pontoontodd

We've wanted to check out Antelope Canyon, the pictures look amazing, but there was a line of cars waiting to get in for a tour and it hadn't opened yet, so we kept driving. Drove to Canyons of the Ancients in SW Colorado. I drove through a different section of Navajo reservation on the way there through Shonto and hit a few jumps on a dirt road. My wife said she can't really judge what will be a jump but when I hit the gas she knew it would be. We were trying to find a blanket to keep us a little warmer at night. We stumbled on Navajo NM so we hiked a short trail there to an overlook where you could see a settlement built into an overhanging cliff. I took another couple of dirt roads to Kayeta where we also couldn't find blankets but filled up with gas. On the way there I think is where we hit the biggest jump of the trip, at about 50mph we got decent air and should be recorded on gopro. We eventually got to Canyon of the Ancients which is a bunch of fairly small native ruins on poorly marked trails in the southern portion of the park. Saw a small tarantula on one of the spur trails. We drove to Cuttthroat Castle. The main road going to the upper trail is a rough dirt road. Then it gets to a small parking area where you can either hike a mile down to the ruins or drive down a road for high clearance vehicles only. Needless to say we drove down it, it was really not much worse than the main road to the trailhead. Took some pictures of the ruins and headed back. The drive back up was probably faster since I wasn't looking into the sun and had an idea of what obstacles we had to drive over. Didn't have to use low range. Then we drove to Lowry Pueblo, probably the largest ruin in Canyons of the Ancients and saw a bunch of deer and a cool sunset along the way. It was nearly dark by the time we got there but we were able to walk around it and check out the big kiva. Then we drove to Chaco Culture NHP across the border in New Mexico. The road going in to the north entrance was fairly rough. You could have driven it in anything but it was a lot of hard ruts and rattled the car. I was surprised there was no warning sign at the highway. I had reserved a site there for two nights so we could spend all day exploring the ruins. It was another cold night.

We spent a couple days hiking, camping, and visiting with relatives. We headed up I15 and got off near the west end of the Mojave Road. The trans am trail follows this part of it and there is a slot canyon, lakebed, and lava tube in the western section of the trail I wanted to check out. Shortly after we got on the road it crossed a river/pond. I figured since most of the ground was hard that the bottom would be fairly solid. It was swampy and badly rutted and we got stuck just before we made it across. We ran the jacks up before I got out since the water was well above the bottom of the doors. That worked and I was able to get the ramps under the rear tires. The passenger side jack went back in but the driver's side wouldn't move. Eventually I unbolted it and discovered the shaft was bent, so I fed it into the car and unbolted the foot. At least the air and water were warm. First I tried backing up but couldn't but I was able to drive forward onto solid ground. We had been stuck for about a half hour. I used low range but probably didn't need to. That was the only time we got stuck on the trip. We drove along the road to a slot canyon. Walked into that as far as we easily could, had to use headlights for at least half the time, it was a few feet wide but probably hundreds of feet deep. Walls looked like mud with rocks stuck in them. At this point we were a little short on time trying to get to our next destination that afternoon so we tried to follow a supposedly main road out. It was washed out with a big berm in front of the washout so we drove around for a while. Drove on some old small railroad tracks and found a mailbox out in the desert with random stuff in it. We eventually got on a main road farther north and took that up to I15. On the way there was a sign indicating we were in an ORV area which explained all the random tire tracks in the desert that were confusing us. That afternoon we got to Johnson dinosaur track site in St George. It was a pretty cool site that the owner stopped development on when he found dino tracks. A building was constructed over them and they're still working on excavating all the tracks. In the mural along the wall was a Delorean. What other kind of car would have been able to visit that time period? That night we drove to a campground along Lake Powell north of Page.

First stop the next morning was Cinder hills ORV park, we saw some Albert's squirrels and large eared deer on the way in. The Albert's squirrels were cool but we didn't get a good picture of them. Park has trails running everywhere and they're basically all on pea-gravel like cinders, similar to the Badlands off road park but much bigger. Most of it is wooded and the trails just go all over between the trees. Most of the trails were whooped out pretty bad so we had to creep around most of the time. I did climb up one hill that was hundreds of feet high and got us near the top of two hills/mountains with a good view. Started out in second, dropped to first, had to use low range but then ran about half throttle and 3-4000RPM to try to go easy on the car. This is the only time I definitely had to use low range on the trip. The wind was blowing hard from behind and pushing our dust in front of the car. Wound back down around on some other trails and left the park. I think this is when I first noticed the trans will sometimes pop out of first or second when engine braking, usually going down a bumpy slope. Going to try to get a stiffer detent ball spring for that. We headed up to Wupatki and checked out most of the native American ruins there and headed for California. There was a blowhole in the ground which was a small opening to a large cave. Depending on the weather there is either air rushing in or out of this small hole. We met some relatives in southern California and stayed the night.

