GeneralDisorder

When you pull the manifold you should be able to tell if they were leaking or not. If they weren't leaking then just keep going till you get the heads off. You don't need to jack the engine up. Everything is accesible with it in place. You will want a 10mm ratcheting wrench for the valve covers though. GD

It's probably just intake manifold gaskets. Don't jump to the head gaskets till you remove the intake manifold and inspect the gaskets. Replace them with ONLY manifold gaskets from the dealership. Other's are not even close to the same. Torque to 12 ft/lbs. GD

I haven't done a rear but I've done a couple front's using that adaptor set. Worked out fine - how familair are you with installing bearings in general? You also need a small puller to remove the outer cone from the hub or a bearing seperator and a press...... You have to decide if you are going to add this tool set and type of work to your garage or not. If it's just a single bearing then it's hard to justify owning the tool as it probably won't cost much more than that to take the knuckle somewhere and have the new bearing installed. The other option, since these fail so rarely (usually it's front's if anything on the early EJ's), is to just replace the whole knuckle with a good used one. That will take less time and probably cost less than just the bearing by itself. By far the quickest and cheapest way to go - but there's always the potential of having to do it a couple times. GD

I reached down between the fan blades and felt the radiator surface (unplug the fan) - it was hot along the top edge and at the inlet/outlet but cold/lukewarm over much of the center of the radiator - this was with the engine starting to climb above half. Replacement radiator is hot all over. Still has bad head gaskets but takes a lot longer to overheat . They probably just made it worse trying to fix the problem with a "repair in a bottle". etc. People talk about having them boiled out, etc - but I get them for right around $100 and I've seen too many of these plastic tank units crack and leak when they get old. They are throw-away radiators IMO. GD

Never heard of such a thing. The only weird thing I know of on 95/96 OBD-II systems is that they have an issue with the "readiness monitors" being incomplete. But all the DMV's know about it and there is an exception filed for this so they will still pass. '96 was in the introduction year of the EJ25D, which has head gasket issues and always did - right up till they phased it in '99. The replacement gaskets fix the problem though. '96 was also the first year for single-port EJ22 heads - but those engines are bullet-proof and I've owned a number of '96's without any problems at all. That's it for '96 engines. I think you must be thinking of another brand of car. GD

Yeah - the radiator could easily be partly clogged. Just check for cold spots on the radiator. A laser temp gun is helpful. Too much of the Holts stop-leak that Subaru sells can clog radiators and heater cores. They say you can use two bottles at once but any more and it could cause problems. I just replaced a radiator on a '97 L - same deal. They probably tried some block sealer and clogged the radiator. GD

Timing belt drives the oil pump so you can't remove the pump without removing the belt. But it's super easy to time them - I do timing belts on SOHC engines all the time and it takes about 3 hours. GD

Sounds like the compressor is locking up or the belts are slipping due to abnormal load (high torque at the compressor). That could be from the compressor being "slugged" with liquid refrigerant (too much charge? R134 requires less system pressure than R12) or an internal mechanical problem. Might be the a bearing in the compressor. Next time it squeels like that - instead of shutting it off, quickly get under the hood and observe what is happening. If the compressor is slow or stopped then you know what the problem is. GD

Ah - I misunderstood then. Sounds like the fan could have failed then or a relay is bad. Both fans run off relay's so the AC fan relay could be toast. It's probably more common for the fan motor to die though - I've seen that a couple times. The fans use the same connector so all you need to do is remove the driver's side fan, slip it under the car and hook it up to the connector for the passenger side fan. Turn on the ignition with the AC/Defrost turned on and if the fan comes on then you know it's not the fan motor. GD

Any enamel should work fine. The valve covers don't get that hot as they are insulated by the cork gaskets. High temp paint would be adviseable on the engine block and heads, etc. GD

If one cycles with the temp and the other comes on with the AC then neither fan has failed.... but you may have a relay problem somewhere as when the AC is on both of the fans should run together. With the AC off only the passenger side fan will cycle. GD

The idiot light is going to tell you if it reaches an unsafe temperature. At which point you shut it down, fix the problem, change the oil, and drive on. I don't see the need for a gauge and frankly it's under warantee so I wouldn't F' with it unless you want to void your warantee. For the time being just leave it alone and if something really goes south then Subaru is going to pick up the tab anyway. As mentioned, the OBD-II port can supply a lot of information if you really need to know the exact temp. GD

There have been mixed reviews of the CCR engines. Frankly, if it weren't for the propensity of EJ25D's to have bottom end problems there would be no question here that you should simply "gasket slap" the thing and be down the road. With any other engine you should have an easy 70k miles left in it which is totally worth the 6 hours and $100 in parts to do the gaskets. Since you have access to good facilities - you should consider just replacing the main and rod bearings, doing a deglaze of the cylinders and fitting new rings. Then you can have the heads resurfaced and a valve job done and put it back in. It's really not that big of a deal - the cost of a bottle brush hone and the parts basically. Once you have the engine out and torn down to the short-block it's not much more work to just split the case and replace the bearings and rings. If you are prepared to pay CCR for this then I sugest you just do it yourself as it will be an excelent learning experience and you can take advantage of all that knowledge at your disposal and you'll know the job is done right or at least who to point the finger at if it's not GD

