PATCO

Will try to borrow a reader this weekend. Light was on immediately after engine swap. Drove car day before swap and no light. ???

Hello all. I've got a 97 Outback. I just completed an EJ 25 to Ej 22 swap. Thanks to all who posted info on this. Everything went great. Car runs great and passed CA smog without problems. Since the swap the ABS light has been on. Any suggestions? Thanks

A little update: On Tuesday the transplanted EJ22 passed CA smog. YES! On Wednesday my Mom was rear ended while stopped waiting to make a left turn about a 1/4 mile from her house. The car hit her at 50 plus, never hitting the brakes. She is very sore, but ok. She is sick about her baby. I'm sure it is totalled. I could'nt get the driver door open. Time to look for another Outback! What year was the 2.5 headgasket problem fixed? Any suggestions on what year I should look for? She loved her 96, but I don't want to go through the HG thing again. Thanks, Patrick

It’s finally fixed! Thanks for all the suggestions. I followed Setright’s procedure for filling with no luck. After draining and filling multiple times I was getting pretty frustrated. I removed and tested the thermostat (new from dealer) with no luck. I even tried another thermostat with no luck. I pulled the heater hoses off and fluid came out. I was about to pull all my hair out. I was beginning to think the water pump was defective. (new from dealer) I decided to pull all the hoses and try to flush every component. I pulled the heater hoses and hooked the garden hose to one with an adapter. I turned on the water and POP! The hose blew off. I was soaked. Thinking the core must be plugged. I pulled the hoses off the core and there it was, a vacuum cap in the line. I had two friends help me do the install. One of them hooked up the heater hoses without pulling out the plugs. An honest mistake, black plugs in black hoses. I blew both plugs from the hoses and problem solved. It never fails. It’s always something simple. Again thanks for the suggestions. This forum is a wealth of Subie info. Later, Patrick

Hello everyone, I have a 96 Legacy Outback 2.5 with 236,000 miles. After overheating issues due to the second HG failure I just finished the EJ22 swap. Everything went great using the advice from many on this forum. Thanks to all. Before figuring out the HG problem I replaced the water pump, thermostat, radiator (old one burst) and all hoses. None of these components has more than 5 miles on them. After firing up the new EJ22 (120,000 miles) everything seemed great. I drove the car around the block a few times and everything checked out. A few days later after buttoning up misc things I drove to the gas station and back, about 3.5 miles roundtrip. Again everything was fine. I left for work the same evening and drove about 2 miles. The check engine light came on and the temp almost hit the H mark. I pulled over and popped the hood. No coolant leak, fans not on. I waited about 10 min and fired her up. The temp was back to normal. ?? I headed for home. As soon as I began decelerating to stop the temp started climbing. The second I took off the temp quickly dropped to normal. This continued until I returned home. Here is a list of what I have determined: I can let the car idle with the AC on or off for 20 min and the temp is fine. The fans are working. Upper hose is hot. Lower hose is cold. Heater blows cold. Heater hoses luke warm Radiator feels cold. Bypass hose is hot. I removed thermostat (Subaru) and checked in 190 deg water alongside a carquest thermostat for comparison. Both opened. I looked in the water pump and the impeller is not broken. Using a long screwdriver I was able to turn the impeller. The resistance felt matched what I think it would take to turn the smooth WP pulley. I don't know what to do next. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Patrick Rauch