jonathan909

I took a look, particularly at jelly man's 2013 thread. Predictably, he got a lot of responses saying "don't do that and here's why". What he didn't get was what he specifically requested (as have I), which is: "I did it and here's what happened." Of course I know what's right, what we're supposed to do, and why. What I want to know is: What exactly happens if you ignore the advice and try anyway? Did it seal at power-up? If yes, how many miles did you put on it before it failed (if it failed)? That's all I want. Not good advice - thousands of those posts around already. Just actual experience.

Well, lazy me. Thanks - I'll dig a little further.

I'm really not looking for a vigorous debate on the relative merits, and I'm quite confident that nobody would ever recommend doing so. I'd just like to hear from someone who's actually tried it. If nobody puts their hand up I may look for an opportunity to experiment with the Mahle pair that just came out of this rebuild (with less than a year of service on them).

On the oil change: That's the plan, and as much because that'll help flush whatever bits of the old bearing metal remain in the passages. I tell ya, I had the block run through the washer at a local engine shop and I scrubbed the oil pan first in my cleaning tank, then in the kitchen sink with soap and water, and then ran it through the dishwasher - and there were still teeny little specks of metal in there that I could wipe off with my finger. It was exactly like the bad old days when strippers didn't get arrested for physical contact with the customers and though you could wash off the whipping cream you'd keep finding glitter in your beard no matter how many damn showers you took... at least, that's what I heard from other guys...

Now this is a man who has his priorities straight. I have no idea why someone would want a car without a hitch, and it's the first thing I do with a new ride too. There are, ladies and gentlemen, sailboats to be towed.

I remember this - in fact, it may have been from a thread that I started, since I came here after not getting what I thought were clear/consistent answers about honing on other fora. Fwiw, I'm not using Subaru rings, though Rock's invoice states Japan as COO for this set (and, curiously, Israel for the bearings). So in real terms, what does that translate to? Keep it under 3K for those first 50 miles, then back to normal?

What is best practice now that this thing is back together? EJ25S with new bearings and rings, everything else as it was.

You can start it by finishing up the install of a newly rebuilt motor and have it turn over first-crank, all the while listening to FZ's "One Size Fits All" cranked to the t!ts. I'd like to extend an offer for all-y'all to share my pleasure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFx0X3jTHeQ If it doesn't add true beauty to your day, I'll refund your 2:38 .

I understand the issue, but please tell me you got the joke.

Sorry, but I'm a little confused, because I've never tried this. If you suck all the air out of it, does it squish down so you can store it in a closet or something?

(Um, didn't mean to hijack the thread with my gas tank problem...)

I've had an alternator or two go out, and have done just fine with replacements from the wrecker. Generally speaking, if the shaft is turning and you're getting 13.5 volts on the battery posts, you're good.

No, it's really deep, really in a bad spot, not the only thing wrong with it, and I already got a replacement last fall that's just been waiting to be put in. This started with the surprise! running-out-of-gas that shouldn't have happened. I figured it was a problem with the sending unit, so I popped the seat and cover and found a very ugly hack on top of the tank involving a brass elbow and big gob of epoxy. To cut to the chase, I think what happened is some PO (the car had a couple) really slammed the underside of the tank, hard enough not only to dent it, but also push the tank up into the cover, breaking the hose fittings and causing the ugly "repair" job, which has the fuel heading to the engine via a replacement rubber hose. And the sending unit was screwed to the tank with the wrong bolts, so all those holes are stripped out now. In other words, a really big Charlie Foxtrot just crying for replacement of the tank and sending unit and restoring the original plumbing. I suspect this mess is implicated not only in my not being able to trust the gauge, but also in the extremely inconsistent fail-to-start behaviour we saw on and off over the winter. I thought it had to do with low ambient temperature, but it's not that consistent. What it does feel like is a lack of fuel, so I'm hoping cleaning up this mess will solve that problem too.

Assembled '01 Forester's EJ25. Because that car's down, my daughter had taken the '99 OBW to work, leaving me to use the '98 Legacy wagon (that's next on the repair list because the exhaust is loud) to go fetch the package from Rock that I needed . This extra juggling is taking place because my now-daily-driver '01 H6 OBW's brakes recently made a nasty noise and I don't want them getting worse... once it gets its turn in the garage I'll also be replacing the gas tank - when I started driving it last summer it didn't take long to discover that the PO had put a big whompin' dent in the tank, precisely under the float, so the gauge sticks at about 1/3 right up until the car stops (and while it's in there I need to pull the stereo and figure out why the CD isn't working, plus make the key fob locks work). Thought about the other '01 H6 OBW that'll be getting HGs this summer. Didn't think about the '95 Legacy wagon. I think that about covers it...

