Log1call

Gee you guys, you are all running scared of autos and they are really pretty simple to overhaul... cheap too if you only have to pay for parts and oil. I am a mechanic but I do autos in my country workshop with no manuals, no special gear other than a few bits of threaded rod and steel plates to compress clutch plate spirngs and some nice clean metal cleaning trays. I've done all sorts of makes and models and I tell you, they are generally cheaper than gearboxes that have blown up. How cheaper? .Well first off, with a manual box you have to do clutches more often than you ever have to do an auto, then when the manual breaks, it breaks... gears! All the autos do is wear out the clutches. Most of the problems with the early 4eats have been sorted now and they do up for the cost of clutches, one brake band, a gasket and seal kit and the oil. I often don't even get the torque convertors flushed(on the advice of an auto specialist) but just run oil through it as I'm flushing the trans cooler. It's pretty rare for the gears to be badly worn but if they are I get second-hand ones and get the torque convertor flushed... It still comes out cheaper than doing bearings, synchros and seals on a manual... and then there is still the clutch to do! Autos are just like everything else... take it apart carefully... completely apart... every tiny bit of it. Lay it all out in order as you dismantle it. Take photos or get diagrams if you are not sure where anything comes from. Clean every part and inspect it carefully for all the standard signs of wear... wear(obviously), heat, fatige cracks, warpage. Asses the damage and price parts. If everything looks alright and the price is going to be right clean every part again just as you are putting the part back into the trans. So, you clean the main case and put it on a clean surface, you clean the rear clutch housing and fit new clutches(all soaked in oil), clean and fit the springs and piston and fit them with new seals. Fit the rear clutch. Clean the next part, bearings I think, oil them and fit them. Clean the next clutch housing and fit new clutches too it, then clean the springs and piston. So it goes on. As long as every part is spotless and put back in the same way it came out the trans will work. Clean the valve body, lay it on a clean surface, clean and fit the valves one at a time. It's as simple as doing any work on any car. If you can do a motor you can do a trans... and for less probably. Hey, I'll tell you something else. I have been told by the experts, and these were well respected auto specialists that I were getting parts off over the years, that they quite often just replace the clutch plates that need doing, that they leave the gaskets out of the valve bodies because they cause as much trouble as they are meant to prevent, that they almost never do a bearing or a bush... and they still discribe their work as overhauls. They still guarantee them. And you know what, they are right, nobody knows the difference. The trans go another several hundred thousand kilometres. Believe me, I work for long time regulars, I have overhauled transmissions of my own, they do go for a very long time. Ah well, that's my rant for the day. It kind of annoys me to see the auto "experts" duping people and charging so much for so little expertise. Autos are hard to diagnose, but they are easy to overhaul. Power to the people and have a happy this year everyone.

Given that you drove the car into the workshop, I'd have to suppose that whatever is wrong has been caused by the work you did to the car. I'd stop disturbing stuff for the time being and just look really carefully all around where you were working, especially under the bonnet. You must have bumped something, perhaps a wire, perhaps a vacumm pipe. If you keep fiddling you might just obscure the problem worse than ever in my opinion.

Yes that is a good simple test for lack of spark and lack of fuel. Next step is to extract trouble codes, check for spark, fuel and compression. As has been suggested(well I think it was suggested), you could try pulling the temp sensr off and see if it makes a difference. Just what you do first depends on hw familiar you are with cars, subarus and troubleshooting really. You should check all the fuses. try the ether. If it kicks a bit it will show it has spark. If nothing happens at all I'd pull the plugs and check whether they are wet(or not), put them back on their leads/coils and check for spark anyway.

That's right, no need to touch it for an alignment. They replaced the steering balljoint. That doesn't have a bolt holding it. Then they broke a bolt going into the knuckle that required replacing the knuckle. That presumably will be the lower suspension ball joint's retaining bolt or the ABS retaining bolt, neither of which should be involved in an alignment. Their story does not add up! If they broke either of those bolts it was doing something unnecessary, or only necessary to fix something else they had done wrong/damaged to start with.

