Hamsamsquanch

Sorry an update took so long on this one, but I can't stand it when I am searching forums for info and people don't say how they resolved an issue. That rear control arm bushing is a POS. I got a poly bushing kit (Energy Suspension) for the whole front end and the shakes are all gone. Also did ball joints, wheel bearings (Timken) and tie rod ends since I was getting an alignment and they were cheap enough to replace all at once. Gotta go back in and reboot a CV axle that shredded the outboard boot soon as I got my summer tread on the car, though. Thanks for the input guys! Drives better than it ever has before, at least during my ownership. Total cost was like $600 since I had to have a shop do some of the press work. Used all MOOG parts except the wheel bearings, so I'll try and report back on how they hold up. It was already chewing through the endlinks since lowering, so I don't expect those to last too long.

Yeah, I'd definitely pull the engine and drill the head before bothering with welding a bung into the exhaust. It's really only a daunting task the first time you do it. Drilling the hole isn't that bad either, you just have to get the location right.

Fellow Oregonian here, got any family in a different county? You can also buy used plates with tags on them and transfer the plate to your car to buy some more time to sort out the problem. Unfortunately, that is a hard one to work around without major surgery.

Any kits in particular you would recommend that has all of the front end bushings? Might as well just do all of them while it's apart.

Didn't feel any play in them, but 140k is probably enough to kill a set. I'll have to see what I can get a set of CV's for since I'll be that far into it for the control arm bushings next weekend.

Will do that next weekend! Might explain some of the squeaks too.

Thanks for the warning. Could that assembly failing be what is going on here with the tight/overly sensitive steering wheel? I don't know how the previous owners treated the thing, so they could have been turning at the limits for the whole 81k. It hasn't ever lost fluid. But I don't know if it has ever been replaced now that I think about it.

Thanks for the reply Dave! Sounds like different shakes, but I am getting a set of summer wheels and tires for the 98 soon. So I'll have to throw them on the 09, after verifying no balancing issues on the 98, to see if a 3rd set of new wheels fixes it. Do you know of anyone on here that has played with the steering racks on these things? I'd love to dial in a hair of slop just to see if that fixes it, but I also don't want to just randomly start turning bolts on the rack. The car has been great otherwise, but this problem pretty much makes it unusable now that all the highways here are paved with the "shaky" compound.

And before someone says that I'm just being a baby, a month ago I did a 5k mile road trip in the 98 Impreza and didn't have any soreness whatsoever. I also never saw anywhere near as severe steering wheel movement as the 09, and I know the alignment isn't perfect on the 98.

Would if I could :/ The steering wheel moves about an inch back and forth when I go over certain roads, but is buttery smooth on old back country roads regardless of speed. My arms actually went numb after 3 hours of driving on I5 today and my chest is still sore, 4 hours after getting home. I also had to quit driving this car to work recently since they re-paved I205 with not Subaru friendly pavement. If it wasn't actually causing problems with my body, I would write it off as just the roads. There is also the fact that none of my other cars (98 Impreza L, 91 Loyale, and an 03 Civic Si) have this issue with the same exact roads.

Hey all! I am coming up on 6 years of ownership of my 09 Impreza and it has had the same shaky steering wheel problem the whole time. It only happens on certain roads and speeds over 65mph. It's also not specific to steering any direction or braking/accelerating. But again, only certain pavement compounds seems to cause it. Things I have done since buying the car (not all due to chasing this problem btw): - all new struts, springs and tophats - new sway bar endlinks all around - WRX rear sway bar addition (none stock) - new wheels and tires - alignments (At least 3, all by reputable shops) - brake rotors and pads all around, twice - tire rotations with every other oil change - wheel re-balancing a few times - trans and diffs drain and fill (auto trans) The car is 100% stock otherwise. CV's look good and engine/trans mounts aren't shredded. Only CEL to ever show up is P0420 intermittently. Anything else I should be looking at? Car has 140k miles on it and has been in my possession since 81k. I did notice while helping a buddy with his rig the other day, that my steering wheel has literally zero slop. All the other cars around me have some slop in the steering. Could this by chance be my issue?

https://imgur.com/gallery/4Pgfz Sorry for the lack of updates on the project. I got her road worthy enough to daily with the EA82 and drove it for a while to feel out what suspension work was needed. Lost oil pressure and couldn't seem to get it back, so we made a death pool at work and I drove the hell out of her. Headgasket blew about a week later and she made it to about 100ft shy of the barn running on 2 cylinders. Pretty much have the engine pulled now. Going to be turning the EA into a sweet little coffee table. On the hunt for a donor car to get my AWD swap. Hoping to get this thing back on the road with an EJ by winter!

Slowly but surely progress is being made. My girl and I just had our 2 year anniversary, so we went to the coast on vacation and drained my projects budget for the month in the process. Great trip, though! I got the gas pedal from a Legacy and modified it to work on my Loyale. Had to pull the stock pedal assembly out and cut the gas pedal portion off of it, so now the throttle is a free standing assembly from the brake and clutch. The Legacy pedal only needed the shaft bent up a bit to line up with the Loyale pedals and the Loyale cable end snapped in to the pedal shaft like it belonged. 2 bolts through the firewall is all it took to mount it. Works great now, no more sticky pedal! I do need to shorten the cable a bit since there is about 2 inches of play before the throttle actually gets pulled now. Was going to take her out camping and wheeling before teardown for the EJ conversion, but my ea82 alternator died. So I made a track through the woods in my backyard, charged up a battery and spun some laps until the rear CV axle that I didn't replace broke and took my dirtbike on that trip instead. Car is currently sitting in the barn again waiting for the EJ stuff and some money. Have been going back and forth on if I want to go AWD with it or not. 4.44 stuff is really expensive and hard to find. I might be able to score a 4.11 setup out of an RS though. Going AWD would open up clutch choices a lot and would save the hassle of making an adapter plate while giving me better gearing than my single range push button trans.

Doubls post

Got the brakes bled and pedal feeling amazing. That old fluid was by far the worst I've ever seen (I always put a clear tube on the bleeders). It started out as vanilla milkshake looking, then transitioned to gross foamy crap, then got suuuuuper dark. After a little bit of dark it started looking like new fluid. After getting the brake fluid sorted, I found the cause of my throttle sticking at wide open... The pedal linkage is gummed up hardcore and is pretty rusty. Are there any pedal assemblies that would bolt up and work with my brake pedal/booster linkage??? I have access to a free late 90's legacy setup about 1.5 hours away, but I'm also going to pick 'n pull later today to get some Chevy parts for my dad and can grab something while I'm there. Gonna be starting the EJ process soon! Getting the EJ25 block cleaned up and ready for dissasembly. Will also be taking my EJ22 heads into work this weekend to get looked at by my ex-Subaru mechanic coworker.