jonathan909

Hold my beer - watch this.

That's a lot of fuss for something that costs a hundred bucks to replace (here I am on the other side of that argument for a change), but maybe worth giving a shot. Any preferred product for flushing - or any to avoid?

Wot, crickets? I thought that was a good one. Tough room.

Whoa - that's a steep grade alright! What kind of tires do you use with that?

Just got back from another little boat-hauling road trip, this time over the Rockies and into the British Columbia interior, where it's pretty damn hot. Two years ago the town of Lytton burned down after the temperature exceeded the highest ever recorded in Las Vegas. My problem is that in 30+ heat I was barely able to hold the temp gauge's 9-o'clock norm. Any extra load - climbing a hill or turning on the AC - would cause the temp to climb, forcing me to slow down, turn off the AC, even turn on the heater in an effort to keep it from going past the 10-o'clock mark. That I can tweak it on the fly like this suggests that it's a marginal problem, and in the past (e.g. with my old 318 Dakota) the answer was a new rad. 1. Is there any reason not to take the same approach this time? 2. Of the rads available from Rock (in ascending order of price): CSF, Ultra-Power, TYC, FVP, UAC, Koyorad, Agility, GPD, Denso are there any particularly good or particularly bad?

Absotively - I always pull the ground (first) rather than +12. There are some other delightful failure modes as well, such as your big college ring or metal watchband coming between that wrench and ground.

The headlight relays are. The high-beam relay isn't.

Belay that, looks like they're behind the kick panel.

What about the aforementioned kid?

Both the docs and the clicks I'm hearing confirm that it's somewhere over on the passenger side. Before I start pulling stuff apart, can anyone be a little more specific e.g. behind the glove box, or the kick panel, or what? thx.mch.

I've never had an Impreza, just Legacy and Outback wagons and Foresters, but I'd be surprised if there were any difference, because they're all the same engines. Other than pulling the air box and pushing some hoses and wires around, it's a nut and a bolt that holds it to the bell housing. The nut under the starter can be a bit of a PITA to get at, but you can still do it from above.

To close the loop on this: Figured it was time to stop thinking about it and actually do it, since I just completed a 12-day road trip carrying a lot of stuff and pulling a boat, during which the RR wheel well was within a cm of the tire - turns out that in addition to being old and soft, a little less than a turn had broken off of the bottom of the spring (it was intact when I replaced the shocks last summer). When I called the dealer to place an order, the parts guy asked for the last eight, and I don't have a Baja, so I called my buddy who does and he supplied his... and the parts guy said that it listed the 20380AE39A spring, which only confused things. So I ordered two of the 50A, and the idiots in the (Portland?) warehouse shipped one, and I put it in yesterday and it fits fine and looks great, though I won't really know until I load it up. But if it's stiffer, I should be made in the shade.

That's a bit of a head-scratcher, alright. I'm tempted to dig out the drawing and see if anything stands out. My only comment is over your "Something seems to be causing huge resistance somewhere", because the symptoms you describe - particularly the fan slowing down when you try to actuate the window - suggests too high a current draw rather than increased resistance (which would reduce the current). But that doesn't make a lot of sense either, since you've verified the motor and mechanism. [edit] Hmmm... actually... increased resistance somewhere upstream is a possibility too, as that could cause an unusually high voltage drop when the window motor draws serious current. You said you checked the fuses, but did that include the fusible link? They're usually a little less obvious. [end edit] About all I can suggest at the moment is the old tried-and-true "check the grounds". Seriously, a missing ground (or even a broken +12) can cause astonishingly weird symptoms as the current finds an obscure, unanticipated path. And since the wiring harnesses have to pass through the door hinges, that's primo opportunity for a wire to get flexed and broken, or for a little nick in the insulation to allow moisture in to invisibly corrode through the wire inside (that happened to my Grand Cherokee years ago where a +12 passed through the firewall - drove me nuts). p.s. Your punctuation does not go unnoticed; I thought I was the only guy using semicolons these days. But you need to follow a colon with a capital letter...

Great news on the '02 - I love mine, that engine has power to burn. And total agreement on your '96 - our stable includes a '95 2.2 MT that I thought I was buying for parts about ten years ago; on the drive home I realized there was nothing wrong with it that a CV axle, a tailpipe, and a window crank wouldn't fix. And of all our cars, that's the one that's goddamn unstoppable - it isn't a daily driver these days, but a backup that we know we can walk out to in the middle of winter, -30, not plugged in, hasn't been started in months - and it'll just start and run.

Hmm. Good point, worth checking.