nipper

not replace, re seal the oil pump. Subarus can leak and not leave a stain in your driveway. They do love leaking onto the exhaust pipes and making smoke though. nipper

i'm hiberanting untill either it hits 25 or we get snow. Then i'll come out nipper

It runs me 650.00 u.s. including the tensioner (dont forget to repalce that). nipper

Actually get the 1940 book. nipper

now my insurance dance starts. My insurance company wnats the back award and is going to adjust my loss of income for the extra money. not to mention they are now three months late on my last loss of income check.

It is . Assume all engines are, it's a fact of life. All 2.5L are. Switching from dino to syn will cause some initial leaks, but then it should stop. If they are still leaking, it just means that they were going to start leaking sooner or later anyway. Don't switch back, it can make things worse. nipper

Any shop can fix it and recharge it. Get the compressor yourself to save money. The ac system may have refridgerant in it under high pressure. I can only tell you to let a shop depressurize it since i have an AC license. nipper

i got addicted to BBC America while i was laid up (still am laid up somewhat). Good news / Bad News is i got my decison on SSI disabilty (they said yes). I also did some paper clock kits, they take a lot of time to do. nipper

So it has a gap toothed grin.... nipper

Untill emissions change again and we have another 8 years of growing pains. nipper

Well do we get to know the outcome? nipper

Depends upon your interest. This is the book that got me started http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Antique-Audels-New-Automobile-Guide-Graham-1938_W0QQitemZ140082095458QQihZ004QQcategoryZ29223QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Its a great begineers book (audels Automobile Guide 1938), as it covers so much basic material, in a depth that nothing else covers. Yes the book is from 1938, but the basics have not changed. I have lent my copy out to many people to get a good foundation. Granted somethings in it don't exist anymore, but for a good foundation nothing beats it. It is also a simple read, and if you like mechanical things, its fascinating. Variablle cam timing is the only thing thats new under the sun. Ecerything else has sort of been around in one form or another since before we cranked our first car. After you go through that book, Look for "how to care for your subaru for the complete idiot". After those two books haynes or the facotry manual will make so much more sense. I also found "how to keep your VW alive" was very good at explaining Fuel injection. VW was one of the first to put electronic fuel injection in all thier cars. It was around earlier, but theirs actually worked. nipper

age. We are talking a 96 and a 95. things break, nothing lasts for ever. Its not wide spread. Under the hood is a very hostile place. nipper

How to tell a great shop. They see the engine is wet underneath (with no drips). They steam clean the engine and tell you to come back in a week. Find somone like that, they are gold. I have one of those. nipper

I heard that if you have a neon, expect to blow a HG. Its so bad every one will need to be replaced at some point. Problem isnt a steel block, its a steel open deck block. Steel blocks and aluminum heads have been around a long long time. nipper

Make murphies law work for you, i did that with the ignitor in my 87, and a ballast resistor in an old chrysler. nipper

a good succesful powder coat is all in the preperation. nipper

I have been researching this alot, across all boards. It seems something happened in the mid 90's where HG failures started showing up on many makes. Some engines were as small as 2.0L, others were V-6's (honda toyota GM chrysler subaru to name a few). http://www.babcox.com/editorial/us/us80222.htm I tend to agree with this with one addition. Open deck/Hybrid deck design all came into fashion starting in the 1990's. Even honda has had an issue with it. Look at this http://hondaswap.com/general-tech-maintenance/open-deck-closed-deck-64559/ Look at the dramatic difference between open and closed. A hybrid is a open deck with more support. The alarming thing is that ALL theories for all open/hybrid deck design leans to lack of support of the cylinder liners or complicated dynamics involved to make a system that seals. In my professional opnion, early HG failure (below 40,000 miles) is a probelm of supporting the sleaves, and or an assembly issue at the factory. Anything above that is the Sealing dynamics of the gasket itself. From a nissan Performance site: "The weak point of the VQ (nissan) block is its open deck construction and freestanding bores. Nissan did this so the cylinder top end would be more evenly heated to reduce hydrocarbon emissions. Open decks also lend themselves to die casting better. The bad part about this is when the engine is loaded hard, the unsupported cylinders walk around compromising head seal and eventually cracking from the pressure." What happened is that the theory got ahead of the technology with the open/hybrid deck. In Subaru they finally got the combustion chamber to seal properly, but the sealing forces were lower around the edges of the gasket. I don't know what causes it to happen on the same place externally every time. The Gasket technology just wasnt up to the job. Now all across the board HG failure has almost disapeared. Its taken almost 10 years to come up with a good head gasket. It's been a very long learning curve. Not only do they have to redesign the HG, but they als have to make sure it doesnt interfer with emissions. Once en engine is certitifed, they can make lower emissions on a change, but not higher emissions. Just my observations and thoughts. nipper

aluminum. And surprisingly powder coating is not that expenisve, but there may be some labor charges may apply. http://www.finishing.com/Library/pennisi/powder.html

Well hes got to have something to read nipper

Only one way to find out, get out the yellow pages and call some powder coaters. nipper

How aboutt hose of us who think your crazy? The old addage comes to mind, with enough cash all things are possible nipper

Luke .... use the codes luke..... use the codes.... Get the codes scanned. It can be an o2 sensor, or knock sensor, or a combination. i'm betting knock sesnor, but pull the codes first. nipper

http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070118/FREE/70117001&Profile=1010 stilll needs work nipper

I dont like aftermarket air filters. They can contimnate the sensative electronics by letting much more dirt through then OE, and i consider them a useless expense on a daily driver. They get more flow by having larger pores, so more dirt gets by. Its even worse if they are oiled filters. This is not good for an engine that gets over 200,000 of life from a stock air filter (subaru has to be doing something right). Now this is just basic engine physics, not a bad thing, just unacceptable in the NVH that todays drivers demands. If you want to confirm this, put the old filter back on. nipper