NOMAD327

Make sure the front and rear axle ratios are still the same. If they are, the viscous coupling was replaced with the new transaxle, and may be bad.

The B9SC was a concept car that toured the show circuit in 2004. It introduced the “new” look of Subaru to the world, which to me, didn’t look bad on a small sports car body. I hate the Tribeca’s exterior, but you can figure out whether you like it or not for yourself. The point I want to make, is that Hybrids are a terrible investment. There is no real value present, and you will never get your money back. If you arrange to be buried in your Hybrid, and save money on a casket, you will still not get your money back. People buy them because it’s a way to feel smug about themselves, and possibly because they want to pay hundreds a month on a payment, to avoid weekly expense of tens of dollars out of wallet at the pump. They will never be a good used car purchase either, because of the battery. The original owner has a warranty on the battery, so no one knows what a Nickel Metal Hydride battery the size of a briefcase costs, but I am guessing well over a thousand dollars. The one possible application that might make sense would be to use electric on one end and gas engine on the other to give AWD without the extra mechanical parts. At least some of the mechanical complexity would be compensated for. The New Lexus RX400h does this, in part, but more for horsepower, than for economy. At nearly a $10,000 dollar premium, you will not get your money back on an RX400h either. Hybrid vehicles give a huge public relations benefit to Toyota, and to their credit they did the work to be in this position, but the entire industry is now going to have to follow up on a damaged engineering concept to keep up.

until there is a PA plate on the car, no cop is going to be looking for a PA inspection sticker. While the temporary registration is in effect, you should be able to get it inspected.

If you use the gasket it will change the clearance where the o-ring is crushed, possibly causing an internal bypass leak inside the pump. That is of course, if your motor wasn't originally equipped with a gasket. Engines being sealed with RTV is not that new of an idea, and everybody didn't jump on the bandwagon all at once. On my 99 engine, there was no gasket, and it worked fine. If you have the gasket on hand, you can make up your mind when you see what you have.

All loctite thread sealer products are designed to break down at 200 degrees. The difference is ultimate holding strength, Blue is perfectly adequate for keeping a bolt from coming loose, that's what it's for. The intention is that bolts sealed with blue can be broken loose with a wrench, red is intended for bolts that are not likely to be removed again. With clean threads the red is capable of holding until the bolt breaks off unless it is heated to 200 first.

Many people with 2.5 DOHC will initially see overheating only after an extended run, usually at highway speed. It's normally a slow leak of combustion gasses into the coolant, not coolant into the combustion chamber. Oil contamination is not normally present, with a simple headgasket problem. Prices for the repair if needed are normally less with an experienced local mechanic than the dealer, but all Subaru parts should be used in any case. Someone here may be able to recommend a good service location if they know where you live.

The spark plugs go into tubes on all the Subaru engines, and the outer end of the tubes seal to the inside surface of the valve cover with rubber ring gaskets that are usually part of a valve cover gasket set. There should be two cover gaskets and four tube seals in a typical kit, and the work is not too difficult after you move a few things like the washer bottle and slightly move the battery on the drivers side, and the air induction piping and top of air cleaner on the passenger side. (There is a hose about 1" diameter that comes off the bottom of the main piping very easy, if it is not restored the motor will not idle, in fact will barely run!). It is damaging to the spark plugs to run with the oil surrounding them, but changing the plugs early may not be necessary unless the engine has driveability problems. The plugs are about $15 each list, so changing them is not exactly cheap. A little bit of oil will just drain into the cylinder when you pull the plug if you do, otherwise you can displace the oil with soapy water followed by drying with air or small rags. The oil will return quickly, so gasket replacement is the best bet. Where in Pennsylvania do you live?

