Gnuman

Where is Groveland? I'm in Oakley which is near Antioch (halfway between SF and Sac). That sounds like your fuel sender unit in the tank needs to be repaired or replaced. I can probably have a look at it for you if you want (I love to drive by the way). Send me a PM if you are interested?

Nothing much to add except that you are vaporlocked, and need to burp the system. the coolant gushing out was what got pushed out when the air trapped in the system expanded and pushed the coolant in front of it. . .

OK, I mainly offered because I have a bit of familiarity with this car, in that I have worked on them before. . .

I'm also interested in the job. There is a shop I can rent out in Richmond CA. What are you interested in paying for the labor (did you say that you have all the parts?)? I can tow it down as part of the package.

If you drive it like a regular sport coupe, it will hold up just fine, and have a high level of reliability. If you beat the snot out of it and drive it like a rocketship on a regular basis, your reliability will be slightly less. . .

From what I understand, the incidence of failure depends on how hard the car is driven, and how close attention you pay to the temp guage. If most of your driving is on the highway, and yor car never overheats, you should have no problems. . . If you actually use the HP that comes with the 2.5L engine, however. . . .

Not very blody likely. . . . Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. . . SOA seems to think that North American drivers do not need to ever leave the pavement. . .

Bert, if your clutch is slipping a bit, then what you smell is the clutch burning. Adjust the cable according to my post above. One other thing that may contribute to clutch slippage at cold temps is condensation. That thin film of water on the flywheel wil contribute to clutch slippage until it burns off (which happens fairly quickly) when the engine warms up. This is why there are slots on the clutch plate (to minimise the effects of this condensation).

Being very familliar with the '93 manual clutch, I have this box of hope that you can deliver to your friend. the cable adjustment is indeed two nuts that are tightened together to keep the setting. they are a 10mm and a 12mm (I recomend a pair of box wrenches) at 180K miles, that clutch may be on it's last legs, but loostening the cable a couple of turns will extend the life long enough for your friend to save up the cash for a clutch (parts will be about $250-$300, I recomending gettng the flywheel turned as well, which cost me about $45). Does he do his own work? If not the whole thing should run between $600 and $900. when you adjust the cable, make it a bit sloppy (when you push the fork back by hand, you should have about 1/4" of room when you pull on the cable to check clearance). The '93 has the same adjustment that my '92 has, BTW. . .

It would be less of a problem if I hadn't noticed the speedo jump with no corresponding change in velocity while I was driving down the freeway. . . There is a guy I do work for that has a Legacy cluster that he will let me dig into to see if that helps. If it does, I'll post that here and you will know how to fix your Legacy. I do a fair bit of "outside the envelope" operations in this Legacy, and I need my instruments to be accurate because of it (sometimes I shave safety a bit close, if you know what I mean. . . . )

I know that the autos have two: one in the tranny, and one in the guage cluster. I'm wondering if the manuals have one or two. either way, is there a way to adjust it? Or is this a case of a part needing to be replaced?

As you can probably tell from the title, this may be a bit of a ramble. I took the Legacy on it's first real road trip (one just for recreation) over the weekend, and it performed very well (one tank went for 395miles before I fouind a place to fill up, then only took 14.1 gallons to fill). One annoyance (particularly when I was driving a lot of really twisty mountain roads) is that the speedo seemed to be reading a fairly constant 10MPH high. Is there a fix for this? Even with really bad struts, the car held the road like it was glued on, and when I blipped the accelerator, the car jumped forward like it was saying go ahead, I wanna run!!! I also found a lot of the roadsthat are used in making all those car and tire comercials that you see all over the place. They are all filmed on Rt 1 in Mendicino and Humboldt counties. When I returned home, I found that my supplier finally had some Seafoam in stock (I had been wanting to do this for a while) so I got a can and just ran it through the vacume line. While waiting for the car to warm up, I cleaned the headlights with the brake fluid/toothpaste method. I will know in the AM how well everything worked. the only real problem I'm having right now, after all that is the speedo reading so high. is there a way to adjust this? do I need new VSS modules (I have a manual tranny, is there one in there, or is it just the one in the dash/speedo cluster?) Are there any adjustments that I can do, or do I need to farm this one out?

