nipper

heheh well you want to expalin to him why he needs monthly oil changes nipper

Always fill up the radiator with the car running, optherwise you can get a false full reading or an airbubble in the cooling system. SO does he know how to check the other fluids under the hood too? nipper

So it never occured to you that the solenoid contacts in the starter can be bad? By no noise do you mean no cranking? Why did you not think the starter/ignition switch is bad, since the ECU has ntohing to do with the starter engaging. If the ECU was bad you would have bigger problems, so I am not convinced thats a issue. Right now thats like assuming since your foot fell asleep you had a stroke. nipper

Any old GM for that matter, did that with my fathers FWD Olds. But i think the control system is more integrated then that, and we may not be that lucky in a sooby, as this is such an unusual problem. I sort of remember someone having this brfor on a sooby, and he needed a TQ. nipper

Woooooooooo slow down. Soobys dont really have an exhaust manifold to speak of. They do but they rarely leak. Leave this to the last thing. If it is a manifold gasket you can feel it leaking with the engine running. Be careful dont burn yourself. Use a peice of paper. Hold a single sheet in your hand and hold it up to the manifold, see if it moves. Lets start with the girgling, get a new radiator cap. That wil also help the slight gauge rise (but climbing a mountain its expected). Knock sensor, just replace it Next pepboys, don't let them touch your car, ever. nipper PS did you do all this work or did you have a shop do it?

One way to find out. The knock sesnor is just a piezoelectric sensor, like a microphone. It makes an AC signal and the ECU processes that signal. If it was me I would give it a shot. nipper

Time for a spedo cable. nipper

Wow i never heard of this on a sooby, but yes your TQ is locking up at the wrong time, and i have the feeling this may not be an electrical issue. The 4eat will lock up in all gears (in theory). http://www.endwrench.com/pdf/feb2004pdf/4EAT.pdf What happens if you manually shift the car? Its possible the solenoid is stuck or one of the internal seals are leaking and allowing fluid to get past. I think maynbe the next thing to look at would be the harnesses and unplug the one that controls the TQ and see what happens. nipper

You have the "auto anti-rust system" which does comsume some minor amount of oil. From what i can tell, keep driving the car. At that mileage it is not worth doing HG on this engine, but all old engines weep. Control the fixable leaks. I wouldnt worry about the weeping HG issue. Drive it like a real car , baby a sooby and they may not like it. Do keep doing regular oil changes and coolant changes. My guess is that you can drive the car like this till the doors fall off. It will not catch fire, but if it ever gets to the point where your choking inside the car, something will have to be addressed. nipper

Dont wled the front diffs. This can make the car impossible to control even at low speeds on paved surfaces, and at some point the car will see paved ground. The front wheels have several jobs to do,m and there is no advantage even in dirt tracks to weld the fronts. Now if this was a 4wd I would say go ahead and weld the rears, as all they do is follow the front and you have some ability to control them. A welded front diff can make it very hard to steer the front wheels on anything except wet grass. nipper

Subaru recomends chainging them "as they have reached the end of thier design life" You may have never owned an interfernce engine. When one of those componenets let go, the valve train stops moving, but the pistons are dtill moving. Pistons can hit valves and make for a lot of damage. If its a DOHC engine you can have valves hiting valves. Also you are only talking parts here. I guarentee you that sometime before the next timing blet change you will need to go in and spend the majority of the money again on labor to replace these parts. There also are the cam and main seals along with re-sealing the oil pump. Finally these are more power ful engines then the earlier ones you may have owned. The parts are under a lot more stress. It is your money to be foolish with. 350.00 vs 2500 or worse 5000 for a new engine is up to you. Just do not blame the subaru when the tensioner you thought was foolish to replace lets go in 10,20,30000 miles and takes your engine out. Murphies rules also guarentees you it will happen at the worst possible moment possible. Preventative maiantanence is never foolish, its just foolish not to do it. Almost all modern engines are interfernce engines. You can probably find a cheaper mechanic for around 650. Why are you going to a dealer for a routine maint item, that seems a bit foolish. nipper

heheh well im your neighbor, im a liilte right of crazy, over in nutz nipper

Unfortunitly ugly and expensive comes with life. An older subaru was more expensive then a 1960's car. All the added saftey equipment and now the new roll over requirements are making for but ugly A pillars. And yes your crazy And i miss my 1987 GL hatch with the 5sp d/r very very much. nipper