I’ve looked over the manual and color photos of the pump, and it looks like the high pressure side is the o-ring port, and the suction side is the area between the back of the pump and the engine block, but I can’t be sure. For the most part, it doesn’t really matter, as in one case, a bad seal will allow air in leakage, and reduced oil flow with possibly dry startups. In the other case, pressure against the back of the pump will tend to split the two from one another creating an external oil leak path. I do not think I would want to compromise on clamping force in either case, but the o-ring is at the bottom, so if in fact that is the high pressure side, a missing bolt at the top would probably be a bit less critical. If the bolt broke during the assembly process, it's was probably due to overtightening, and the bolt should not be bound up in the hole. The bolt should respond well to normal bolt extraction techniques which have been covered here from time to time. If it was mine, I would remove the oil pump and try to extract the old bolt shank, whatever it took. The normal torque for these bolts is only about 5 ft. lbs, so overtightening is not hard. To assemble without the bolt being in place, As a minimum, the now vacant hole in the pump body will need to be threaded and a bolt installed, or a solid metal plug press fit into the hole, this would seal any leak path through the empty hole, and should stand up to pressure.

Tomson is correct about the additive being only for the external type leaks the SOHC engines tend to have. It will not help the internal leaks found on the DOHC engine of the type you have. If you are not overheating, there may not be any leak. If there is, there is lots of time to shop around for a better price. There are a lot of independent mechanics with Subaru experience. I should think even with all genuine Subaru parts including water pump and timing belt, a price close to $1000 would be possible.

I've converted a couple of older cars of other brands without doing any massive changeover. I believe the conversion kits have an oil in them which is intended to work in conjunction with the existing oil. My Taurus was converted by a Ford dealer without changing any components, even though the database called for some changes to be made. On R-12, it needed a new can of refrigerant every year. The R-134 which came with a sealant additive is on it's third year now. I do not notice any difference in performance. It may be a bit weaker than an optimum R-12 system, but mine was always trying to be low on gas, so there's a net gain in performance.

There may be something to the California issue with belt interval. I owned a Mitsubishi in the past and the entire model lineup was 60,000 miles. They even had big signs throughout the showroom warning you of the requirement. Same vehicle was sold in California with 100,000 mile change interval. As to the waterpump, on an interference engine, I would think twice about not changing it. These pumps are not known for premature failure, but should the pump seize up, the timing belt will fail almost immediately. If I did go to the trouble to change it out, I would use only a Subaru pump. The tensioner seems to hold up on these so long as it's not showing any signs of trouble, the idlers should all be inspected for trouble, but will probably be OK. The crank oil seals are a real problem and for a couple bucks really needs to be done, along with the o-ring between the oil pump and the block. check the screws on the back of the oil pump tight and probably loctite them as well.

They are normally intended for installations where there are a pair of extremely small speakers mounted in the pillars or top of dashboard. A factory installation or one where all speakers are approximately the same size and power rating would not call for them.

This is about the fifth post recently on vehicles with this problem, mostly 99 or 00 models, no answers yet, but something is up.

Every time the vehicle was serviced at a Subaru dealer, the mileage was entered in their computer and can probably be accessed by your local dealer. Likewise, every state transaction is in a database somewhere in most states, A carfax on the vin number will probably catch at least some points in the car's history even from out of state. If you can't find an approximation of the actual mileage, you will have to assume it's overdue for all scheduled maintenance just to be safe. Mostly timing belt, which would be normally 105,000 miles. On the plus side, they are great cars and it sounds like a good deal.

A lot of the 2.5 engines (maybe all engines from the late 90's) develop an oil leak at the front seal of the engine which blows straight back underneath. I would check for a big dark stain starting at the front center of the engine. These leaks can become pretty bad, but usually at some point the oil starts to get on the exhaust and you will then smell the burning oil.

Just as an aside, the retail outlets that sell paint dabbers seem to have ignored Subaru. (just like trying to find a key blank in a hardware store) The two tone Outback models also have a paint code for the bottom color, and both will be available at the dealer.

