paulbellefeuille

Excellent idea! Thanks

Howdy! My neighbor has inherited his dad's 2003 Forester with 140,000 on the clock. He's asking $4300 for it and I'm willing to offer him $3500. He'll consider any reasonable offers. Here's the thing.. It needs tires and he's not sure if the timing belt has been done. I'm pretty sure that the belt has been done but I'm wondering about the head gaskets. The oil is nice and clean on the stick.. and the puke tank looks okay. My bigger concern is since it hasn't been run in awhile could the head gaskets dry out and cause trouble? As always I value your opinions.. Thanks!!

Many years ago..at least 8.. I was stripping out a couple of Subaru Legacy wagons for parts.. their drive trains pretty much toast. Well I was looking thru my stash of parts and found two trays that I think went in the back... but where? Here are a couple of pictures.. They have notches in them for the cargo cover.. I guess.. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!!

Okay here's one that probably comes up alot but since I don't get a chance to come by here very often I thought I'd ask. My wife's '99 Impreza with 85,000 on it just had the CEL come on for code PO440. Evaporation system. I changed the gas cap and the light remains on. I don't hear any vacuum leaks when the hood is up. So I put the question out to you all. What could the problem be?

thanks for all your help. it appears that the 'quick fix' was indeed what happened.

My wife recently bought a 1999 Impreza wagon with 77,000 miles on it. Private sale. I noticed that the brakes were a little soft so today I decided to do a brake job on it. I was surprised to find that it had drum brakes in the back. Here's where it gets weird. The front right pads were completely worn out and they were original Subie pads. The driver's side had replacement pads from Autozone and they looked almost new. The rear shoes were almost new. What puzzles me most is why only the left front pads were replaced and why didn't they exhibit more wear? Were the right fronts doing all the work? The car didn't pull when the brakes were applied; I just thought that they needed to be done due to a soft pedal.

Thanks very much! I'll try it this week.!

Howdy! My wife just bought a '99 Impreza wagon.. not Outback.. with 77,000 miles on it.. really. My question is how do you adjust the rear doors? The top of the right rear door is sticking out just enough to create a wind noise and the trim sticks out as well. The bottom of the door is also too far inward. It's a sweet car once we get the cigarette smoke smell out of it.

The right side was WORSE than the left side..lol.. I covered the top of the caliper and the caliper boot with a cloth soaked in Evapo-Rust. I also placed a heat lamp on it for a few days. The heat lamp was used because the stuff works best in 60 degree plus temperatures and night have been down to 20 degrees. After a couple of days, the Evapo-Rust did its job and the caliper slid right off. Thankfully the rear brakes were fine.. just had to clean up the slides and re-lube everything with some of that Permatex Ultra-Disc Brake Caliper Lube.. It works great!

Thanks! I went to Advance and picked one up! Yaaaaayy!! Now on to the next wheel.....

Thanks!

I bought the Evapo-Rust at Autozone. $19.99 for a gallon. Available in quart size at Autozone too. Now the next issue is getting a new boot for the end of the pin.. Dealers want $29.00 to $32.00 for the complete set of boots and seals for 1 caliper.... "Sorry sir you have to buy the set.." I saw some made by Carlson for $5.00 on-line. Does anyone have experience with Carlson rubber products??

Well.. here's what I did.. unconventional but it worked and I did it with very little heat, no PB Blaster or anything caustic.. A few weeks ago I started using Evapo-Rust on my 1955 Packard Clipper and found that it worked incredibly well but you had to soak everything in order for the rust to dissolve. Evapo-Rust is actually an enzyme that eats iron oxide better known as rust.. I wrapped the caliper with a rag that I soaked in Evapo-Rust and let it sit for a few days. I also covered the rag with plastic to help keep the stuff from drying out. This morning I went out removed the rag and tapped the caliper with a hammer. I didn't have to wail on it.. Remember now this thing was frozen and I tried beating the crap out of it but to no avail.. After a few taps the caliper slid off of the pin..free as can be! The cost? Well about 50 cents worth of Evapo-rust and few days of patience. The stuff works best at 60 degrees and I put one of those warming lamps with the aluminum shade and a 100 watt light bulb. We've had over night temps below 30 this week and some rain so I could only use the lamp for a few night. I took pictures of the process and will post them later..

Yes you are correct and thank you for your input. the main issue is getting the caliper OFF of the pin. I'm going out to check on everything since I sprayed the pin again before quitting last night, and will report back. Thanks again to all of you!

