cookie

this won't help but a lot of us have done that. In the late 60s I had a 442 Olds I really could not afford gas for. We used to shift it into neutral on hills and I think everybody who drove it hit reverse a time or two. The engine would lock up and the car would go into a spin. As soon as you calmed down you could hold it to the floor and after a few churns it would start up and motor on. Still ran fine when sold a few years later. Sorry to hear about your tranny. by the way I've also seen two manuals killed by catching reverse. My girl friend blew gears in the road from my Volvo and my friend Rick killed his 66 Chevy. His locked up and tore the engine off the mounts so he took the plates and left.

Seems to me the BMW special oil for Ms is 10-60 but my earlier M does not require that.

good lord TC. lucky you came out of that one! All the best and get well soon.

Evar have your engine oil analized? It's amazing how one quart top up can bring oil back to life with fresh additves. I reckon the tranny drain and fill works similarly. We analize all our fleet stuff because an oil change on a Diesel locmotive ain't cheap. It's amazing how they bring fluids back to life with filtering and top ups.

99 Forester on the original wheel bearing at 132,000 and counting. I bet the lack of salt and frost heaves is the reason the survive well in CA.

And a lot of torque bind at that age gets fixed by a fluid change a perhaps limited slip additive. If it were mine I'd change the head gaskets and fluids and drive the heck out of it. I couught mine at about 80,000 miles and did major work, seals, clutch, head gaskets... For the last two years I've changed the oil. I have 132,000 on the sucker now and it runs far better than when I bought it. I expect to sell at 200, 250,000.

If you're in Maine in the winter I sure would not worry. Most of the new cars are going to that anyway.

those suckers even corrode on here in CA. I block it up solidly and have used my six pound sledge on some. I've also had good luck with a large piece of 4x4 about 4 feet long. I hate when easterners bring thier rusty cars here for major maintence beofr3e driving home. At least on one Subaru we just had to fix a wiper, but the engine blew on that one.

I:headbang: use a bit of antisieze and paint the hub part of the rotors to avoid this.

Frag, Hope all goes well with our brother to the north. Cookie

Geeod luck on it Sean.

Yup, only one side slaps. Two pistons would be fine. It was cold today and my Forester (132,000 miles) had a prettty good slap for the first three blocks. It's gone when it warms up and the oil test says no unusual wear. Havoline dino oil helps the noise and I've just learned to live with it.

Do you guys think we should have a sticker for our cars that says subaru head gasket club? The initiation fee is already at least $1200 which is high so at least a sticker would be appropriate. nipper can't join because he threw a rod first. Nyaa, nyaa, nyaa.

99 Forester, 130,000 + miles. It's had all reccomended service plus struts, head gaskets, and clutch.

Seals usually have a surface with a rubber lip that runs on the rotating area. Conventional use is to oil or grease this surface. Drive it in flat and straight making sure you end with the lip on a good wearing surface.

Hearse for dedicated subie fans?//??

Gary, Do you think an indy would charge him a full grand? Seems like a couple of local guys here have gotten that done for closer to $800. That's not at the dealer though.

If it is a tranny with another problem they will break one up. The real problem in wrecking yards is they often know nothing about a car. If you had a friend that ,say, blew third gear, you might be able to get a deal on a known good extension. Sometimes a Subaru place will take one out for another problem and sell you a good extension, they know extensions are valuable and would save them.

That reminds me of why I left Maine. Touching the bike sounds a bit scary as I hate it when my car becomes a sled.

assumeing nothing else is wrong with the car I'd do the rebuild. If you were to shiop around I bet you could get a reliable job done for $800 up there, it might take a drive to do it though. Check for Richie Rich on this board (Subaru mechanic) and see if he can reccomend a place near you. You might have to pm him.

My 99 Forester had the organic clutch too, it chattered terribly and died at 89,000. The new parts reduce chatter to almost none so be sure that you get the new numbers.

also the later 2.5 phase 2 is pretty easy.

I got towed in from a broken flex plate in my Jeep.

if you are going to get an older Subaru a lot of us would reccoment something with the unburstable 2.2.

I'm not sure of Subaru production dates, but often about 50% of a given year car may be produced the prior year. This would make it even tricker to see when a gasket released in 03 hit the production line. they are going to use up currnet stocks before the new ones are installed after all, and the engines are usually built before the cars, sometimes up to a year. Look at American production of the phase 2. The Japanese lines got it a year before the American lines. When we shipped Toyota stuff to Fremont for assembly the dates on the containers for powertain stuff were often several months behind.