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I was thinking about all the folks who use the mark at the front of the pulley. It seems like anybody who uses that does not run at all. I've been lucky enough not to have had this problem as the only Subie belt I ever changed was in New Zealand and the local shop who sold me the belt carefully warned me of the problem.

Yup, i'd try retiming it again. I think if you use the wrong crank mark it won't run, but a number of folks have gotten one tooth off and made a poor runner.

The only difference I see from what I normally buy is the little slots and sort of tread on the underside. Maybe some other manufactuers have this now as it ony seems to make sense. The ones I have been removing tend to be prefectly smooth on the underside or have ridges paralell to the length of the belt. Out here some folks have reported good results in curing belt slip in the heavy rains. We are now using them on our cars, trucks, and busses in our fleet as they seem to be an improvement. They aren't much more expensive, run quieter and cooler, help with slip, show a tiny power improvement on the dyno, and are supposed to last longer. (we'll see here in time). So far I don't see much to not like, but they are just fan belts.

If you google them there might be a picture. You have to ignore all the NASCAR crap as I assume anybody who gives belts to NASCAR free can be thier official supplier.

Yep, I'm sure that's true nip. But regardless the Gatorbacks have little lumps and it seems to have cured the start up squeal on my BMW at least for now.

On brake hoses, one time I had a truck that seemed to be refusing to get air out of the lines. These things were a pain to bleed with hydraulic remote boosters low on the frame controlled by a hydraulic control line from the master cyl. We screwed with it for some time before I had my assistant hold the pedal down. One fairly new brake line looked like it had a four inch ballon in the middle.

When I was a kid people used to get Diesel oil from work and put it in thier cars. When the car was full of crud the high detergent was famous for puggin lifters and such. All you heard were the scare stories so I never heard of any good benefits. It seems like if you ran it from an early age it would be a superior oil, I'm sorry to hear it was no quieter.

I've had boosters that were bad that I could not hear hiss and passed every test I could think of or find in the manuals. I think sometimes they can seal except under load, but I don't really know. The fact was when I chnged them the problem stopped. It might have to do with a port or valving or even adjustment of the push rod and the problem got cleared up by the replacement. How many times have you disassembled someting, done nothing and put it back together to have it work? The key to me would be that it has hard brakes when off and loses them when the engine is on. But heck, that's nearly the last thing to try anyway, and it always seems like the last thing I try fixes the problem!

IMHO your booster is bad. This is one of the behaviors I have seen when I used to repair trucks.

Its been a while since I put in a wheel bearing and most of the ones I did were trucks and busses. Usually takes you a while to learn the tricks but next time its easy.

One of my friends who is now with our IT department used to be the guy the dealers called when they could not isolate a problem. He says the only accurate way is to have them on a scanner and watch them operate.

Ahhhhhh, so it wasn't flashing just staying on, yup the doh! switch strikes again.

Nope, the Forester has the hazard switch on the dash. Probably just the switch.

clutch chatter is for manuals only. Automatics do have clutchs that can chatter when worn, but I have not seen that much.

Ya know TC, it makes you wonder. The same folks make belts as make tires. They figured out that tires work better with tread about 100 years ago, why did it take them 20 years to put tread on a serpantine belt?

Cold clutch chatter would be common for this car. I think it should have had the organic clutch.

Spray water on the belt and see if the nose changes. I'm fooling around with Goodyear Gatorback belts, have not done the Subie yet. They actually have little traction lumps, take a bit less power to drive, and run cooler. They also don't seem to have slip problems in rain.

Fairly easy job if you take out the stuff in the way first. There have been several posts on this incuding my post on my 99 Forester. Do a search here. This is one of the easy ones, just pity the poor folks with the phase 1 engine.

Somtimes there is a stock rubber spring pad that folks leave out. If this is the case there is a bit of play in the spring to seat.

I think the only reason I have not had the typical Forester wheel bearing problem is that my car does not live in the salt. The more shielding the better for your cars in the salt belt. I'm glad you guys have made me aware that remaufactured axles may not have the shields and may not be the best quality for the day when my boots finally crack.

Have you guys every taken one to a real bearing shop? There are seals available that run on thier own sealed suface and of course bearings that have thier own seals. There are also surfaces that can be applied to an axle that would give you a new sealing area. I forget the brand names since it has been so long. On Greyhound busses we often ran 3,000,000 miles or more so seals and sufaces have to be replaced regularly. Just to give you an idea BMW rarely has this problem and they run a self contained sealed bearing. It is more expensive when you have to replace it as they sell them hub and all if I recall.

A lot of opinions but I would start with head gaskets. After that wheel bearings, and then every else like a normal car. The head gaskets are tricky becuase it would be very hard to tell unless you took it on a long run. Please have a trust worthy shop check the car out for you so you don't get burned.

you would not have a hope of removing that nut with that outfit. Here in CA with no rust at all I had to use a four foot cheater, and yes Craftsman will take back a broken socket.

You can beat the book by hacksawing the small part of the bracket that holds the brake line to the strut. Then bend it out to remove the line without opening the brake system. On the new struts you cut the bracket and bend it opne to install and ben it back before installing the clip. Don't for get to touch up the area with a dab of paint to prevent rust. You save bleeding the brakes this way. If you are doing a brake job too and plan to bleed the brakes no worries anyway.

Boy these things are cranky. On other motors I've done you just pull one head off the top of the engine and the toughest thing is the exhaust. I used to be able to change two heads on a Ford commercial truck in a bit over an hour but that ain't gonna happen with one of these cars. Air wrenchs don't fit in most places and the manual is not going to tell you that the seals are all done and the oil pump is a problem with seals and the screws backing out. The plastic oil seperator on the rear of the engine can be replaced with an aluminum one and that's the last of that problem. If it's any consolation my engine had all this stuff 40,000 miles ago and all I do now is change the oil and plugs and wires. It will be good to go after this until the rings go, which seems to take some time.