The plastic they make the tanks of is very heat sensitive. Up to a cartain temperature they are fine, just a little hotter and it goes brittle and they crack. Once your car has boiled they are always suspect after that and it pays to have the top tank in particular replaced while they are cleaning the radiator if you have done a head gasket. Here the top tank is about seventy dollars where the whole new radiator is six hundred dollars. Those are Kiwi dollars I'm talking.

Gloyale ... I just went a checked and you are right... the temp sensor is monitored at start-up after all. Me bad. Despite that oversight, the rest of my reasoning remains the same. I don't think it fits the circumstances.

They won't/don't sell the parts to the public, well they won't here in New Zealand, you have to be a member of the radiator guys association (or whatever they are). You need to have a special tool to get them apart and back together succesfully really anyway, so leave it to the pro.

I said it because in the cranking situation there are only a couple of sensors being used and the temp sensor isn't one of them. If it fired a bit, tried to go, then flooded, I'd have said something different though. Also, his suspicion was that he had run out of fuel so I was going with what the customer says... they are often right. Feel free to make your own suggestion though.

The end tanks can be replaced. Go see a radiator specialist.

Something wrong with their story I'm afraid. To adjust the wheel alignment they would only be working on two big bolts that have nuts on the other end, so If they broke the bolt they can just change it. The bolt that screws into the knuckle they should not have needed to touch. Check with them which bolt it was that broke and why they needed to work on that bolt. Ask in a bland sort of a voice and look him in the eye as you ask!

I should mention, just checking for EGR trouble codes isn't really enough. The exhaust passages can get blocked with carbon and the valves can get stuck closed with the same build-up over time. To make sure it's actualy working you need to dismantle the valve and blow air through the passages to check they are clear and inspect/decarbonise the EGR valve.

EGR still working?

No it will almost certainly not be the temp. When you turn the key on can you hear the fuel pump running in the back of the car? It should come on for about two seconds when you turn the key on. Can you remember hearing that noise before and if you do remember the noise, does it sound normal? If you did run the car out of fuel they sometimes need quite a bit putting back in to get the fuel pump submerged so it will prime. You could try putting more fuel in there, then turn the key on and off about twenty times without trying to start the car. That will make the pump run for the two seconds I mentioned and fill the fuel filter and lines again. Then try starting it.

I wouldn't use a hardware store nut anywhere on a modern car. Get a proper nut from some helpful mechanic or go see the wreckers and they will give you one for sure, they usually have nail boxes full of nuts and bolts they sell for scrap metal prices or not too much more.

The size of the spanner is not really important(other than, if it had a sixteen mill spanner nut on there the nut had been changed to a N.F. one). The thread size is 10 x 1.25. The nut can be a seventeen spanner size, without the flange on the bottom of it, or it can be a fourteen spanner size with the built in flange. The seventeen mill spanner sized nuts are rarer, the fourteen with flange are common as on all japanese cars and are excellent nuts, hard, don't dig into aluminium and don't work loose.

Most "stuff", on subarus are six, eight and ten, with a few twelves. For the record, we quote bolts sizes by the diameter of the shank, not the head.

Before you move the transmission you should be able to lever the torque converter backwards by about a half inch. You may have to lever/rotate the torque converter around to loosen it from the small locating stub that pokes out the front of the torque converter and fits to the back of the crank by about half an inch. When you put the new trans in and have the bellhousing up to the motor the torque converter should have a half inch of clearance from the flexiplate. If the torque converter touches the flexiplate first... take the trans back out and reseat the torque converter. Do not attempt pulling the trans up to the bellhousing with bolts!!!

Did you try asking one of the mechanics if he had a nut laying around that would do the job? In my workshop I could pick up a handful out of the old nut and bolt bin for you in a second. Unfortunatly for you, I'm in New Zealand! It will be a ten mill by, hmm, I think it is 1.25, and it should have a built in washer under it, not an actual washer but a flange that stops it loosening or digging into the aluminium(did I pronounce that funny?). (Edit) If the subaru agent can't/won't help, go see a toyota, honda, nissan agent. They all use the same nuts all over the cars.