Oh... yeah... right... duh. I don't know about all-y'all, but I'm kind of a slow learner, I don't do this often enough, and this is one of those little details I have to re-learn every time. The thick washers are the ones with the rubber seal molded into the ID, which is kind of obvious for bolts whose heads are immersed.

Understood, but no such this time. As I said, this is a super low budget rebuild on a car that we got for $500, that my girls like, that wasn't written off a couple of years ago when a moose ran them off the road (after the previous two Foresters were destroyed in deer strikes), and that I don't care much about - beyond its ability to provide me with some more experience. I've got a couple of hundred bucks worth of bearings/rings/gaskets going into this rebuild that's otherwise just junkbox, so I wasn't about to start multiplying the investment with pricey machine shop time. Most of all, I just want it the hell out my garage so it's off the list and I can get to all the other work that's queued up! Oh - on the lubricant... yeah, I'm sure you're right about there being volatiles that don't stick around. Maybe some of them do remain as vapour, get absorbed into the metal, etc.

To be clear, no props deserved at this end - I've done a few now, but that only makes me a slightly-less-clueless noob. GD's the guy here to be reckoned with - the number that I've done in my life, that's how many he did this morning before lunch. Oh - and he actually knows what he's doing.

Well, the more times you do it, the less major it becomes, right? High-miles engine spun a couple of rod bearings. Most annoying part is that the bearings went about 8 months after I did the head gaskets. Biggest challenge was just finding a good crank - I'm jammin' econo, since it's my daughters' Forester and I'm not real crazy about those things to start with. Ended up being kinda funny, though. Buddy doing some acreage yard cleaning popped up on the local online buy+sell (kijiji), hoping to get someone to haul off a pile of motors of unknown condition his kid had left lying around - two EJ25s and an EJ20. So I gave him a few bucks and took 'em home like scratch'n'win tickets - how many do I have to pull apart to find a good crank? Two, it turns out, then I gave the EJ20 to the friend I sling these things with.

I figure both are true - that the air in the blind hole is being compressed as you describe, but that it's also at higher pressure to start with, so when vented at 4000 ft. it makes more noise than it would otherwise. Not with you on that part. We'd need to know exactly what's being outgassed in order to determine its vapour pressure, but I doubt it's that high. But on the heating thing: Phase transitions aren't a one-way street. When it cools down it's going to condense back out.

Didn't notice a smell, just the hiss. So what do you figure is going on?

Ah, thanks - that solved it. I had to stare at the drawing for a while, but the six with the thick washers are the ones inside the block proper, in the coolant passages. The thin washers are used on the two short bolts up front between the oil and water pumps, and on the two rearmost long bolts on the outside of the block.

I'm reassembling this thing, and just noticed that the washers on two of the eight long block bolts are smaller than the other six. I didn't note where those bolts were when I pulled it apart. Does it matter where they go? The FSM doesn't indicate anything, and these don't appear to be like the head bolts (where a few of the washers have to be smaller in order to seat down in the casting). In this case, the larger washers seem to fit in all of the bolt positions. Wtf?

Nah, the vapour pressure wouldn't be high enough. This is mos def trapped air. The threads get oil, but the sealant is on the block mating surfaces surrounding the bolt holes, so it's inevitable that some squishes into the bolt holes.

File the sealant part under "goes without saying", as the FSM specifies it, and when the halves get bolted together quite a bit gets squeezed into the holes.

I'm pretty certain it was air at the bottom of the hole and not along the shank; this would be supported by there having been quite a bit of residual sealant in the holes, so I don't think the argument about the spiral gap along the non-contacting thread face holds up - that is, it's the sealant breaking that's allowing the air to escape. And I don't think assembly would be noticeably affected by the pressurizing air as the bolt is tightened - it's just not tha big a space and air is highly compressible, right? But I wasn't working that slowly, and there'd be a much larger volume along the shank, so that's possible too. [edit] Hmm... no, now that I think about it, you're probably right. It was when the head initially broke loose that I heard it, so it's probably the air along the shank. Any escaping the bottom of the hole would come later and not be as loud.