My experience with Chrysler products which had the Mitsubishi 3.0 engine with extremely tiny hydraulic lifters was that some brands of oil were better for quieting lifters than other brands. Havoline and Mobil were better, and Pennzoil and Quaker State were worse for example. I believe it had to do with the relative paraffin content of the oil. I frequently used an additive called CD-2 which really worked to quiet the lifters, but it had to be added anew with each oil change. Many other Chrysler guys reported equally good results with the Marvel Mystery Oil, which was about half the cost and easier to find than CD-2. I know CD-2 is very thick, and Marvel Mystery Oil is very runny, what the total effect on viscosity would be, I don’t know. I did not use any special change intervals with the oil mix, and ran the engines to very high mileage with no problems

One thing that can happen when bleeding brakes is you will push the brake pedal down to the floor as part of the process. This will run the master cylinder piston into unexplored territory. The bottom recess of the bore may be fine, but there also may be a buildup of dirt or a rough surface resulting from moisture corrosion. I have seen master cylinders that worked great that were ruined by one full bottom stroke. There doesn't need to be any air in the system to have the low pedal condition occur, because the rubber cups are now damaged and will take a bit longer to catch a full load of fluid. It would be normal to have the second stroke feel better if this was the case. I would not give up on bleeding, because this is the only simple solution left to you. If it ends up needing a master cylinder, this is probably what happened.

I did a search and found a couple relevant threads, but I don't know how to reference or link them to here. The gist of it is you need a hub tamer or similar tool to change out the bearing in place, or you can pull the hub out of the car and have a machine shop press them in

The most obvious difference between the phase 1 and phase 2 engines is the DOHC heads on the phase 1, SOHC heads on the phase 2. Foresters and Imprezzas got the SOHC heads in 99 and Legacy models which include the larger outback models got the SOHC heads in 2000. The weakness on all non turbo 2.5 models is the open deck design, which I believe came to be so the two halves of the block could be die cast. If you look at half of a Subaru block, it’s an extremely complex piece and the older sand castings were more difficult to construct. The open deck design combined with the big bore & short stroke puts a lot of up and down force on the cylinders and they move slightly at the head gasket interface, creating the weak spot in the design. It’s worth noting that 99 Legacy models have a phase 2 block and phase 1 cylinder heads. The newer block is strengthened in a couple of ways, but more at the bottom end I think. Cylinder design is still pretty much the same from the pictures I have seen. Both designs have the same weakness and both get head gasket leaks, although it is combustion gasses into the water jacket on DOHC, and coolant to driveway on SOHC, usually the drivers side rear by most reports. The new design heads may provide a bit more clamping force, or it may just be four years of head gasket development that makes the newer models appear better. I have not read of any vehicles that have failed once the latest design head gasket has been installed, but time will tell. I have a 99 DOHC, and am quite satisfied. I think more about the ways I like the vehicle than ways it may cause trouble. If I was shopping for a new vehicle, I would buy the older model which I like better in any case, and put aside some of the thousands saved to cover any possible future failure. If I already had one model or the other, I wouldn’t dwell on it. I have talked to a couple of dealers and they have done head gasket replacements, but none acted like it was a regular occurrence to do one.

They are made by NGK or DENSO, double platinum, which is required for our ignition systems. (or no platinum). They are $15 list, so you're getting a break. Advance auto sells them for $10 a piece that helps. I have used Autolite double platinum which have a quality appearance with no problems and they are about $6 apiece, but i recommend the NGK, it's only every 60,000 miles.

I always use never sieze whenever threading steel into aluminum (or loctite where applicable). A slight reduction on torque is a good idea with a lubricated fastener unless the spec calls for lubricated fasteners

I have a friend who has a 2000 97,000 miles with auto transmission that doesn't go into drive when he moves the lever. If he rev's the engine, it will feel like it slides gradually into gear and then it will work normally. Reverse works fine. He's done two fluid and filter changes and the problem is the same. A search shows a couple people have had something similar to this problem, but nothing specific as to the final outcome. He is looking at options of dealer or aftermarket rebuild and also swap in of a used transmission, any suggestions for a good course of action?

The 2.5 liter engine's generally agreed upon weak spot is the engine block itself, not the heads. The linked article while offering a good insight is looking at a reverse situation with a 2.2 block. I would not personally consider an oil starved engine to be optimum for a rebuild starting point, because every part of it has been stressed, not just the one bearing that failed first. If it was mine, I would look for a used 2.2 identical to the original, even a bargain one with high miles sounds more favorable to me.

The way it worked for me was I had to turn it in to my insurance company. They paid me and probably went after the shipping company later. It should not affect your insurance rates and you get to deal with someone in your home town