals as well. a head set will include everything you need, including valve stem seals, fuel injector seals, exhaust, intake..etc for a head job. probably really expensive from subaru unfortunately. for the headgasket, make sure everything is perfectly clean and clean the head bolts and the head bolt holes. air tools are a huge plug you can just run a head bolt in and out of each hole a bunch of times to clean it out. cleaning them by hand is annoying. you can reuse headbolts on soob motors.

get the stock OEM spark plugs for your subaru. aftermarket just isn't worth it, there's no reason to. a performance difference is not becuase of the spark plugs, i can promise you that. your car is going on 17 years old. that's 17 year old sensors, wires, grease, bearings, O2 sensors, dirt, build up, not perfectly seated valves...etc. way too many possibilities to assume the spark plug is causing anything noticeable. unless, because you put in different plugs you start mashing the gas pedal harder to "see" the performance difference, then you might trick yourself into thinking it's plugs making the difference. or your old plugs were so out of whack, that just having new plugs helped...but again that's just old plugs, not brand. spark plugs aren't the "magic power makers" that advertisers want you to think they are.

lots of excellent newer soobs and they come with air bags and anti lock brakes if you like that stuff. if you like offroad or snow capability the older generation stuff is easier to play with...with locking the center diff on a manual trans PT4WD loyale and all. and you can easily get a clutch type rear LSD too. headgasket prone motors are the EJ25 1996-2002, do a search for more info, there's plenty on here that it doesn't need to be addressed here. price range is huge here, there's just no way to compare a 1990 loyale to a newer legacy, you could be talking a $5,000 price difference so you really need to narrow your choices down some. the older loyale's aren't that hard to get parts for at all in my oppinion and they're EA82's. if you did a really thorough tune up, you probably could get 120,000 miles out of a nice condition, inexpensive loyale with only a timing belt change every 60,000 miles. they are very reliable. at this age you're likely to deal with a wheel bearing going out, alternator, battery, etc. minor in my oppinion, but stuff like that is more likley the older vehicle gets. avoid rust, it's really really annoying to deal with, rusted bolts more so than rusted body parts. in the $2,000 - $4,000 price range you can get a really nice EJ22 engine in a Legacy or Impreza, that would be my suggestion. the EJ22 went to an interference design in 1997 so if that bothers you get one that's 1996 or older.

i'd remove any shields, jack plates, underside flywheel cover, any covers you can to get a good view. get under the car and have a good light source available. snap some pictures while you're under there? a rear main seal shouldn't put oil on the engine any further forward than the bellhousing, so it shouldn't be that hard to narrow down. if you can't tell you need to clean everything off and try again.

if it leaked before the clutch job and still leaks after...i would not guess it's the rear main seal, or i would be suspicious at least that it's something else. sounds like you just didn't address the actual leaking point. i would not get into separating the engine/trans until i was sure the leak was coming from there myself. seals are typically a little wet looking underneath. even if they don't leak, a little seapage may be underneath and attracts dirt/dust/clutch dust for the rear main. that isn't necessarily something to worry about. if it was leaking significant amounts i would think you would notice that area being very wet with oil all over the bottom of the bell housing and that metal plate under the flywheel that bolts to the underside of the engine. is the leak definitely centrally located, in other words it's not coming from valve covers or heads?

that's great, i understand exactly what you mean about the washer area under the bolt. i wasn't that impressed with the sears bolt out kit either, i returned it as well. it would have worked for something "easy" (my definition of easy), but it didn't really put any more grunt on than i could get via other methods.

can you post a picture of it? unless it's in really bad shape, i would reuse the key that's in there and leave it...of course i say this without seeing it so take that into account. if it's just a little marred but appears perfectly functional then i wouldn't remove it. file it maybe as necessary? if it's really difficult to remove due to damage and the end of the crankshaft was affected at all as well, it's likely going to be a bear to install a new key as well and it may not fit all that well...depending on the damage, again i can't see it. keep in mind there's a kit made specifically to fix this, just in case it gets worse or you find out you can't fix it later. i suspect you won't have any troubles, but knowing is good.

eletric fans you'll have to figure out the bearing part number or size. easiest way is to take the bearing to a bearing supply store as most people just replace the fan when the bearing dies so you might have trouble finding the part number/size without removing it first.

check for corrossion inside all of the connectors that plug into the sensors. if any wiring at the connectors appears compromised at all, i'd pull it back a bit and make sure the wiring looks good and tape it or shrink tube it to seal it back up. if you have one bad component, it won't be hard to replace it, so i wouldn't sweat it unless the wiring looks really, really bad. while the manifold is off it wouldnt' be that hard to test all the wiring either if you wanted to. pay attention to plastic connectors and rubber "seals" at the base of connectors, they are likely to be brittle and dry rotted. fix those.