The rust does happen if the cars sit for a while in damp weather. The disk gets hot and clean when the brakes are used which, if there is a bit of moisture around, is a sure fire recipe for rust. Usualy it is just surface rust and cleans off with a drive. If it sits for too long it will eat into the rotors. Next time you park the car after a drive have a peep in through or behind the wheel and see how clean the disks are, then have a look in before you drive it next and you will probably be surprised how much light rust has appeared. There is really no cure for it but regular use. To try and minimize the damage done to the pads you should apply the brakes gently a few times when you first start driving to clear the rust off. If you don't clock up many miles, and don't use your brakes hard, you can probably just ignore the disk problem and change the brake pads a little more frequently. The rough disks will wear the pads faster but pads are a lot cheaper and easier to change than disks.

Yup, rust is what came to mind as soon as I read the discription. Parked for long periods... more than about three days can do it in some climates. Parked up with wet brakes. Parked in humid conditions.

There are probably instructions on here somewhere for extracting the trouble codes but I can't be bothered searching for them so have a look here... http://codes.rennacs.com/Auto-Transmission.php Extract the trouble codes then come back and ask for advice with that information and someone will be able to help you more. It's better not to guess these things, especialy if you are charging for the service.

Overly high compression, bad fuel, too much advance, too lean, too hot, local hot spots, oil burning... they can all cause detonation. How long has it been doing it? I mean if it's just started since you planed the heads then it will be compression, if it's got gradually worse then oil burning or carbon build up. How bad is it? Just a second as you first put your foot down, all the time below certain revs, only when it's hot?

You need to have the oil pressure checked cold and hot, idling and reving to maximum oil pressure. Given that the oil pressure dropped suddenly I would doubt the oil pump was the original problem. If it was the oil pump that caused the problem, but it is now noisy even with the oil light out, I'd doubt a new oil pump will cure the problem.

The ecus will be just above the drivers right knee I think. There are two there, a engine and a transmission computer. The engine is the big one. Take the plastic covers that are under the dash and above your knees away. In some cars there are two, one black one that goes right down to the pedals and another coloured one that's more part of the dash. Use a flat bladed screwdriver to lever gently on the wiring plugs one at a time while you depress their little locking tags which are in the centre side of each plug. Then using spanners, sockets and extensions you can get the ecu out. Take out the philips head screws and inspect the internals carefully. It only takes about half an hour to an hour to do it and get it back together and that is nothing compared to the time you can waste looking for faults that turn out to be a faulty electronic component inside the ecu. From the circumstances of your problem, ie, dies when hot and working hard, then comes right fairly quickly when it cools just a little... I'd be suspecting the crank and cam sensors which have a bit of a reputation for doing that. If not them, then the ignition ignitor which is on the firewall would be my next most likely suspicion. It's the nature of faulty electronics to die when overheating, then to come right way before the motor has cooled much at all. Perhaps the mechanic used a second-hand ignitor?

The mechanic is right, the maf won't cause a no start. They will run rough for a second then the ecu ignores the maf and just uses throttle position and revs to run the car. The crank and cam sensors are the most likely electrical components. All the other sensors the car will run without. Have you checked the fuel pressure and flow though? Changed the fuel filter? Always a good place to start if there are no trouble codes set... which I'm presuming there aren't since you don't mention them. Also... If you are getting elusive, varying, intermittent codes, or no codes at all, and the car is a few years old.... Pull the ecu and have a look inside. Look for blown transistors(they can explode a piece out of the side of them), burnt resistors, cracked circuit boards, dry solder joints, leaking capacitors, water damage. Use a magniying glass and inspect every component, circuit and joint. It only takes a matter of minutes and given the number of things that can happen inside there, and the number of checks you could have to do to track it to there, it's best to do it earlier than later in the diagnostic process.