I'll try compressing it even further. It seems to be all the way in. It's the edge of the caliper body that is hitting the outside pad..just enough to prevent it from slipping all the way down. When I took the old pads off the inside pad was thinner than the outside one. We just got the car the other day from a wholesaler and knew that the brakes needed work. Thanks for your suggestions!

I've done brake jobs before on my Legacy and had no trouble. It's not the piston I compressed it with a C-clamp and can swing it up to put in pads. When I swing it back down it doesn't come all the way back down leading me to guess that the upper pin is bent. I can't slide the caliper off of the upper pin either. It's frozen on..I've put PB Blaster on it before giving up for the day. Hopefully that will free it up enough so I can replace the upper pin.

Yeah you've probably seen this question at least once this past month and today is only the 3rd.. I'm doing a brake job on my wife's '96 Impreza..and while trying to get the front left caliper to fit back down over the pads I noticed that it can't get past the new pads to properly reseat. Pads are fine. I had a hard time originally swinging the caliper up due to ..among other things rust.. I sprayed so PB Blaster on the upper pin so that I could get it free and it worked. But as I mentioned before, trying to get the caliper to re-align is not working. It looks as if the upper pin could be bent.. and trying to even get the caliper off of the pin is impossible. I can't heat up the pin as I don't have a torch. So the question is how do I remove the caliper form the upper pin? Thanks in advance for your help.. you guys always come through!

Howdy, I'm trying to figure out if the 1991 Legacy wagon moonroof will fit a 1993 Legacy sedan to replace one that is broken.. Any input is appreciated! Thanks in advance!

I've "fixed" master switches in the past. If you can disassemble it, you'll find that the contacts get grubby. Use a pencil eraser to clean them and you should be good to go.. have a safe trip!

Thanks! I'm swapping a '97 AWD wagon into a '93 AWD wagon and have my fingers crossed. Of course it makes it difficult to hold wrenches that way..

It's been awhile since I've been on board so this question may have been answered a bunch of times.. here goes: I have a 93 Impreza AWD wagon and the automatic transmission sometimes takes forever to shift from 2nd to 3rd revving as high as 4,000 and refusing to shift..sometimes for as log as 20 minutes then all of a sudden it does.Other times when it begins to act weird, I shut off the engine, start it back up and it runs fine.. I'm suspicious of the TCU (transmission control unit) and I have the chance to get another one. The number on mine are 31711 AC113 and the replacement is 31771 AD 540. Would this swap out work?? Thanks as always for your input!

Thanks for all your suggestions.. I'll let you know how I make out!

I have a 1993 Legacy wagon with 165,000 on the odo and it now needs new front hubs. Is it possible to swap out hubs from a a newer wrecking yard Legacy? Here in NH the early '90s models are hard to find in yards. Also is it something that I could do myself? I've done brake jobs and the like. I just can't see spending $750 right after spending $1100 earlier this year on it..I only paid $700 for it last December. I owned a '91 wagon, put 120,000 miles on it and never had any front end trouble!

I use a whitening toothpaste that is available at Dollar-type discount stores It's "White" It's "Natural" but if I combine the two names I get a nasty note form the manufacturers legal department..no joke.. It work very very well..just apply a ribbon of the stuff to a dry cloth and gently rub.. the paste will do the work. Then follow it up with an orange-type cleaner to remove the residue. Total cost is less than half a buck.. and you have enough paste to do 3 pairs of lights.

Howdy! My wife's '93 Impreza with a 1.8 and an automatic AWD tranny and 150,000 mi. has been giving us fits lately. Upon starting the car..and it doesn't always happen..it seems as if it is starting off in 2nd gear. Then it shifts slower than normal, sometimes revving up to 3500 RPM before shifting in 3rd or 4th. The other night when I was driving it from Boston to our house in So NH about an hour drive, it didn't shift into 4th at all! I wound up driving it while it revved to 4000 almost all the way home. I recently changed the tranny fluid, thinking that would help but it hasn't changed a bit. The old fluid was dirty but no metal chunks. The magnet in the pan did have some stuff stuck to it but it was microscopic. Could it be that the transmission "brain" is bad?? Today it started to give me a hassle and I shut off the engine waited about 20 seconds and fired it back up without any trouble. Once again, this problem doesn't happen. Thanks in advance for your help!