idosubaru

i doubt it's the main bearing. if it is you'll have to remove the engine and completely disassemble. there's no easy way to drop the pan and start replacing individual bearings. the entire motor has to come out and be disassembled. what kind of noise? is it not the oil pump or timing belt? any metal pieces in the oil pan? timing belt idlers or the oil pump could make excessive noise at the front of the engine depending on what happened to it. that the timing belt broke and this thing started making the noise with the new belt seems to indicate to me that something is wrong with a timing belt related item...pulley bearings, bolts, pulleys or the oil pump/oil pump sprockets.

you got until 08 to save!

i'll be doing this tomorrow, i'll let you know how it turns out. i'm wondering if the bolt was stainless steel or something else that didn't take to my wire feed welder? the weld broke loose very easily. no matter now, i really don't have enough material to work with anymore. i'll try extracting the remainder of the drill bit first so i can continue drilling. after that not sure....looks like i have a few options. that steel tubing bit for cutting out the bolt sounds crazy...i like it!

EA82's are easy as pie to do headgaskets on. get those o-rings he mentioned above. they are Subaru only or http://www.thepartsbin.com. autoparts stores won't carry it. might want to look into what headgasket you want to use and whether or not your are going to retorque the gasket. Subaru says to retorque the OEM gasket. some guys do it the way Subaru says, some torque it tigther the first time and don't bother going back in for the retorque. this will be an important decision to make. if you do plan on retorquing the gaskets, install the cam carrier without any sealant around it and don't install the timing belt covers, since you'll be pulling it all right back off after the first start in order to retorque. this will greatly speed up the process. if you do it in the car, have some thick grease handy to hold the rocker arms in place as you install the cams. very easy to do...particularly on the EA82, the 6 cylinder ER27 is much tighter but not bad either. replacing the timing pulleys or bearings is a great idea as well. unless they feel really good, but most are quite noisey and void of grease after nearly 20 years.

i've seen about that much material on the magnets before as well. no problems came about on those vehicles, i bet you're fine. distribute all that fine grit across the many gears, plates and goodies inside the transmission and i bet it doesn't add up to much...like 0.01 mm of surface wear throughout the trans. best to have that crush washer in place, but probably won't leak without it.

you can use any of the online tire size calculators to compare these tires to the ones you're speaking of.

BIT, righto! ....that's what i meant, a larger bit. typo. thanks.

when it starts to run hot are the fans turning on? if none of the fans are turning on that is your problem and a common cause of overheat at idle or in slow traffic. partially clogged radiator and thermostat are other possibilities.

dude...don't even bring up welding. that's how i ALWAYS do it. works every single time...now i can't say that any more. i tried 6 or 7 times and the weld would not hold. couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work this time. it's like the bolt didn't want to take a weld? tried a few different strokes and grounding the nut and bolt, nothing would work. not enough left to weld on now. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

i've used about %50 ATF with no ill effect. i don't usually have to do that, haven't for awhile and really never do unless i acquire something already poorly maintained with valve train noise that won't die. try 1 quart ATF, then 2, then 3....then decide if it's really worth trying to go any further. i woudln't unless there was a real reason...like a noisey HLA that won't shut up. couple quarts of ATF might be better than pulling cams and HLA's.

i'll try extracting it for awhile, but $35 times a couple is fine by me, if i can find them. i'll look around for sure. i plan on having this car awhile so a few dollars is no big deal. i'd rather drill through it than peck around and try things i don't know will work or not. agreed on ez outs, they suck hardcore. up there with snake oil in my oppinion.

thanks a bunch. i'll look at it again, appears i need the entire bumper. but may be able to reuse the original cover. it's not damaged at all, so if it's not distorted it may be good.

i didn't think about larger bolts not breaking, good point....for next time!!! i was wondering if maybe some high-end drill bits would blow through this off the shelf sears craftsman drill bit. i think i might buy a few highstrength bits. any ideas what the strongest drill bits are? cobalt it is? machinist friend for the NIH dropped off a pair of needle nose pliers that are microscopic thin that he made just for extracting very tiny sheared off drill bits. but i doubt i'll get the remnant out....other options will be needed.

great info, thanks. viewed and printed it just fine. my friends definitely have some torn plastic pieces behind the bumper. so if the bumper cover doesn't have any pieces that attach to behind the bumper i guess i need the entire bumper beam and not the cover? the bumper beam has plastic like material on it, not just metal?

