idosubaru

like nipper said you'd hate to go through an engine swap and find out it's still doing it. (been there done that on much smaller projects, and even then it's annoying and you're still scratching your head later). of course if you get to the point with hands up in the air and nowhere else to look you might be ready to do it. been there too!

looks like he already replaced that nipper:

and hey....on a couple of those occassions i actually have removed some of that rotating mass - half of the rear driveshaft, even the rear diff and rear axles too. still no change in gas mileage. the internals of the trans must be the culprit.

if you're replacing the ATF yourself plan on doing it a few times as one drain doesn't get nearly all of the fluid out. i do three drain and refills over a couple days myself. as for the overheat - how long ago was any part of the cooling system opened? you may have some pockets of air in the cooling system. others have had issues with getting all of the air out. replace all of your radiator caps. i think yours only has one.

i think this depends on your driving habits. i've done it on more than one occassion for extended periods of time as well (in both manual and auto's). mileage didn't change. i do more highway type driving than stop and go.

i'd chase the threads with a tap and try another drain plug first. if that didn't work i'd install an oversized plug. check them out at any autoparts stores. they are slightly oversized and self tapping just for these situations.

to get this EJ22 out of the car i have one motor mount nut to go on the drivers side. the head is rounded off and chiseled all to crap from me pounding on it. it's a parts car so anything goes to get this motor out. i can reach one of the bolts that attach the motor mount to the engine block. the other is buried, does anyone know if i can access it by removing the steering rack? it's really close to the hole where the rack pokes through. if i can get to it i can leave the motor mount on the cross member when i pull the motor. everything else is unbolted....trans mounts, exhaust, everything but one bolt. and i don't feel like taking the entire cross member off. one of those many bolts will likely give me the same problem. older EA82's are nice, the leak enough oil that there's usually little rust underneath!

there are many variables here. size of gas tank, EJ22 or EJ25, gearing, transmission, highway or city mileage.....mileage varies from 18 - 35 depending on vehicle and driving style.

i see those early 90's legacy's all the time around here with 200k - 250k on them. crazy rump roast motors for sure. guy i work with sold his this year, still ran great and had well over 200 but can't recall the exact number.

i dont' know jack about justy's but i've driven some late 80's subaru's that had second gear grinding when shifting and they were like that for 100,000 miles (admittedly mostly highway driving, but that's still alot of miles) with no other issues. so while annoying it may not cause any alarm in terms of needing to replace the trans. hopefully that treatment helps.

ATF - Automatic Transmission Fluid. having fresh fluid does good things to your transmission, does well in preventing issues with the transfer clutches in the transmission (large job & $$$ to fix if you can't do it yourself). that and the timing belt and you should be golden.

check the battery terminals as well. corroded or loose connections at the battery can cause intermittent issues as well. easy to check. the terminals and connectors should be spotless and tight, you should not be able to turn the connectors by hand. then i'd look into the sensors they mentioned above. i'd be very surprised if one of those didn't solve your problem, but if they didn't i'd start suspecting the starter itself. tapping it with a hammer may temporarily help it along and prove it's causing issues. places like autozone and advance can test your starter, if it's bad it'll show on their tester.

if it's an automatic, change the ATF. it's an interference motor, so make sure the timing belt is on the newer side. if you don't know, then replace it. if it breaks for any reason, old, bad pulley bearing, water pump, etc it can cause major engine damage. great car, i've been thinking about getting a late 90's legacy GT sedan recently, i dig the looks of some of them. look up 2.5 head gaskets issues. small chance of issues, but nice to know what to look for and what your options are ahead of time. search the forum here, lots of info on that and no need to start another thread about it.

i'd check the fluid level and end up changing the ATF right away. make sure the ATF lines look good and the ATF pan isn't dented. what do you mean by boost issues? engine driveability could affect the transmission indirectly depending what it is. i know nothing about turbo's so i can't help you specifically except to say get the engine running right first before assuming the trans has issues. not to jump the gun, i think this is completely premature but it does sounds like the beginning signs of typical 4EAT problems that i've seen in the past. is the POWER light blinking and can you pull the codes? the ones i've seen go bad typically if you turn the car off and back on it randomly may go away sometimes. but eventually the trans will die. again...just past experience, i'd check all the minor issues first.

how old are your radiator caps? you could try adding the conditioner that subaru uses. the bubbles in the overflow tank are suspicious and not a good thing to be seeing but i'd try to make sure it's not something simple.