EA71's may have been produced with hydro-lifters outside the US. I haven't seen one in person but I have heard of them as well as some of them being fuel injected. Defintitely nothing earlier than the EA71 (EA63, etc) had anything but solid lifters. The only engine that for sure had both in the US was the EA81. 83/84 automatic transmission cars had hydro lifters as well as all EA81's produced in '85 and later years. Hydro lifter engines have a gold or silver sticker on the valve covers that says "Do not Adjust Valve Clearances". If the stickers are missing and you suspect it's a hydro engine anyway then you can remove the valve covers and inspect the push-rods. Hydro engines have steel one-peice push rods while solid lifter engines have aluminium pushrods with steel caps. EA82's are always hydro. EJ18's are hydro. EJ22's are hydro till the phase-II engines which went back to solid. I think most of the EJ25's are solid but I'm not as familar with them. GD

Yeah - an EJ FWD tranny will be pretty easy to source from an early Impreza, etc. Should work out fine and have better linkage, etc. No adaptor needed that way. GD

Just swap the diffs or pickup a 4.111 rear diff. Either one is not that hard. While you have stuff apart pull the clutch pack and duty-c solenoid and check them out as well. GD

Since they are all the same on the front (well - GL's are the same as GL's - the headlight buckets are different on DL's, etc) I would do a front clip. The way I did it was to remove the fenders, then cut back as far as I needed to get to unwrecked metal (in my case the problem was a tweaked frame rail in front of the passenger side strut tower). Then I went to the junk yard with my battery powered sawzall and cut a front clip from a wagon - cost me about $35 for the whole thing - I cut back way farther than I did on the wrecked car to insure I had more material than I needed. Then once I had it at home I matched everything up and then bolted up the fenders and latched the hood down to line it up perfectly - tacked it in place, pulled the fenders off and finished up the welding. I used no bondo or other fillter - just straight weld only. I painted it and bolted everything back up. Without lifting the hood you can't even tell it was ever done. Worked out way better than I had imagined. But the car was worthless - only reason I did it was because it only had 118k on the mechanicals and made a nice little $500 beater for the guy I sold it to. Frankly it was more work than the car was worth but the car was free to me so I banked like $400 on the job. GD

100% CO2 and .023 wire. Definitely a wise investment for doing more than just a little sheet metal work. I did a whole front clip on an EA82 with 75/25 and .023 and while it worked out ok I would want CO2 if I were doing it again. GD

Depends on known/unknown history. If you know that it hasn't been severely overheated a bunch of time and you are pretty confident in the bottom end - I would resurface the heads ($35 each) replace the gaskets, and drive on. The repair shouldn't take long, won't cost a lot, and for my money I would gamble the $100 plus my labor on the engine lasting a good bit with new head gaskets. They are just gaskets - not that big of a deal ya know? I would not replace the heads as that will increase cylinder pressure's with the new valve seats, etc - that could be bad on the bottom end. GD

Could be a u-joint in the driveshaft or possibly a rear axle or differential problem. From your description the noise is caused only when the rear output is put under power and doesn't occur when all those components are just coasting. I would get it up in the air (all 4 wheels) and starting looking for damage and shaking things to see if the driveshaft or axles are loose in any way. GD

If it's cabin floor pan metal you are after make sure it's one with a matching transmission type and definitely only get a 4WD. There are clearance issues with the 2WD tunnel sheet metal and the larger transmissions. GD

Being that you have need of "protective coatings" where you live - have you tried talking to any local plating companies about doing a run of zinc for you? Usually it's really reasonable - I got a whole engine cross-member done for $50 - I threw it in with some other small parts and a friend and I split the cost down the middle. The whole run was about $100 for everything. That's assuming you deliver it to them already sand-blasted, prepped, etc. But it's a lot more durrable than paint. As for the lug-nuts - what is different about them that you can't just source them from any old tire shop? A picture would help me. I have a lathe and I'm not afraid to use it...... GD

Man - they are that anal about rust up there? You can't take it to another registration place that's not so picky? That sucks - sorry to hear about your continued roadblocks on this project. GD

Head gaskets can fail in many ways - they can force exhaust gasses into the coolant, they can leak externally, they can mix coolant and oil, but they can also suck coolant into the combustion chamber and burn it. That's not going to show gasses in the coolant. The pressure tester has to seal not only on the very top of the neck but also on the "ridge" that's just below the hole for the overflow bottle tube. That ridge is the actual cooling system pressure seal - when the system pressure reaches a point higher than 0.9 Bar the spring on the cap lifts and allows excess pressure to escape into the overflow bottle. When the system cools it sucks the coolant back in through the same mechanism. GD

Not this mechanic! I just try to offer a better deal than the other guys. GD