I havent heard of them nor where they source thier head gaskets from. I find thier logic flawed, especially on battery acid getting into the coolant. http://allwheeldriveauto.com/subaru-head-gasket-problems-explained/ #3 i think. I live here in NY where alot of cars never get the oil to warm up, have alot of short trips, is very humid in spring summer and fall, and havent seen a dramatic increase in HG failures on newer soobys. Someone has to be a guinie pig, but Their logic just doesnt add up. They do make valid points about maintainng a car, but thats like going into a fortune teller and her saying "i see someone important or close to you is causing you angst" nipper

Your just spoiled, thats all SPOI:ED. My first car had a one speed (gpocart), then those fabulous two speed autos, then those fancy three speeds. nipper

A vacume gauge will tell us if the engine is weak, if the cat is clogged, and a few other things. http://www.classictruckshop.com/clubs/earlyburbs/projects/vac/uum.htm nipper

Well you can spare the expense of a shop and just find a transmission. I just dont want people spending mucho bucks on something that may or may not be condemmned because the car is not in my driveway to see for myself. I just would prefer it to be seen by someone in person. nipper

I wasnt hoping for that answer, you just made life complicated. What I was doing was testing the one way clutch in the torque converter. If that (sprag) clutch goes bad,m the car wont be able to get out of its own way. Sadly on modern automatics there isnt a hell of a lot that we can do over the net. The transmission is obviously in safe mode. If there is no codes that kills my next suggestion, the map sensor. It sounds like to me you have an internal failure. May be time to take it to a professional (AAMCO is not a professional). nipper

I want you to do a simple test. First check the fluid level and condition, does it smell burnt? Do it exactly as i say. We call this a stall speed test. Start the car. Set the parking brake. Stand on the brake pedal. Make sure the car is pointed away from everything. Put the car in drive. Floor the car untill peak engine RPM that is possibel is acheived. This may be as low as 2800 rpm or there abouts. Do this only once, never holding the max engine RPM for any length of time (you can hurt the transmission). This will tell us if it is a Torque Converter problem or something else. nipper PS any questions about this test ask before you do it.

Actually it seems like we are leaning towards an american product nipper

Hes been driving it for three months without a problem. So that rules out the rust issue. Lets do a pood mans compression/leakdown test. Throw a vaucme gauge on it and tell us exactly what it reads and what the needle does. Loosing power as the car warms up is very typical of bad rings. Once the oil thins out the oil that was acting as cylinder sealer thins out and can no longer assist in sealing the rings. I too have ownbed cars with 90 psi compression, but they were slow and had lots of blowby. I am betting those numbers are cold compression numbers (in all seriousness who takes a hot compression test) and most likly drop significantly when the engine is hot. A clogged cat would be also be a consistnat issue, not just when it was warmed up. Yes there may have been rust in the cylinders, but that can wipe out the rings if it is deep enough. nipper

i am not sure if i understand the issue. The engine braking in 1st gear is normal. Limp home mode is usually the car is stuck in 3rd gear and speed limited to 50 mph. The spedo is working so we can rule out dead VSS sensors. When both of them fail, the car wont shift and goes in limp mode. nipper

Just for giggles put a fuel pump pressure testor on the car. one enver knows, odder things have happened nipper

With that mayny few miles, and the description you gave- stuck rings tired rings PO used some magical elixer to try to hide the problem? nipper

Thats not a good compression test result, the numbers are low. Thats a low compression. Do the test again, only this time squirt some oil in each cylinder and give us each number. Sounds like to me the engine is tired. nipper