idosubaru

nice hit! that's awesome!

what kind of subaru and how many miles? any rust issues underneath? were the tires properly inflated? very odd to have extremely bad alignment on both sides in the rear...was it ever in an accident? you can look at the bushings GL mentioned, sometimes you can notice them all chewed up, hanging out or completely missing just by looking under the vehicle. any noises from back there? if it's both tires and the suspension has never been messed with i'd suspect there are rust issues causing the rear subframe to shift...that's the way it does it, the wheels start gradually leaning in and wearings on the inside edge.

or you could just replace the failed component...probably the compressor? i replace bad a/c compressors all the time and pull a vaccuum and recharge with amazing success. i've never had a problem doing it that way. all of that only needs to be replaced if lots of material circulated through the system...that's not a typical failure mode in my experience. leaks, a/c compressor clutches, bearings and more frequently 50 cent schrader valves are the most common cause of a/c not working....i would not jump to the highest dollar conclusion when it could be fixed for less than a dollar or at least $1,000 less with a new compressor. it's kind of like saying "i've got bad spark...let's replace the motor". while it's open i always replace the easy to get to o-rings and the schrader valves (there are only two). the schrader valves do not last forever...every time you get a tire you get new schrader valves but everyone leaves their 10 year old deteriorating valves in the a/c and hopes it lasts. they don't, they have a small o-ring at the base that typically looses seal over time. all of the soobs i've seen just needed new compressors and worked golden after replacing them. i've never even replaced them with new units...but i have on other non-subaru vehicles for friends.

like nipper said, this vehicle will be good for another 100,000 if the job is done properly. i had an EJ25 out in less than 2 hours last week by myself, it wasn't hard at all. it's actually fairly easy and straight forward. pulling it is the best option, but it's not necessary. if youre using handtools, i'd definitely recommend pulling it. on the older gen soobs leaving the engine in the car is definitely faster with air tools, not worth pulling. i haven't messed around enough with the newer EJ's to determine if the 4 hours of pulling/installing is worth it or not. i think you should go ahead and pull it, it'll be worth the time and ease for your first time.

for kicks you may be able to mount the bottom strut bolt in the top bolt hole...extending it 2 inches maybe? then get some fat steel to bolt the two holes together, keeping them rigid. be neat to try out for giggles anyway. works on an XT6, not sure about EJ stuff.

local shop charges me $50 per hub to remove old, clean up, grease and install new seals and bearings. and....i'm sorry i didn't take notice this was a legacy, the play i've seen was in ER (older gen) series hubs. i've never taken notice of an EJ hub off the vehicle.

it is #5

yeah for double post!

i've had no problems on multiple vehicles and many thousands of miles and years of use. if someone were having issues with it, i'd be more prone to suspect the usage being the cause than the actual modification itself. i'm also not bashing oil pans, transmission pan and gas tanks, so you definitely put stuff to the test. they have excellent capabilities but certainly aren't immune to issues if beaten offroad. with severe use i could see lots of stuff failing, including automatic transmissions. this is the off road forum, so this is good information depending what kind of off roading your doing.

local Subaru dealer charges $1,500 for head gasket job. dealers typically range from $1000 - $1,600 depending on which dealer and what all they do (timing belt, clutch..etc). in my oppinion there's only one option for replacing the engine and that's CCR. you'll find they have stellar reviews, excellent pricing and decades of Subaru only experience, they are top notch. i wouldn't go used. warranties aren't typically very good or easy to follow through on and who knows the condition of the engine. if they were cheap that would be one thing, but due to demand (head gaskets) these engines easily sell for $1,000 +.

no problem ian. i'll give you my cell phone number if you'd like over PM or email. just send me a note if you run into anything or have questions. unfortunately i've dealt with many sheared bolts, i'd be stoked if those circumstances and lessons helped someone else!

