jonathan909

I understand the failures with truly crap gaskets - I used, as a conscious experiment, the non-MLM pair that came with an Enginetech (full) rebuild kit, and sure enough they failed right at the one-year mark. But I've had no problems to date with Mahle MLMs. Not arguing for them, just reporting my results.

All of the Subarus I had or have are from '95 to '02, including an '02 Forester, and they're all as I described. Download the installation instructions for a Curt, Hidden Hitch, Drawtite, etc., for your model/year and they'll show you where the plugs/holes are.

Can you explain the "770" designation to me? And you don't like the Mahle or Reinz gaskets? Is this just on "OEM principle", or have you seen high(er) failure rates with them? They're the more/most expensive of aftermarket, so hardly at the bottom-garbage-end. On the CA thing: The sticker says it's CA-compliant, but what I want to know is whether that affects the BOM for doing the head gasket job.

Fair enough. But now I've made clear that it's a 4 and still haven't gotten an answer to the question.

Somehow the spring clip "went away", and the pin just vibrated out.

(sorry, posting glitch)

(Sorry, posting glitch)

Worth mentioning: I've towed boats all over this continent for 40 years with an insert pinned as described above. Then, a couple of summers ago, we were on our way across the Rockies from BC back to Alberta - climbing a hill, in the rain, in heavy traffic - when the pin chose to take its leave. First and only time I've ever been saved by the safety chains, and now every one of our towing vehicles has a locking pin. No more of that spring clip nonsense for me again, ever.

Well, I have been doing this long enough to not ask which 4 it is if there's a 6 under the hood. I've also been doing just fine with aftermarket gaskets (MLM all, of course), so will probably go with Mahle this time around. And I don't have a problem with the "old school" flatness check, either. I've got a machinist's rule and good feeler gauges. But I'd still like an answer to the CA question, if anyone can help.

Of course - if there's no self-serve yard around, they're entitled to make a buck.

From a SELF-SERVE yard in your neighborhood, $33. https://www.picknpull.com/part-pricing/165?navitem=t&searchcriteria=t

I'm helping out a friend with this one - HGs, as usual, so they're engine questions. First, this is an EJ253, right? Second, as I shop (Rock) for the gaskets, I see a lot of chatter about head bolts. Understanding that the older EJ25s I've been working on to date don't use torque-to-yield bolts and that bolt re-use is normal, is that still the case with this engine? That is, is the "new bolts required" bit bu11sh!t? Third, it's a US (rather than Canada) production car, so how do I tell if it's California? Asking because I gather that in that case there's an extra plenum/gasket (or something) to consider.

Hmmm... since you said "pick n pull" I thought you meant Pick-n-Pull. I see they don't have anything south of Salinas and Fresno. Bummer.

I feel your pain on the four-hour round trip - here it's more like two hours. But all the $75 does is extend the warranty to 60 days - 30 day return/replacement applies to everything: https://www.picknpull.com/about/policies

This is actually quite interesting. Apparently the toothed idler suffers a much higher failure rate than the smooth ones, which is odd if you consider that it has the same bearings, and is spinning at exactly the same rate, as the smooth ones. The only timing failure I've experienced to date was the toothed idler seizing, so it gets changed too when I change the belt. My guess is that the constant engagement/disengagement of the teeth generates a lot of vibration that degrades the bearings faster than in the smooth idlers.

Ah - a new one from a junkyard - weird. Do you know exactly which one it is?

We have two pick-n-pull yards here, and why you'd want to do all that expensive and high-hassle messing with that head - rather than just returning it to them for an exchange - is beyond me. Take it back and get one without the trashed journals.

One can always improvise, but I made a point of mentioning it because the hardware is a bit specific. IIrc, they use big carriage bolts so they'll seat into the slots in the frame from the inside, then you spin the nut on from below. So the square/locking portion of the carriage bolt head has to be the right size. Also, there are little clamping plates that are used to bolt up to the tiedown loops on the frame. I'm assuming from the price (3x what my local self-serve yard charges, as the $30 I quoted is canuck bucks) and your question that you're dealing with a full-service yard, otherwise you could just be sure to get the hardware yourself. If that's the case, they're charging a very hefty premium to yank four bolts, so tell them you're expecting to get ALL the hardware.

What, holes drilled in the frame? If we're talking about one of the aftermarket hitches I mentioned (Curt, Hidden Hitch) or similar, nonsense. The necessary holes are already there; they have plastic plugs in them that just have to be popped out and the attachment bolts fished in. [edit] Oh - and make sure you get all the hardware, including the bolts that have to be fished back out of the frame. Getting them is a little fiddly, but not hard.

As @idosubaru indicated, the Legacy/OBW hitch and Forester hitch are completely different - different frames. I've had excellent luck at the self-serve yards here, and (surprisingly) the big bolts used to attach the hitches have never been frozen/seized/rusted in place (though we don't have salt air...). Always been able to pull them with nothing more than a 1/2" ratchet/breaker bar and flat wrenches, and they set me back about $30. The only annoying part of the job is getting the charcoal box out of the way.

These aftermarkets are about as light as they get - I don't do any heavy towing either - sailboats that are usually no more than 500 lb. total weight. No such thing as a bumper hitch here - there's simply no load bearing structure in there to attach to.

Never used a U-Haul hitch, but I've done lots of Curt and Hidden Hitch on late 90s-early 00s Legacy Wagons, Outbacks, and Foresters and never needed power tools for any part of it. The only tricky bit is fishing the bolt into the frame with the fish-tape-wire-thingy (that's a technical term). I've gotten all my hitches from the boneyard and then gotten the thingies from local hitch shops for nothing.

I'd put yet another junkbox regulator on to see what I got, and it's behaving much like the original one, though the idle has improved. With the return line disconnected and dumping to bucket, there's good flow and 36psi on the rail, which didn't change when I reconnected to the return line to the tank (making a restriction there unlikely to be the problem). So I'm sensing that maybe the problem here is marginal, perhaps from a slightly low manifold vacuum. If the book's calling for 30-34 psi, and I'm seeing 36 (via an admittedly cheap and uncalibrated gauge), would the takeaway be that once one gets much over 36 the ECU can't shorten the injection time enough and it starts to run too rich?

Ah, okay... so the regulated pressure is simply the difference between the unregulated and manifold vacuum. Easiest way to check, I'd guess, is to pull off the return hose and direct it into a bucket. If that's the problem, can I just blow out the return line, or will something at the tank interfere or be damaged?

Hmm... I'm not sure I'm learning anything here. I tried swapping in a fuel pressure regulator from the junkpile - the same style as the one in the car. The result was that the rail pressure actually went up - consistently over 40psi now, though more stable - but it didn't seem to alter the misbehaviour. As soon as the engine warms up and switches out of cold idle, it runs rough. One interpretation of this could be that the problem is that the pressure is still too high, but I'm skeptical about that, since I've never had a regulator problem before. Am I on the right track?