the good thing is that when they finally start causing issue it *shouldn't* leave you stranded, you'll just get a CEL, a cylinder misfire code, lack of power and some bucking...if you're really unlucky it might not drive or very well. if you do decide to do it, do the plugs and wires at the same time. use NGK plugs and SUbaru only (or my favorite Magnecors) for spark plug wires. do not use any other wires in this engine, not all subaru's are like this, but anythign other than Subaru on your engine is risky. and yes, more than just the "type", they are the exact OEM spark plug. the consensus is that stock OEM's are the best choice for mos subaru applications.

easy fixes, awesome! save yourself the hassle in the future and don't bother replacing those "filters" of the screen type any more. i've pulled them out wih 200,000 miles and they're always spotless (i'm sure there's the anecdotal ones though). they just prevent anything from getting sucked up and it should come out with drain and refills. they aren't typical "filters" in the sense they really get dirty. so it's really a pointless exercise to replace them. just keep changing that oil and you're golden. (this isn't true with the newer gen stuff that has an external spin on filter obviously...but that's not until 1998 stuff).

sweet momma, good job. thanks for letting us know, that's good info to have. you really found something that helpful on NASIOC...how much reading and bashing did that require!?!?!?

like nipper said, there's really too many options to guess over the internet. there's tons of experience and knowledge on here, but this is going to be hard without more info. can you take pictures? i'm with nipper, a leak that bad should be obvious. first...make sure what kind of fluid it is, that should be obvious as well. if you have to, clean off the oily area so you can see a fresh leak. this really needs to be done to avoid guess work. i would doubt it's the oil pan myself, but i'm not going to say it's impossible. rear main seals do seem to leak after recent installs, i know a couple very talented soob people that have had this happen (members of this board too). i'm not sure why the rear main seal is finnicky but it's also the least likely original seal to leak on a soob motor ironically enough. if it was really leaking as fast as you say it was before the head gasket change, "so fast you could see it dropping on the oil dipstick"....i'd be worried about the motor. if it started leaking that fast, it would be very hard to notice the first time before it got dangerously low.

awesome! most EJ engines seem to be very touch with respect to their wires. much more so than the older generation stuff. i don't use anything but Subaru or Magnecor wires on the EJ engines, anything else is hit or miss (pun intended).

did the heads go to a shop or get tested/millled? hopefully you did, that should always be done, particularly on a turbo. check the turbo and turbo related lines, now would be a great time to go ahead and replace those anyway, any hose, gasket or o-ring associated with the oil and coolant supply to the turbo. an easy place to leak is also the intake manifold gasket. were the mating surfaces of the intake manifold and head cleaned and not marred? i've seen very deep grooves in intake manifolds before, though i don't know how they get there. and...did you use Subaru gaskets or aftermarket? check all of your hoses and clamps, were they replaced or did you reuse the old ones? a compression test may or may not help. it's very common for compression tests to not tell you anything on a subaru. if the tests are bad, then that's conclusive, but even bad headgaskets can pass a wet and dry test just fine.

speedo's are off anyway, it's common for them to be off right off the showroom floor. tires aren't too blame for that. jerky acceleration...that may be to the tires being mismatched. were they all properly inflated? was it an equal, rotated, matching set? and even still it's possible for a tire to not be in spec, causing an unknown mismatch? these trans will act funny when the tires don't match, particularly the automatics, they will shift erratically. the manuals i'm not so sure about, i wouldn't expect as dramatic effects, but it can't help them at all.

just like the old school soobs, sounds good. i'll unplug them at least until i fix them right. i don't have one nor do i know how to use one, but i'm not against learning if other things don't pan out.

no way to diagnose pulleys thoroughly without removing the belt. you can look at them by removing the side timing belt covers, they only require 3 10mm screws to remove, that's very easy. look at them, if the front seals are jacked up with bearings come out, that is very, very bad and your belt won't last much longer. then turn the engine over by hand and make sure all of the pulleys are also turning properly. a seized pulled with cuase the belt to slide over it's surface rather than turn with the belt. that's what you're looking for. the engine will run quite a while like that but eventually that heat will glaze and destroy the belt...and your engine. other than that there's really no easy way because you can't hear them or spin them by hand without pulling the belts and well, spinning them. and that's really what needs to be done. they don't necessarily fail that often, but it's not a risk worth taking either because they do loose grease over time.

oh right, O2's don't do anything until the car is warmed up. so i guess they can't be the cause of this since it's right at start up. but i need to check that wiring, can't be good to have them backwards!

both engines from a manual trans vehicle. it should run with both O2 sensors unplugged? could crossing the 3 O2 sensor wires up ruin the sensor? i'm not familiar with what those wires are all for. since i guessed which pin they go to, chances are good that at least one, if not both are wrong. but i would have expected a CEL if they were. funny you mention the cat nipper......i had to remove the entire exhaust as an assembly, angle it and flip it upside down by myself. and before that i was shaking and jarring it vigorously. i dropped a tool into the exhaust manifold! oh the fun that was. none of the exhaust bolts will come out, i tried that first to get the tool out, so i can't just disconnect it to see if it runs right. guess i'll have to cut them off. check O2 sensors check catalytic converter thanks guys, i'm headed out of town so i'll check it out monday.