jonathan909

Sure, but whose recommendation? The people selling the pumps? Until I see one fail, I'm unlikely to be convinced that perfectly good working pumps need replacement. Rock doesn't carry the strongly recommended brands of belts and idlers, otherwise I would have bought them there as well.

Both water pumps failing? I don't have anything as new as yours, but I have yet to have a water pump fail, so I don't routinely replace them as part of a head gasket and/or timing belt job. I'm making a point of experimenting with head gaskets, and so far the answer is clear: If it's multilayer metal, good. If it's not MLM (i.e. "composite"), you're likely to be replacing it again in a year. In my experience to date, manufacturer hasn't mattered, though Actual Experts may point out that my head's up my @$$. Timing belt: Mitsuboshi only. And while you're doing it, replace the toothed idler - it seems to have a much higher incidence of failure than the smooth ones (one of the toothed idlers seizing caused my only catastrophic timing failure to date). I'd have to check on whose I used, but they were Japanese. Rock has a choice of HGs and other gaskets that are fine, but they don't (or didn't last time I bought them) have anything good for the timing parts, so for those I think I tracked down someone on ebay for the best price. I'm doing my second full rebuild now. For my first one I bought the Enginetech full-meal-deal kit, but mainly because the HGs in that kit were trash, this time I'm a-la-carte-ing the sub-kits I need. Oh - head bolts. Some of the bolts I got from Enginetech were, um, "less than straight", but I used 'em anyway. But when their head gaskets leaked out, I re-used my old factory bolts. I don't think I've read a definitive answer regarding re-use of bolts; would like to know what the informed consensus is.

No, I'm thinking pressurized air escaping. It was assembled at low altitude with more air packed in. Come to higher altitude w/ lower air pressure and it escapes.

Not a big question, ain't no thang. Just kinda cool. While splitting this EJ25 block, with each of the block bolts I removed there was a little hiss. Didn't take long to figure out that wherever it was assembled - probably the factory - must have been rather lower altitude than my roughly 4000 ft. The US and Japanese plants are both in the 700 ft neighborhood.

Sheesh - kids.

Little kids. Whaddayagonnado?

Fair enough. Even better would be for the gods to just delete the post asap.

I just left the first negative comment, so they weren't turned off as of an hour ago. I thought about the view count, and am hoping that when you leave them a "thumbs down" (which they can't edit, afaIk) the visit doesn't add to their (paying) count. And if they have to edit the comments, it increases their workload. So in balance I think it's worth a try.

Yeah, loose bolts... The first time I changed the short block in my '99 DOHC OBW (first Sube) I failed to tighten the ground strap on top of the manifold, just to the left of the coil pack. Engine ran just fine. Transmission went wonky. The time I wasted chasing that one down...

If you're annoyed by these, follow the "youtube" link and leave appropriate feedback for them, because it's pretty certain they're not reading our replies here.

I'm going to repeat advice offered previously (a couple of times). The first time I did DOHC heads and was reinstalling an old belt with worn-off markings, I was being a girl and counted teeth just to make damn sure I got it right. Couldn't get the count right. Eventually discovered an error in the diagrams that show the (inter-sprocket) tooth counts that originated in the FSM and was dutifully reprinted by Haynes. However, we're talking about a one-tooth error, so it's not likely to keep you from starting. Ferret54's diagrams are good enough, make sure you got the sensored sprocket on the port (driver's) side intake, and throw a vacuum gauge on just because.

Ah, you're jumping to conclusions. He didn't specify which half he uses, did he?

Nyerk, nyerk, nyerk.

A peripheral comment, but take EXTREME CARE when using Scotchbrite anywhere near an engine and prepare to be absolutely scrupulous about cleaning afterward. The risk is the aluminum oxide particles that are bound into the plastic getting into places (like bearings) where you'd rather not have incredibly destructive abrasives. When I got a bunch of samples (for non-automotive use) from the local 3M rep last summer they included a number of warning sheets about it.