yeah these suck. DO NOT touch that EZ out again..your best bet is to throw that thing away right now. i would not pull the engine, no way it's worth all of that effort and hassle. have you drilled all the way through the bolt? i believe that is one of the short oil pump bolts, which is good because it's the same length as the others, you should be able to tell how deep it is and how deep you've drilled by comparing it to the others. i would make sure you're all the way through it. sounds like you were able to get it centered fairly well. if so, drill it out again until it starts breaking up and start extracting pieces. combination of heat and cold may help it come out but i don't know how much heat i'd put on an area that seals your oil pump gasket either. keep using left handed drill bits on it. i think i would keep progressing with larger drill bits and just drill it out. hope the threads are good, but if not you can helicoil it, that's not hard at all. don't let that scare you if you've never done it bvefore. you may get away without needing a helicoil. if you get it out, chase the threads with a tap. the tapped hole will be deeper than the original stock bolt, so even if you messed up some of the threads there will be good threads deeper in. so get a bolt that's longer than the stock bolt that will reach those good threads. if you have to just drill it out and use a helicoil that's a great option. a little more work and requires a helicoil part/kit but well worth it and works great. you'll be able to get it plenty straight to work. if for some reason when yo'ure done you feel like the helicoil isn't as straight as you would have liked, then use a compression washer under the head of the bolt for extra insurance. it'll be fine, these aren't high load and high force bolts and there are 4 others. i had a water pump bolt shear off that could not be drilled and was obviously not the stock bolt, it was somethign very hard and i couldn't weld to it. i bought 2 or 3 very expensive drill bits that were supposed to be able to drill anything and they wouldn't touch it. so i drilled a hole right next to and intersecting with the existing hole. once it was deep enough i used a punch to knock the bolt into the hole i had just drilled. fortunately i had a spare block that i drilled all around to make sure there weren't any passages or anything that i would hit by drilling this hole. makes sense that nothing was there, but i wanted to be sure. i don't recommend this, but it was the only thing that i could do and it worked. i actually had to do this to my current daily driver and it's held up just fine. i've used very, very, very thin needle nose pliers before and they help as well. i got them from a machinist friend, i don't know if they are available or he made them. with the bolt drilled out, you can insert these pliers and open them while in the hole, this will grip the bolt and you may be able to turn it out this way. if not, these pliers still help with extracting the bolts pieces once you start drilling it larger and larger, but they aren't necessary.

why was the battery replaced? went bad? alternators and batteries often fail within short period of time of each other. have the alt checked, many places do that for free. battery connections are the first thing to check. they have to be clean and they have to be tight. if you can turn them by hand then they aren't tight enough. how does the plug at the alternator look, they're usually crap by now. check your fusible links, they can be weak enough to cause problems but still have connectivity. remove and replace checking for brittleness along each one. there's only one that would be the culprit here, but i'm not sure which one, so check them all. i think it's the first one or two from the front of the car...but there's only like 4 so check them all. if you're still having issues, see if the crank pulley is slipping. it has a thin rubber ring inside of it that can separate causing the outer part of the pulley to not rotate as fast as the inner...creating the exact problems you're having. draw a line across the face of it and run the engine. if the line becomes broken, your pulley is bad. also check the wiring above the pedal assembly as a very last resort, the harness plugs there can sometimes corrode and short out...causing similar issues. common XT issue actually, not sure about other EA82 variants though.

good call by hatchsub, if you can find a local elecrical motor or electrical automotive shop generic brushes can be found for a couple dollars. even if they're too long you can file them down to size.

no, not at all. i'm only telling you my experience seeing "loose" bearings in a used hub that was on a perfectly running car and on newly pressed bearings that i installed on my car and was told "that's normal". i do not recommend installing them unless someone who knows what they are talking about tells you. frankly i'd like to know why newly pressed and greased bearings had play in them and it was "okay". i was hoping someone would chime in and explain, i know there are tons of people that have done bearings before on this board.

that's awesome. excellent information for some work i need to do as well. thanks! how did you find those year ranges?

i've never seen CV's cause improper tire wear. coming from the guy who has put 50,000 miles on front CV's that click while driving straight...i've driven on some horrible axles before. just got done replacing one last week as well. at times it had a solid vibration while driving straight and clicked like crazy. tires wear perfect on that one and all my previous ones as well. if it's a standard broken boot CV issue, i dont' think that's going to cause your tire problems. if it's a previously replaced aftermarket axle then this may not hold, i only use Subaru or MWE axles.

