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Well compared to the luck I've had with axles..... I've now replaced one twice with parts store axles and still have an axle noise.

Good job sport. That sort of thing can be murder to find. Thanks for telling us the outcome.

The guy who rebuilt my Forester tranny also does the automatics. He reccomends a thourough fluid change every 50,000 miles and says he reckons a lot of automatics whould never come to his place if folks did that. He also reccomends an external cooler.

I've learned to live with my 99 Forester's slapping when cold. Its oil tests were good and it is quiet when warm. On a very cold day with old oil in it the best description I have heard was a woodpecker.

Do a search on piston slap and see if it sounds similar.

I like the idea of starting on gas as it would solve the freezing problems I had. It would be fun to do and a collectors item of sorts but financially not so great just now. Best get an old Mercedes diesel and start collecting french fry oil.

We also had propane problems here in sf. They turn into a propane refrigerator in damp conditions if not warmed quickly. You open the hood and all you see is snow and it won't run until you warm it for several hours. If you raise the engine's compression you can make up for the power loss. Noboy runs it right now around here and many fleets did in the 70s because it was cost effective. Great on foklifts though. If the price is right it's worth the hassle. The CNG stuff we have had lately has required very high pressure and the tank size is a problem. On small busses I can't get enough range, on big one you can intall tanks on the roof to make up for it. Right now the cleanest bus I can buy is gasoline. You can also get CNG and fit them with a trap and they are pretty clean.

Frankly it sounds like it was ridden hard and put away wet. Regardless all you have to do is slot the boltholes at worst. This is really not brain surgery but it seems to be to some shops.

Thanks Kilroy, I'll give that a go!

I'll sure echo that rusty and a bear to remove part. I've only done a few of these but an east coast Legacy a freind brought by to fix up came right out with a few taps. With my Forester you would have thought they were welding in. Regardless of that when they finally came loose the splines were fine.

PAezb, I've got the pix here on my work computer. Send me an email to cookr@samtrans .com and I'll forward these to you. They also contain the first draft of the article which I had Rudy proof read and correct on the automatic tranny stuff. If you are more computer literate than I am and can figure out how to post pix that would be good.

Now if I can just figure out how to reduce the pictures they may help somebody. I used to live in Maine and we had the torch out for anything under the car. I may have gotten my share of corrosion on the axle to hub joint that I removed earlier. This car lived in DC for a while and got salt a few times but not a lot. When I removed the axle the first time I nearly toasted a hub puller and without my six pound sledge I'd still be working on it.

By the way I took pictures of the entire process but it seems they are too big to upload. I'll see if I can reduce the size to get them to work to make this a bit easier for other folks.

Axle Change By Richard Cook At San Carlos Transmission Rudy and Jefte are pros. Subarus seem to be attracted to this little family shop and mine was the second Forester there that day for a life extension. The other one was an automatic and I’ll give you Rudy’s comment on those at the end. When changing an axle these folks make it look easy and I was out of there in a half hour. Jefte put the car on the lift and pulled the wheel with an air wrench. He pulled the axle nut with a large air wrench without straightening the lock in about two seconds. Next he spun the wheel to align the axle pin holes and got the usual 3/16 punch to remove it. The driver’s side has good clearance so no need for an extension. Jefte marked the upper bolt that attaches the strut to the hub assembly since it controls alignment for camber. No need to mark the lower one before removal as it is just a bolt. This is easier than damaging the boot by removing the ball joint. Jefte then removed the inner connector that is held by the pin, arranged the axle so it would not hit the tranny and used a plastic mallet to knock the axle out of the hub. He was helped here by the fact that I had used a hub puller and sledge hammer a couple of weeks ago and greased the spline when I installed the new axle that was defective. I was almost envious, it took me most of a day to remove that axle before. The new axle was branded Cardan. Please don’t buy these even though they are a well known name. The first one I got knocked worse than a lonely ghost and the second knocks like the recently departed, much less. The Cardan did not have a beveled side on the connector to drive the pin into. I had spent a half hour matching splines, but Rudy says no problem. It only goes one way and if you put it on and the hole is not straight just turn it the other direction, it only goes one way, or nit should….. It’s easy to see that he has not put it on wrong, pounded it in and got it stuck like some folks. He holds the light above it and looks for alignment like I did before pounding in the pin. I’ll be looking for another axle in posts you guys have made since Subaru here wants $200 and core for a rebuilt. At this point both father and son worked together for a bit. They put the axle on an angle and worked the hub in first. Then while dad aligned the connector and pin holes Jefte moved the hub assembly up to the strut and locked it in with a bolt. Teamwork! Then after being sure that the pin is aligned on the inner end it is driven home. The alignment bolt is installed and set to the white paint marks and both strut to hub bolts are tightened with an air wrench. The axle nut is installed by hand, tightened by air wrench and torqued to 150 with the brake held. The nut is staked with a punch. Please note that Jefte cleans any contamination off the brake rotor before installing the wheel. The wheel is installed the car let down and the wheel nuts torqued to 80. Rudy says he sees three common failure points on Subaru automatics way before a tranny is worn out. The first is the failure of the high inner drum seal. There are kits to help this including one that has an inner spring forcing Teflon type seal out. There are actually a couple of different kits that fix this in different ways. The second is in the valve body when little moving spacers break up. There are better spacers to cure this. The third is the radiator automatic tranny cooler blocks. This is one you could fix at home with the addition of a tranny cooler. This can actually stop the car from catching a gear as it cannot get fluid circulation. You can also wear out all the usual stuff, but before clutches and the duty solenoid fail a lot of miles tend to be on the car. The solenoid can also fail in the open position which can mean you get no pressure at all. Rudy says change the fluid at 50,000 mile intervals and do yourself a favor by installing a tranny cooler. If you need Subaru transmission work in the San Carlos CA area the shop’s phone number is (650) 622-9210.