It's a subtle historical and linguistic distinction, but I'm standing by it: The Luddites - as in, those who were alive at the time and followers of Ned Ludd - had a specific objection to new technology that displaced workers. They were genuinely "technophobic" in that they feared the new technologies that would kill human jobs. A Luddite would be best described as a contemporary follower of what he thinks The Luddites believed, which has deformed in modern usage into encompassing anyone who is genuinely technophobic or rejects new technologies for reasons other than fear (note the distinction - I have a lot of trouble with the modern use of "-phobic" because it presumes knowledge of the subject's mental state e.g. is it proper to call someone a "homophobe" if he rejects gays not because he's actually afraid of them, but simply because he's a bigot? If we're to be consistent, why are Jew-haters referred to "anti-Semites" rather than Semitophobes?) or is just lazy and looking for an excuse to avoid learning how to work something new. And I won't touch "neo-" with a stick because nobody knows how to use it properly and it confuses just about everything it gets close to. For example, "neo-liberals" are pretty much the opposite of actual liberals and "neo-classical" is a term favoured by idiots who don't know anything about 20th century contemporary composition.

Confirmed: No such VIN marking on any of these blocks. I do still have (somewhere outside) the borken block from our late '02 Forester, which was a US production car i.e. MPH speedo instead of KM/H. When I get a chance I'll clean it off and look, just for yuks. As for the rods... I make mistakes, but rarely any this obvious. And how are rods measured? I don't get where the 79mm comes from.

I see the land you're talking about, but none of my blocks appear to have markings there. I'll give these a good cleaning to confirm, but I suspect that this is a US marking requirement and they don't do it with Canadian market engines.

Interesting revival of a really old (as in: Predating my owning any Subies by a lot of years) thread, and may come in handy as long as I still have my '99 OBW. But the term "chipboard" makes me a little crazy. There's no such thing - at least, not in electronics.

Awright, here's what I've got. Hoping Smart People (tm) can enlighten me. Pulled "new" block apart, with the pistons off felt a little play in rod 1 - maybe a couple of thou. Once I split it and yanked the caps, I could see that the bearing was just starting to come apart. I think I was lucky here, and that as soon as buddy detected a slight bottom end knock he didn't push it - he stopped and immediately pulled the engine. Will mic the crank over the weekend and confirm it's okay. But I'm really curious about the block diffs. This new one says "EJ25 304" in the casting. Where the halves mate at the top of the bell housing are the numbers 745578 (starboard) and 730865 (port) - I assume those are production serial numbers for the halves. Further over on the port side top (near the starter) is D408442, which I'd guess is the engine's serial number. Nothing that even remotely resembles a VIN. Is anything to be read from those numbers? Other than that, we've got different pistons and rods that are about .050 shorter than the '01 EJ251's. So I'm wondering: Not that I want to do this, but if I did, could I use my old pistons and rods (and heads) with the later block and crank? Or would there be little gotchas waiting to mess me up along the way?

Yes, just not about this, unless you can explain how this feature put people out of work.

Thanks, nice little hack. I don't think I'd go quite so far as to call it a work of "genius", though.

Ah, okay - obvious now looking back at the wikipedia page. So this is likely a 253. I'll check the VIN.

This has been a persistent problem with my '99 OBW for years. Every time I stopped and got out (after driving for a while) I'd get hit with that burning rubber smell. Couldn't figure it out, drove me nuts. Eventually I sussed that it was a leaky PS reservoir/pump that was pooling some fluid on the top of the block. Once the block heated, it'd begin to smell.

That's pretty much my plan - I was really looking for confirmation that the new crank would fit the old block, and which pistons are appropriate. Didn't break the rod, though - the bearing just spun and chewed the crank. I actually haven't gotten as far as measuring the rod to see if it's still usable. I'll be splitting the (new) block first thing tomorrow, and have reasonably high hopes that the crank is okay. As I said, I only have someone's Sharpie scribble to suggest there's a problem; so far I haven't detected any play between the crank and the pistons. I was planning to have the block tanked at a shop (rather than DIY cleaning) just because it's so much nicer to have a really clean substrate to build on. Bearings and rings, natch, and the belt and idler sprocket got replaced (during a head gasket job) with HQ parts only about 8 months before this bearing went, so they'll be reused.

I know, I read it first. That's where I got my guess about it being probably either a 253 or 255. But it's not a substitute for actual first-person knowledge and experience, hence my question.