The ECU is located under the dash, to the left of the steering column. it is pretty far up and a bit hard to get to. Yes, the A/C turns both fans on, to force air over the condensor (which is in front of the radiator) Have you checked the relay that turns on the fans at the fuse box under the hood?

Thanks, Simbly. You beat me to that and saved me from having to say it. Mtnpat, there are a few "gotchas" that you will have to look out for, that make the job a lot harder than it probably should be. One is that there is likely some differences in the wiring between the auto and manual tranny cars, as in differences in the wiring to the engine, lots of stuff under the dash, etc. . . I also hate auto transmissions, myself, as they make the whole car a lot harder to work on with tranny components in the way all over the place. . . How is your Baja a "dog"? Perhaps there is a much easier/cheaper way to de-canine your 'Roo?

Only one of the best rebuilders of Subaru engines in the country. . . http://www.ccrengines.com/ check it out. . .

IIRC, both sensors are located in the coolant crossover pipe (ubnder the intake manifold). The one to the temp gage has one wire, and the one to the ECU has two or three, I think. They are right next to each other, on the passenger side of the TB

phoenix1125, first off I live about 50 miles from you. My recomendation is to flush the coolant from the system and check the radiator for flow (also for cracks around the cap area, where you saw steam and the hose was wet/slippery). Shoot me a PM if you want directions to my place and I can help you burp the system. After you see it for the first time, you will be able to do it yourself easily.

Each time I burp a Subaru engine, it gets easier. Points to remember are to point the nose uphill as much as you can, then fill from the top radiator hose as much as you can , then connect it to the radiator, and fill from the radiator fill until it is topped off. then start the car and let it warm up. when the fans come on, the car is warm. Keep filling untill you get no more bubbles and the level does not go down. Put the cap on and fill the overflow bottle/tank.open and close the bleeder screw on the top passenger side until there are no bubbles coming out of there either. let it run for a bit and make sure the fans cycle on and off.

To her: No, the suspension was higher so that people can go out in nature further to enjoy it's riches. The lower gas milage was due to the lower gearing to make better use of that three inches. She should be grateful that the car sacrificed it's life to protect hers. This was a bad situation from the start. when she hit the dirt, she was already out of control (first from being asleep, then from overcontrolling when she was startled awake) She should honour the spirit of the car that served her so faithfully, by not blaming it for her mistakes. Beware of the karma that you build when you do things like that.

If the balljoint is bad, it has likely been in there a long time. chances are that the alignment was done at least once when the balljoint was "marginal" (particularly if the previous owner went to a "not so reputable" shop. . .), and with the new ball joint putting everything in it's correct place, those adjustments are now "out of whack", and need to be corrected.

Is there an echo in here? Well here we go again: do not ever put an aftermarket T-stat in a Subie. Change that out first, with a Genuine Subaru thermostat. With the age of your car, a new waterpump would also be a good idea. Since you have to remove the timing belt to get the waterpump out, how many miles are on it? If you are over half the lifespan of the timing belt, go ahead and replace that while you are in there (this last is a might as well kinda thing). The most likely culprit is the thermostat, however, so that should be changed now. If you want to wait on replacing the waterpump until it is time to change the timing belt, well that is your gamble. When you do, however, do use a genuine Subaru waterpump as well. the aftermarket ones are crap in comparison.

More fun to drive? Do you already have the alloy rims? If not get them. struts and a rear sway bar get my vote as well, along with good rubber to hold you to the road. Under the hood there is not a lot that needs to be done, unless you are looking to make a rally racer out of it, inwhich case you probably need uo upgrade to an Imprezza (as there are more mods available for it. . .) Oh, and keep the salt from the roads off of it as much as you can.

The lines into the firewall get cold, and the inside fans come on? If it is not getting cold at that point, I would say that you are not getting air over the evaporator. the blower has to have an input and an output in order to move air. It may also be that there is air going over the unit, but it is not getting to the vents. The most likely reason for this (as has been said before) is that a door betwen the evaporator and the rest of the heater/vent/AC system is not opening.

Where did you find refrigerant without oil already added? Most if not all of them have the oil in them. Look at the can to be sure. . .

Simply put, those that have problems with the PTFE additives wil also have problems with this, and for the same reason: the possability that the coating provided by this product could restrict the flow of oil through the small passages, particularly in the areas of bottom end berrings, and valve lifters for example.