I'm beginning to think that you may need to jack up the left side for a half hour, then the right side, let sit for one hour with dipstick out...then if you want to be really sure drain the oil into a pan and measure it then reinstall. I just put a half quart in whenever it looks low because I don't think overfilling hurts it and underfilling sure does. There really is no need for checking the oil to be such an inconsistant pain.

It's going to be a long time but they are both on thier way out. The main way automakers are adressing mileage and polloution is the powertrain.

That's interesting, it seems they used the cable system on the 2.2 back then and the hydraulic on the 2.5.

Take a look at this. This system wa developed for WW2 fighters if I recall. I bet would cure Subaru head gasket woes. http://www.cometic.com/phuzion.aspx

Come on Unibrook, tell us how you really feel................

My 99 had the organic clutch too. It was slipping at about 89,000 miles. I had the TSB fitted and it still gives a tiny bit of chatter when very cold but on inspection the other day at 138,000 miles it still looks fine. I had a shim go and tear up my transfer gears so since the tranny was out it was a good time to pull the pressure plate and look at disc and flywheel wear.

After I put my roller jack handle on my breaker bar the nut was the easiest part of the job. I was looking for four feet of pipe and the handle was right in front of me.

The latest update on the Forester tranny saga. I got it back today after $1600 worth of rebuild,the tranny sounds great but the new left front axle I got from Kragen is definately defective. I'll install another Subaru rebuild axle Monday. The tranny guy found an update that will prevent the same transfer case spacer problem and if any of you guys have it apart you should consider. What failed on my car was that when play developed in the transfer case the spacer at the end got a bang with each shift. Eventually the spacer work hardened and broke putting debris in the gears. This ruined the entire gearset in the transfer case. Subaru's fix is to install a thicker bearing with no spacer to break at all. This hurt but I reckon it was cheaper than another car as the body and suspension is OK. I may buy another engine to rebuild for the day when that shows its ugly head. This would have been cheap if I had a spare tranny I had bought at a deal.

I think thats a great idea too. I've usually just torn everything down which is a time consumer.

I'm sure you checked that injectors are identical and maybe swapped them to check. You covered everything I've seen except mismatched pistons, mismatched heads, and I even saw a Harley with one wrong connectiog rod. That one drove us nuts. Oh yeah, one engine had valve guides too tight one one side too, and I have seen one with shimmed bucket tappets where the clearance was not enough when warm. You can usually hear or feel a bad hydraulic lift after all.

As mentioned before on Subaru head bolts a torque wrench does not matter much. I picked up a Craftsman on sale for cheap and use that for most stuff. I do have a number of things from Harbor Freight and the quality is not that great but for a home user they do the job. Better any torque wrench than none. You can always test them by tightening a bolt to a spec in the vise. Then you test it against another known good wrench. Much better to do it on a liner scale but this can work for home use.