nice! sure signs he's done this before! don't people run thin piano wire from the inside of the cabin to the outside and "saw" their way around the windshield? i know there are a few detailed hints on usmb about windshield removal, i'd check those out. if that stuff is anywhere near as tough to cut through as the rear permanent side glass in an XT6...i wouldnt' want to cut through it. blades couldnt' touch that stuff.

you can leave those off anyway. i actually remove those "heating" lines and bypass the throttle body, they aren't necessary. i drive in below 0F weather and no problems. it's going to be tricky finding out all the gadgets you need from a picture. i had a hard time with that as well even living here. i swapped from turbo to non-turbo and needed to figure out all those differences. it was annoying finding the bits i needed and where things go..and it's still not perfect yet. is it turbo or not, they have different gadgets and vaccuum routings on them. guess it's the turbo RX in your list?

i would not blame the guy who sent you the parts unless they were his parts. he may have just picked it up and sent it to you and doesnt' know much about bearing replacement or what's good/bad. that being said....i've seen this play you speak of before. i installed a hub that had new bearings pressed in and it had this slack and the shop said it was fine. when i later checked them, there was no play when it was on the vehicle....and i don't think there was any play when i parted that vehicle out either. actually i could check i still have one or both of those hubs. but i'm not home right now. but i think they are tight now. and...i've seen hubs that were pulled from good vehicles, and were tight when i removed them, have play after sitting for a year or two. maybe it's from being banged around or something, i do not know but i've seen it happen. i'm not a bearing expert and have never replaced them, i let a shop do it....but i have had a few experiences with "play in the hub" like you mention and i still don't understand what was going on.

check the coolant lines to the heater core. if it's leaking on the firewall it's more likely to be coolant lines that need replaced. if it is the heater core, bypass it for now until you can fix it. run an inlet hose straight to the outlet so there's no coolant getting to the heater core. better to not have heat than loose coolant and blow a headgasket or toast the motor.

this is why MWE or used Subaru axles are the best bet. aftermarket axles for Subaru have bad percentages. a driveshaft with vibration problems should be easy to diagnose off the car. the ones i've seen were typically seized (ujoint VERY hard to move or impossible) or they were very loose...obviously nearly busting out of the yoke. it's not hard to tell if that's what you're thinking. and...if you left the front half of the driveshaft in place and actually drove it in FWD then the vibration would either be gone or not, that would rule out two ujoints on the rear half which are the most likely to fail from what i've seen. to run it in FWD, yes you would at least need the front half of the driveshaft in place to keep the fluid in. the rear section can be removed. if they exhibit other signs...lumpy feel and minor wear, you won't feel vibrations. many, if not most older gen subaru's are pushing 20 years old and have quite lumpy u-joints by now, i haven't pulled any that were "like new". but they rarely have vibration or other issues. on some subaru's the driveshaft is actually removable without removing the exhaust, it's not easy, but it does beat messing with exhaust bolts, studs and gaskets. remove any rubber hanger mounts and use some bars or tools to help move the exhaust as needed while dropping the shaft if it looks like you might have room to drop it out.

i drive off road frequently as needed for outdoor excursions. the 4EAT in my XT6 does very well. i have the switch and rear clutch type LSD, nice set up for mud and snow. pretty well can't get stuck unless you're in slop, you got no ground clearance.

could it be a noisey rear cv axle as well...i'm not sure what the noise is. maybe the rear diff bushings are shot, that would cause clunking on accel and decel. rear diffs are easy to swap out, you won't have a problem nor do you need special tools. 4 12mm nuts hold the driveshaft to the rear diff, two nuts hold the diff at the rear on the hanger (believe they are 17), then there's one holding it up top as well. then the axles.

i have heard of people replacing the clutch and bearing before on the vehicle, but have'nt had to do it myself. i have replaced an a/c clutch on a honda compressor once, don't recall it being all that difficult with basic bag of tools and sockets. you might want to try doing a search here, i'm almost positive it's been posted before on here. search the old and new generation forums to see if you can find any info on those...i believe the bearing part numbers have been posted before as well. i don't recall seeing a bearing when i've taken a clutch off before, but i'd imagine it's behind the clutch or i'm altogether wrong and the bearing i'm thinking of is replaceable on the alternator???? pretty sure it's A/C though.