The next day the odometer turned 234567. We made it to northern Arizona on 40. We wanted to see Grand falls in the Navajo Nation even though we knew it would be dry. I asked a guy at the casino and he said we didn't need passes or permits or anything. Took a dirt road off the interstate that went straight north to the falls. At first it was quite rocky, most of it was wide and fairly smooth but with a lot of washboard. This was the main north/south road in this part of the reservation, the side roads looked worse. We got to the falls and it did look like they would be cool when the water is flowing. We headed west to Flagstaff on slightly better roads. The only campsite open near where we wanted to stay this time of year is Lockett Meadow. It's a somewhat rough and narrow dirt road up the mountain to get there, it's on part of a huge extinct volcano over 8000 feet. This might be the volcano we read about elsewhere that deposited up to 1000 feet of ash on the central US when it erupted millions of years ago. The road closes after the first major snowfall. It was dark by the time we drove up there and it was cold and windy that night. The wind came in gusts, you could hear them coming in the trees every twenty minutes or so and when they got to us they shook the tent. It was probably the coldest sleep we had this trip, not shivering all night cold but not comfortable.

My wife and I took a two week vacation out west with my 99 Outback. Tried not to do any crazy offroading, but we were off pavement most days. Visited relatives, tent camped about half the nights, did some hiking. I wanted to see portions of the Trans American Trail to see what that's like. Didn't get to see much of it but what we saw was not too challenging. I'm going to do a post for each day or two so it's not one giant post. We stopped at Maramec springs state park in MO to stretch our legs a bit and make a sandwich. It's the fifth largest spring in MO and has tons of fish, a few muskrats, small waterfalls, an iron furnace and related equipment.

My friend's Forester has always cranked slow. I've read the Legacy/Outback starter is better than the Impreza/Forester starter, and it definitely looks different like it has gear reduction. They're interchangeable. Cable to the Legacy starter might be longer but I grabbed that out of the same car I took the starter out of, both are pictured below: Old starter from his Forester on top, Outback starter doesn't seem to crank his engine much faster but now we have a spare. He's been driving the Forester for a few weeks now and it's mostly good. AC, cruise, and gas gauge don't work.

My friend got his Forester running again. Needed an ECU and he had to sand the starter ground. Starter is still anemic, so is the one in my Impreza. Since the Legacy/Outback starter is supposed to be better I got one at the pick a part junkyard and he's going to try it. Took the Forester a while to relearn to idle but other than that and some backfiring (only has half an exhaust system) he said it runs smooth, AC still works. When it warms up the alternator doesn't spin, which throws the belt. He has a couple other alternators, none of them work perfectly but one of the others is mostly functional so it's going now. Says there are some scraping noises, he's thinking either rusty drums or a bad wheel bearing. The cruise control hasn't worked for a while so that will be a future troubleshooting project. Since he got that going and we've got my cars pretty intact, we decided to disassemble the short block from the Forester. Came apart pretty easily, even turned once we got the case split a little. Three of the rods are bent though. It looks like that added material in the beam is right about where they want to bend. I wonder if that was added after they started making EJs. Crank still spins nicely in the block so it can't be bent much. Pistons look pretty good except a chip out of one of the skirts. They slid out of the bores much more easily than I thought they would. Piston pins came out easy too. I think the main thing keeping it from rotating was with that one rod shortened the piston couldn't go all the way down. Plus he said some of the idlers were seized up.

I think a gas tank guard is one of the first things I'd do to a Subaru I was going to take off road after an oil pan guard. I can never understand why people make rear diff guards but not gas tank guards. The tank on my Outback got bashed in without one, and we do nothing like Gloyale is doing! I think that caused the siphon out of the driver's side to stop working. Here is one guard we made: Not pretty but bolts to the diff mount and kept the gas tank from getting worse. This is one we made for my friend's Forester that bolts to the diff mount and subframe mounts. I have bent the subframe mounts back on my Outback, this reinforces those and gives more support to the guard at the same time. This is what we did for my Outback when we put the fuel cell in back. Ties into the rear bumper for a smoother and stronger departure angle. That horizontal tube right behind the rear diff is absolutely smashed now, so it's probably doing its job.

Get mud tires. Mud is where you'll have the most traction problems, you want mud tires for mud. I've tried Hankook and BFG mud tires in 215/75/15. The Hankooks are actually about 1" wider and I think I prefer the way they handle, but I haven't had the BFGs long and really haven't tried them in soft mud yet.