water pump bolt sheared off. right angle drill and started drilling the center of it out. drill bit sheared off inside the bolt. can't really see or get to what's left of the drill bit. now what? generic off the shelf sears drill bits. i'll try extracting the drill bit, but i'm thinking i might have to drill around the bolt to get it to come out. i have a spare bad block to experiment on to make sure i don't hit a water jacket or something. many tiny holes all around the bolt until i can wrestle it out.

socket wrench with some hefty whacks from a large hammer will work. hit it hard and fast. it's like a make-shift impact wrench. just did it two days ago. really doesn't take much to get the motor to roll over sitting on the ground, so need to get it to set still/brace it enough to use a breaker bar. they are typically tight and should be...saves your pulley from coming off.

they will fit a stock OBS without clearance issues? picking up a set and not sure if they'll fit my OBS or XT6 without rubbing.

that's awesome you got it running so good Frank! sweet.

there are two different sizes. not sure if one is more common or "stock", but in my experience...mostly with older subaru's though, it could be a 32 or 36 (i think). there could be more than one size. best to take the car, buy the socket, check it outside and if it doesn't fit, return it. or buy the new axle....it should come with a new nut and you can take that into the store with you. or measure it.

gas, just pull the lines and have some towels/old shirt/bucket underneath. not that much gas comes out at all. disconnect the fuel pump wiring harness so it never comes on and tries to push any gas. a/c, just disconnect a line and all the refrigerant blows out, it's that simple. yes it's illegal, but that's the way to do it if you got no other choice. makes a loud freaking noise and starts coming out with some serious force. just loosen and jump away.

1999 Forester L, all black bumper friend was in a minor accident, someone pushed the front corner forward and pulled the bumper apart. do i need to replace the entire bumper or does this thing have a bumper cover? the front is fine, but it looks like plastic tabs and pieces that bolt behind the bumper are ripped off. not sure if this is part of the "cover" or i need the entire bumper? hints on removing it? fairly straight forward? remove bolts underneath and a couple in the engine bay through the frame rail? friend needs the car so i can't play with it for a few days so to speak.

next time the car "gets hot" get out of the car immediately and see if the fans are running. might be the fans not clicking on, that would be more likely than the radiator i would think. is it not still under warranty?

i've seen trans that never really failed...went many many miles with a condition like that. you say "slip" but is it really ever slipping or just a really long delay going into gear? that's two different items. if it's a long delay, it probably won't go away but probably doesn't really matter either. i've seen this a number of times and while annoying it's never caused a failure or gotten significantly worse. if after finally getting in gear it actually slips while shifting and such then i suspect that is a much worse scenario and give your trans a limited life expectancy.

nice job getting it fixed hotdog! i'm surprised the headlight gap is that much. sounds odd. i had a much worse accident in my XT6 and i pulled it out myself with very little gap (and i have NO idea what i'm doing with body work type of stuff). other than a friends honda this was my first attempt. come along is just like a winch, except it's hand powered. very simple. it's like a really heavy duty rathcet...hook it to where you want to pull and start cranking away by hand. very simple. it's best to leave as much bolted up as possible that way as you pull everything else comes with it...comes out just like it went in so to speak. but sounds like you're done with it. maybe you can start another thread about the air bags, i'm really curious about them too. the charge is located in the bag/steering wheel and the sensors that need to be replaced are located where? my OBS needs some air bag work and i have no idea how it works, what to replace or where the computer is, time to start a separate thread hot dog...ready????

all the bolts between the shaft halves and the rear diff are 12 mm bolts. you'll need a good quality wrench for one side (not enough room for a socket) and a socket for the other side. or two wrenches. 2 17mm bolts hold the carrier bearing in place. if i you have a small propane torch you can take along i'd have that handy too. those 12 mm bolts tend to strip very easily as they get seized/rusted and don't want to come off. very annoying. might want to have some axles pin punches and a 17 mm wrench along with 21 mm (or is it 22mm )for the top diff bolt. or just undo the bottom 4 17mm (or 14mm??) bolts that hold the diff to the bushing bracket. this way you can drop the diff if those 12mm bolts are causing troubles. you won't be able to access all 4 bolts around the circumference of the shaft either...usually can get 1, 2 or 3 at once and have to rotate to get the rest. hopefully the donor car is already up so you can just rotate the wheel/hub by hand to turn the shaft. if you won't be able to turn the shaft the job gets really annoying and you might have to drop the entire driveline...rear end included (which isn't that hard...it's only 3 or 6 bolts depending how you want to do it).