the meaning of that flag may represent a war to you, but not to those that show it. the south is fantastic. georgia is my vote for best state in the country overall. i'd move there tomorrow if it weren't for family. i don't mind rednecks, while there are some real hee-haws out there, they still beat the ghetto hands down. at least they'll usually only shoot you if they're pissed at you or drunk. in the ghetto it's just a roll of the dice....

in my experience rotating it around should shut the engine off or make it stumble really bad. did you get the engine up to operating temperature? the idle valve may be open all the way and affecting things if the engine isn't up to temp yet. you can't really screw anything up engine wise playhing with the TPS adjustment, so don't be too worried about trying it out once it's all together. you're the man!

are you sure it's the headgaskets? is it actually overheating, can you see the gauge saying it's overheating? sounds like maybe the radiator is partially plugged. how much stop leak was used in this thing in the past? the a/c causes the air in front of the radiator to be heated as it goes through the condensor so the air flowing through the radiator is much hotter than with the a/c off. maybe the radiator is clogged, not enough to run hot normally but when the a/c is on it puts it over the top. are your fans turning on when it gets hot or the a/c is turned on?

better to worse: FSM, Haynes, Chiltons and there's a How to make your Subaru last or something...i forget exactly what it's called but i've never seen one, though i've seen a few pages. in reality the FSM is the way to go. keep your eye out here (post a wanted add) and on ebay, get them cheap. well worth it.

ignition wires, air filter, vacuum hoses, etc.. maybe ask if they could do a quick visual check on easy items like those to start with.

fusible links and ECU are likely gone. replace those first and move on from there.

noise at a wheel is not indicative of a transmission issue. wheel bearing, brakes, strut, cv shaft are more likely. narrow down the issue before assuming anything.

adjust it by ear. with the car at operating temperature twist the TPS until the car just starts to cut off, then back it off a hair. that's how i do it. check your wiring 6 to 8 inches back behind the TPS, i've seen shorts in the wiring behind the TPS. swapping in another one won't help that at all. usually you can roll the wiring around between your fingers starting at the TPS and working your way back as far as you can reach. if you get to a short in the wiring the engine will change noticeably. and it's usually repeatable making it obvious. the TPS adjustment specifications for the XT6 are wrong in the Subaru FSM so be careful if you're using that.

other oil leaks typically flow down around the rear of the oil pan making it look like the culprit when really it's something else. i'd verify for sure it's the pan before getting into that mess. how much oil are you loosing, in other words how muhc per thousand miles, etc? can you look very closely and see if there's any oil above the pan where it's wet? if it's above the pan it's likely coming from somewhere else. oil pans are annoying if you've never done them and aren't familiar with jacking the motor up. you want to be careful about overtightening the pan bolts. the lip of the pan is very thin metal and tightening hte bolts will bend the oil pan lip at the bolt head concave upward, into and cutting the gasket. will make it difficult in the future for a new gasket to seal successfully. if they are loose then that's one thing, but be sure to go hand tight only with them, they have very low torque specifications. unbolt engine, lift it up to get to the rear oil pan bolts. may have to loosen or unbolt the rear transmission mount bolts as well to get it to move enough to reach them. that's probably only necessary if you're removing the pan entirely though.

i've never had a problem but others have had very difficult problems getting the trapped air/air bubbles out of the coolant. i'd look thoroughly through this problem and read up some posts on "burping" the system as they call it. some have had multiple refill attempts not get all the air out. hate to see you overheat an engine just because of air. except that rarely, if ever do we see any 2.2engines with bad headgaskets even at 200,000+ miles. i have not seen any 2.2's for sale locally with a bad headgasket even ones with 200,000 miles (except beefed up turbo's, but they don't count!). see 2.5's at all sorts of mileages. there's one for sale locally right now for $1,300. i've never seen a 2.2 ever (eventhough they've been around much longer and have had many more chances of being overheated due to old age and bad radiators...the stats are in the favor of the 2.5 since they are newer overall, but they still blow way more). that doesn't really matter and ends up being a glass half empty/glass half full type of discussion. on to testing your motor..... be advised: the hydrocarbon test is not proof positive of whether you have a bad headgasket or not. i have seen first hand (and you can read it in other threads on this board) that the 2.5 is a very strange beast. a 2.5 with a bad headgasket can pass the hydrocarbon test. obviously if it fails that tells you something, but if it passes that doesn't mean anything. reading through the myriad of threads already existing on this topic may help you. there's TONS of information out there. i've seen a bad head gasket 2.5 pass compression, leak down and more than one hydrocarbon test. it can be difficult when they first start to nail them down.