While I had the trans out I did some other things. Put the stock passenger seat back in. Inner tie rods were slightly loose so I replaced those. We set the toe and centered up the steering. Coolant wasn't really 50/50 anymore so I drained that and we put in a new thermostat (old one had holes drilled in it) and fresh 50/50 for the winter. New exhaust manifold gaskets. We fixed the hood latch, the safety catch was hanging up so my friend ground part of the lip off so it didn't catch on that. I turned up a delrin bushing for that shifter u joint, the stock bushings were starting to go. Put in a new throwout bearing. Got the windshield replaced a while ago. While it was out (they brought the wrong one the first time) I tried to seal up the sheetmetal in front of it. This is what that looked like after we pulled the body back together: I just bent it back relatively flat and put RTV on it. Super thin so I don't think welding it would have strengthened the car much and I probably would have just gotten weld spatter in the blower motor. A while ago I'd fabbed up this bracket for the passenger side tablet. The rubber came off the RAM ball mount by the end of the V2R. This one is much stiffer, thinking about doing something more solid like this for the center tablet. I took this picture while the windshield was out. I made the visors before the V2R, helps with glare a little bit.

I got the pins out of the saddles. Had to weld a piece of metal to the one for the pinion bearing to get it out. Put small pieces of rubber under both to space them up. The one for the pinion bearing is sticking up too high in this picture but you can push it down with your finger so it's only sticking up a little bit. Now I can tell when the pins are lined up with the holes in the bearings. The next problem I ran into was that the ring gear rubbed on the dual range selector ring. In the picture below you can see the dual range ring gear (right) had a chamfer on the outer face. The one out of my old trans (left) did not. So I put it in the lathe and took the angle grinder to it, turned out like this. Dual range original ring gear on the left, modified one on the right. This was the best picture I could get of the clearance issue, high range is the worst case, has some clearance now. So I got the rest of the trans together. A couple of my friends stopped by and we got it in the car and hooked everything up. We drove out to our other friend's woods and tested the dual range again, my friend who usually goes on trips and races with me was impressed with what it could do. Put 60+ miles on it and it's quiet so far, not noticeably leaking, and shifts through all the gears.

Mainly just using ring and pinion from another gearbox. Most of the other bearings seemed good except those I posted. I measured the backlash at .006".

More pictures of the carnage. You can see the flats worn in some of the rollers, at least one of them was sideways when I took it apart, not sure if it was really going around that way while it was together. You can see the wear on the pinion shaft too. You can also see the needle bearing got toasty. Here you can see where some RTV has plugged one of the oil holes. That has to be from my assembly, it was sealed up with gray stuff before and I used red stuff. Gear paint came in, so I checked the R&P mesh this morning. Here is where I started once I had good backlash and preload on the diff bearings: drive side coast side FSM seemed to indicate the pinion needed thicker shims, so I did that and re set the backlash. drive coast Seems pretty good now, if anything maybe it should have more backlash based on the mesh pattern but it is right in the middle of the spec in the FSM at .006". One half adjustment on both diff bearings brings it up to .008", which is over spec. Any experts out there have an opinion?

I'm guessing when it got assembled one time someone didn't line those up and tightened things down, pushing the pins almost flush and leaving marks on the bearing. Probably what cracked the one that broke. I got that hollow shaft polished out so the pinion shaft spins in it, then swapped around the washers on the small end to get the drag called out in the FSM. Next up is R&P mesh, going to try to get it close and then have to wait because I had to order gear paint, no one in town seemed to have it.

I did mark them with a Sharpie but since they were basically pushed down flush there was no feel. I'll get them sticking up a little. I made a bushing for my Impreza and I know what you mean. I just thought if I could get a new cross deal for reasonable it would save me some time, but the dealer wants $70. Next question, the big needle bearing next to that bearing that failed will not fit back in the hollow shaft that holds all the gears. The hollow shaft from the dual range measures a few thousandths smaller than the one from my old trans. Both pinion shafts measure the same and the bearings fit the same. I'm thinking I'll just polish out the hollow shaft, just wondering if it should be a press fit for some reason. I'd really prefer to use the gearstack that was in the dual range since it looks very good and has a little more overdrive in fifth.

Good to know. I can't imagine these bearings spinning but OK. These pins were pushed down almost flush. I think I can get them out and shim them up a bit.

