nipper

The forgotton Red Headed Step Child Increasing his oil capacity

On ebay they sell them for a good price in pairs. It seems the cutoff is 1998 and Blu is a 1997. Anyone know the difference?

I have never seen non-vnted disc brakes, and yes you need bigger ones on the front since they do 80% of the work.

Head Gasket SUbaru does not burn coolant on HG failure HG failure is internal on this year May or may not overheat May or may not mix fluids

Fronts tend to make more noise then rears, as they have a lot more work to do and are stressed in all axis. Raers are just followers and hard to pin down at first. A stethescope comes in handy but that requires somewhat knowing what you are listening for. If no long hard trips are planned you can wait for the noise to get louder to find out what it is. Sometimes things have to wear more to find them.

Thats about right. But do rotate tires first, it amuses us (one side at a time).

Welcome to 4wd 101. A 4wd car should never be put in 4wd on dry pavement, in addition the sterring whel should not be turned while the car is moving in 4wd on dry ground. This car has classic torque bind, and it is not the cars fault. In addition, there most likley is nothing worng with the car. The front axle and rear axle of a car spin at differnt speeds unless you live in a square state and never make a turn. This differnce in speed in an AWD car is permitted by using a center diff or something like that (in subarus a clutch pack in autos). When this slip is not allowed to happen the driveline binds up and everything locks up. How to fix it? Easy. Jack up the car. it is that easy. this allows for the torque to be released and everything will be frfee to move. I made the same mistake on my first 4wd sooby. And watch out for the virgin switch. nipper

I have Hella's on the roof and the bumper. I use a Cobra 75wxt because I could not find the real estate for a traditional CB radio. I have a mag mount 3' Antenaa from radioshack. Granted I do not transmit much but for weather and traffic/police updates it has never let me down.

Well since you do not know the secret handshake we can not tell you what the purpose of that cover is What happens to the nut? Well if you are the nut it is not a good prognoses. For the car it doesn't mean a thing. It will either sit there where ever it is stuck untill things are taken apart again, or get kicked up by this huge high speed rotating mass and be rendered useless. I would just drive the car in this case. You can leave the cover off for a while and let nature take its course.

Sometimes people ask me why I ask about alt output, but without good output that entire sparkly thing doesnt work well. It is also something to check when diagnosing any wierd fuel or temp gauge issues.

Lets stop beating up subaru on this. Every Mfg from this period on have at least one engine with a HG issue. With subaru they only use really two or three engines, with the 2.5 built to the very edge of what the engine can do. Some mfg told customers to go screw. Chrysler comes to mind as well as Range Rover (their engines would overheat so bad the cylinder liners would shift). Others came up to bat, and others as they realized how big the issue was came around. 136,000 miles and a failed headgasket is not necassarily something that can be blamed on subaru. The older any car gets the more the chances are of a blown HG. Engine ping and coolant contamination for instance are part of the equation. One of the causes of this was new emissions stds and a hp/mpg war that followed. It takes time to fully test a car for 100K, some use 140K. Test protocol, depending upon the level of failure, requires starting the test all over again. Some just dyno test the engine for X hours, which is not real world driving. The issue was industry wide. The three layer HG was a new design to deal with higher combustion pressures and temps required for HP output and emissions. The materials were not quite up to the job, so they had to be constantly tweaked. Add in an open deck or semi open deck design it just adds to the issues. You make it sound like every HG fails in every subaru, it doesnt. In fact an internal failure for this year is rare. Usually it is an external leak. Without knowing how the previous owner took care of the car, subaru can not be blamed for this one. nipper

It is basically chicken soup for soobys, it couldnt hurt.

Coolant jacket getting pressurized = combustion gasses pressurzing cooling system = bad headgasket

Scangauge. Plugs into the OBD2-Canbus port.

Usually you tell them apart by the color they are painted

Thats where I would go too. nipper

2nd fan only comes on with AC. WHy not start with the simple and replace the radiator cap first?

My mistake but you are better equipped then most to do it. ANother thing to check on a really cooked engine is the cylinder liners. If they have shifted game over, engine is scrap.

If you are going to replace the HG, and since you are a pro, I would say either go for it or rebuild. Usually the issue with a sooby bottom end isnt the mains but the connecting rods. Crunch the numbers see what works better. HYou can always tear down the engine then decide.

I've heard mixed reviews. You have the advantage of having the engine delivered to a shop and the tools to easily deal with it. I always questioned the logistics of returning one if it is bad.

Lets try an experiment. Shift the car yourself. If it is heavy traffic leave it in 2nd or 1st. There are only three sources to overheat a tranny. 1- a clogged or failed Transmission heat exchanger in the radiator (best scenario) 2- slipping clutches 3- trailer towing. I am guessing a failed transmission heat exchanger. Do you have an external tranny filter on this car (I think you do). Change the filter to start. Next would be to replace the heat exchanger with a large sized cooler. Cheap ones work just as well as expensive ones. I would bypass the failed heat exchanger all together. If that solves the problem, before winter you need to get an oil thermostat. They are not cheap but shop around you can get one for 60.00 ish. I would invest in a tranny fluid temp gauge. Tranny fluid should never exceede 100 degrees over ambiant temp. Lets hope that is the issue. The tranny shop should have diagnosed the bad heat exchanger. They are evil places, especially if it starts with an A nipper

My concern is always blow-by but i on ocassion get some pushback on that one. My rule still stands at 180K replace engine at 160K go over engine with a fine tooth comb and move on from there I do like the 2.2 idea

Well you answered your own question, replaced engine. I worked for a well known auto parts mfg. An Aftermarket (AM) suppliers has literally 1000's of HG to keep track of. The original part the 1st used may be fine for years. On the other hand, they hit one where the OE may have to tweak it 4,5,6,7 times. OE may have an entire engineering and testing department dedicated to solving a issue which is costing them much bucks on warranty claims. AM has maybe 3-7 engineers and maybe 10-20 techs making sure parts interchange. They can do some testing. They can even do some life testing, but they do not do real engine testing or dyno testing for non-performance parts. When OE comes out with part XXXX.0 and then comes out with everything in between to finally XXXX.7 all dealers will be told to send the old desgn back (for something that has failed) or to scrap it. It may take AM years or multiple complaints to readress a part, unless they have high volume part with inside information. Most AM parts are sold to cars that have miles or age on them. If a second HG fails, rarely does the AM here about it. Also remember that OE and AM are in competition with each other, so OE is not quick to share info or design changes with AM. Ocasionally you will get lucky where an AM supplies OE, b ut even then contractually they have to supply OE first.

non subaru HG's BAD. I love felpro but for HG i always go back to OE no matter the make. The answer really is what kind of condition the car is in and how long do you want to keep it. If it is great and another few years or more, I would go with a used engine. If the car is in poor condition I would go the cheap route.

Why do you need an entire knuckle? Or what are you calling a knuckle. Subarus are giant lego sets. There are very few parts that are not interchangable between powertrains. I would say they are all the same. I use http://opposedforces.com/parts/ as a source for cross checking part numbers.