jonathan909

Situation's rather more complicated than that. STBPOIH (Soon to be previous owner, I hope), who is a FOAF, left it there after a failed DIY oil change that resulted in a blown motor. It's been sitting for 14 months because he was severely dispirited by this (and other life events). Why the shop has allowed this is unknown to me. We're talking about my taking it off his hands for scrap price (or not too much more, I also hope), hence the need for the haul. A few possibilities have surfaced since my original post, including some local (to me) guys who may be flatbedding another car up into the neighborhood of where this one is and were otherwise going to deadhead the return. And if that doesn't fly, I just heard from another friend that U-Haul indeed does carry flatbeds up here - total news to me. So it'll get sorted out... So to return to the original suggestion: With some effort I might be able to convince CAA to do it, but I'd be conning them. Sometimes I'm okay with that, but not so much this time.

Please followup once you nail it down. I want to know if my answer was completely out to lunch.

Any time a fault responds to a wiggle, you really have to dig in and look closely. Last time I had problems that responded to wiggling stuff in the under-hood fuse box ('02 Forester with intermittent ABS fault), the trouble was corrosion in the box's connectors. Pull out the fusible link and look down into the pins it mates with. Any green residue suggesting copper decay?

In Canada it's CAA (and its provincial associations). Yes, we have it and use it with some regularity. Trouble is that the car is at a shop and I want to get it home, and I'm pretty certain that falls outside of their "roadside assistance" parameters.

I just don't think U-Haul does those things up here, but it's worth looking into. One complication is that the car is (predictably) dead, but we should be able to winch it onto a trailer like that with a comealong.

I'm struggling a little with this - just need a one-time hack that'll work "well enough".

Yeah, it just strikes me that if there were a problem with the clutch work, it would have shown up a lot sooner than 30K miles. I'm always extremely suspicious of "coincidental" failures - if you have two problems at the same time they're probably related. But that's an awful lot of time and distance for the two to be related problems; more likely "unfortunately neighboring".

Easy to phrase ambiguously. In case I wasn't clear, I meant "New problem with the transmission unrelated to the clutch change."

Just guessing, but it sounds to me like a new transmission problem unrelated to the clutch change.

I need to move this car 70km, and the flatbed quotes I'm getting are too high, given the circumstances, so I'm considering DIY. First, the information out there (apparently from Subaru) is that flat towing is okay for a car with a manual transmission. Does anyone have facts that contradict this? Second, how to attach my A-frame tow bar? The adapters I have attach via a single bolt (on each side) to/through the bumper/frame - fine for towing old Detroit iron like my Ramblers and Dakota with big steel bolted-on bumpers. But how about the WRX? Taking the bumper off to get at the frame seems like a terrible idea - the parts guy at the local dealer told me that the clips that hold it on are worth more than the bumper itself. So has anyone fabbed an adapter that bolts to the front tiedowns, then reaches down and forward to clear the bumper and connect to the tow bar? Or does someone manufacture towing adapters like this? Am I even thinking in the right direction? Btw, if we go the DIY route, we do have a 2005 Legacy GT handy that we can use as a model. Is that close enough to the 2010 WRX?

First I've heard of it. Are they application-specific?

A little story, if I may. When I bought our first Subaru seven or so years ago, I knew it was overheating and that I'd be jumping into a head gasket job right away. So I started asking questions (on another forum) and found a lot of help, including the same admonition to stick with the OEM thermostat. I asked why, and to the forum's credit I got useful technical answers about its hysteresis characteristics and aperture size - stuff engineer-type geeks like. So I headed on down to the dealer and told the parts jockey that I needed a thermostat. He said "Be right back" and immediately turned to fetch it. I tried to stop him - after all, I hadn't told him which model, year, engine, or temperature I wanted. He replied "We only have one." That was the moment I decided I liked Subarus - a lot.

Okay, then no downside to having one on a motor with an AT.

So why not just always have it there? Why in one case and not the other?

I don't understand. It's just a guard that doesn't contact anything.

I've been meaning to ask about this. Why one and not the other?

Both EJ25S (SOHC), right? If so, yes, but when you do these swaps you generally just trade blocks and keep the intake manifold with the car. That way you avoid any sensor disparities. Oh - does this one mean a change of cam sprocket?

Of course - the difference in both quality and price between OEM and "the aftermarket" is a given. What I was saying is that massive price disparities exist among parts of equivalent OEM quality - that in the stated example, going to the dealer means paying three times as much for the same Mitsuboshi belt. That's all. Not recommending anyone "cheap out"; to the contrary, pointing out that the high-quality/low-price combination exists, so don't get taken. Myself, I like Terry Pratchett's version of that old adage: Make a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

We don't have to get contentious - what you're calling "a treatise" I'd call "a proffered opinion". We do this because the OP may not be aware that such a huge disparity in parts pricing exists, and thus may not know to ask.

Guys, it's always easy to say OEM/dealer, but for an awful lot of stuff it's simply not realistic. There are two dealers here. They quoted me $170 (CDN) for an EJ25D belt - and at that price I would still have had to wait for it to come in from Portland (i.e. no local stock). Instead I landed a Mitsuboshi from an ebay vendor for about a third of that price.

Gotcha. All mine are D. Is it just the 251s that have the valve reliefs, or does that apply to the later pistons (252-255, etc.) as well?

That sounds like a perfectly terrible answer - I despise electrical tape at the best of times, and in this case it's guaranteed to get trashed and spread its disgusting gooey adhesive all over the damn place. But it might be a good diagnostic for a worn latch mechanism.

I have absolutely no idea what pistons these are. I think I asked previously (like before I installed them during the rebuild) how to ID them but didn't get an answer. And it's not as simple as what shipped with a '99 EJ25D, as the original short block was trashed (spun bearings) and I bought a used replacement that (I think) is "somewhat newer". So, assuming I can recall enough detail about them, how can I tell what they are? How many variants are there?

The worst would be a cracked block, but that doesn't seem likely. I'd be getting that timing cover off of there asafp to confirm the water pump.

This isn't a light-and-tinny plate rattle - it's a got-some-mass door rattle. It manifests with normal road vibration; when I wiggle it by hand it seems like there's the play that would cause it. What's left other than the gasket (which seems to be in pretty good shape) and those little springy-things? The latch itself? Do they wear?