Since that bearing just rides on the pinion shaft, which is worn about .010" now, I will probably just use a different used ring and pinion out of one of my other transmissions. Anybody know how important it is to really use those pins? I was thinking about just grinding them flush. Either that or I have to pull them out and space them up a bit so I can actually tell if they're lined up with the bearings. Also, I can't seem to find the shifter cross joint on the Subaru dealer site or Rock Auto. I know I've seen them for sale before, I think from the dealer for about $30. The bushings in this one are going out so I'd like to replace that while it's all apart.

Upper shaft had no wiggle. I decided to just pull the trans since I had most of the work done with everything disconnected. I think I discovered the source of the noise: I may not have had the pin lined up perfectly with the hole, but I could tell when I had it apart last time that it had been put together and not lined up before. Probably why the pins are pushed flush with the bearing saddles. So now for the fun of disassembling that shaft, replacing the bearing, and trying to set up the front R&P. Anyone know what year/model that bearing should fit? Like I said, the transfer gear bearings are different than the ones in my original 99 trans, so I'm wondering if this one is too.

You mean the one with the snapring on it? I can see it but I can't see any of the balls or anything to tell if it's failed. Also in these pictures you can see the high/low cable shift in place.

In the process of getting at the trans I took out the propshaft. Looks like it might have been rubbing a little, but who knows when. Might have been rubbing on the little bracket that bolts to the trans tunnel that holds the shifter brace/pivot so I hammered that up a little. Judging by how much rubbing and scraping I've heard, I think it would look a lot worse if had been the propshaft. This is after I cleaned up the middle. I cleaned up the whole thing and painted it so I can tell if it rubs again. Most of the Subaru trans experts I talked to suggested the noise was probably coming from the rear transfer gears, bearings, or center diff bearing. I took the back of the transmission apart. Didn't see any bearings noticeably sloppy or discolored. I did notice this one has tapered roller bearings for the upper rear shaft and a bolt on bearing for the lower rear shaft. The original trans in this car had normal ball bearings for all three. I probably should have listened to jf1sf5 and played with diff bearing adjustment first. All drive subaroo also said that was the most likely cause of the noise. So that will probably be next.

The one on the rear transfer gears? Or the one on the end of the input shaft? I'm working on taking the tailhousing off. Several people have suggested the rear transfer gears / bearings / rear center diff bearing are most likely to be causing the noise, and I figure I have to pull most of the same parts out of the way to check that in the car, if it's not obviously something back there, the whole trans will come back out.

Took the Outback to our friend's place and gave him a ride in the woods with the low range. We were both impressed with what it could do. You can creep up pretty steep obstacles at a walking pace. Then I got it high centered, partially because I was trying to go as slow as possible so I had no momentum. Fortunately with the electric jacks and recovery ramps we got off quickly and easily. I got some video but it's probably not very good. By the time I'd gotten out to his place (before offroading) the car was making some intermittent scraping noises, kind of like a brake dust shield rubbing or a dried out worn ball bearing. Definitely load and vehicle speed dependent, mainly makes noise when engine braking or coasting down. Sometimes it will make noise for a minute and then go quiet for a minute. He thought it was something out at the passenger front wheel. He noticed the RF IB CV boot was torn so I replaced that when I got home but didn't see anything out at the wheel rubbing or scraping. By the time I got home it was making some noise even in neutral when the car was stopped. I crawled under and the noise was definitely coming from the trans, not sure if from inside or the throwout bearing. When it does this and you push in the clutch the noise goes away. My wife and I went to central Illinois to go camping this weekend. Weather forecast turned out to be accurate and they had nice weather and it rained at home. Took the kayaks with us and had a good time. The relevant part of this story is that the trans continued to make the scraping noise intermittently, but never when under load, for the ~400 mile trip. The only other noise I noticed was a few times when we got back into town accelerating from a stop it would make a squealing noise, usually in second, kind of like when you first start up some cars and the belts squeal. This trans does have more overdrive than the stock Outback trans, which is nice, drops RPMs to about 3500 at 80mph in fifth. It can still accelerate up a grade into a headwind with the kayaks on the roof so it's not too much overdrive. If anybody else has transmission noise ideas I'd like to hear them.

Boy would I be happy with the backside of the gears being dirty and just needing to be run. Sounds like a good explanation!

Any idea what in the transmission would cause a gravelly noise while engine braking or coasting down?

You can get tires shaved, used to be a common thing for "stock" road racing classes. You could try to find a used tire with the same diameter as your worn tires. Since even the same brand, model, and size of tire can vary in size, that will be tough since you'd have to measure them inflated. One thing I've done a couple times is just to replace two tires, either diagonal or both on left or right side of car. Center diff is by far the most likely to go out.