RallyKeith

What about Frames and Frame Rust? Anything I should look out for? Keith

I don't think there is such a thing. The only place I know to get internal parts is the dealer and they don't do kits. What's wrong with the tranny? Keith

I've heard of it and had it basically happen to me. I think what can happen is if the car is started cold it's running VERY rich. If you only run it for a few seconds you don't actually burn all the fuel in the cyilnders properly and it just sits there. Then when you go to start it again the added richness of a cold start with remaining fuel from the last start and short run gives you a flooded condition and it won't start. That's why they changed the plugs because the excess fuel could have fowled them somewhat making them not spark as effeciently. Keith

Yep. Seems like it goes S-10 with the 4.3 then Ranger with the 4.0 Doesn't really surprise me. I've always thought the americans made better trucks up until recently. And from the get go something internally was leaning me towards a Ford Ranger. As for towing... Thanks for the advice but I don't need it. Your talking to someone who has towed cars half way across the country. I'm going to be towing a little 1800 lbs triumph spitfire on a tow dolly. I could tow that with fuel injected Loyale if I really needed to. A 2800 lbs pickup with a V6 should have no issues with stopping or getting pushed around by that. Thanks, Keith

I use one of these: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=38496 Keith

Find me a Baja for around $2500 that can magically fit about 1000# of stone in the back and I'd buy it. Don't think you can do that though.

I'm soon in the market for a small automatic pickup truck. Don't try and sell me a brat, I already owned one and I loved it, but for what I want and need I need to be able to tow a small car on an dolly and haul 1000# of stone and dirt. So I'm looking at an early to mid 90's V6, possibly 4wd, automatic pickup. V6 for the towing power, and automatic for both towing and so that my wife can drive it. It seems to me that the Toyotas and Nissans are good and hold there value well which makes them cost a little more than what I'm looking to spend which is about $2500. The Ford Ranger though seems be lower in price and from what I can tell they seem to be pretty good little trucks. If I remember correctly at some point they partnered up with Mazda on them so that might have something to do with it. So, thoughts for me as I start my looking? Keith

Sorry, I was away from my computer all weekend. My friends RS only ran like that for a total of 5 minutes. We knew something wasn't right as soon as we started it. Luckily we had a spare tensioner lying around that we could install. Keith

I would replace the sensor. It's not expensive and is a common thing to fail. I've had to do it on my 88RX, my 92Legacy, my 95 Legacy, and my 96Legacy. On the 88 and the 96 I was "lucky" enough to experience hot starting issues. When the sensor goes bad it can tell the ECU that the engine is cold when it is really warm. So if you drive the car for awhile and get it up to temp. Then shut it off for only a few minutes and try to start it again, with a bad sensor there is a chance it tells the ECU the engine is cold, which floods out the engine and makes it VERY hard to start. Keith

To answer your actual question yes! Pull the timimng belt cover. You should be able to see the belt and tensioner slapping around. The single piece style (Short fat hydraulic cylinder) are way more sensative to failure if compressed to quickly. I believe the factory service manual talks about compressing those extremely slow, as in over several minutes. They will appear to uncompress fine when installed, but they can't resist the forces once the engine is running. I had this happen on a friends 2000 RS. It sounded like bad piston slap that didn't go away. I've done probably a dozen of the two piece style tensioners and never had an issue. So far I've ruined 1 out of 3 on the single piece style. Keith

Technically there is no bearing on the cam shafts. They just ride in the aluminum of the head. I would venture a guess though that if the cam was ever taken out for something like a head gasket job, and the bolt on the cam caps weren't torqued correctly you could eventually have an issue. Just a guess though since I've never seen it happen. Keith

That's something good to kepe in mind!

I agree that what your dealership is doing is wrong. I would call SOA back and ask to speak with the supervisor of the person you originally dealt with. I have a friend that went through some issue getting a transmission fixed that was under warrenty, but once he called SOA directly it got taken care of. One thought for you on the stereo. Asking them to fix it is like asking them to replace your transmission because it burned up after putting a viper engine in your subaru. Also, I personally don't think it's the speakers. You would most likely hear general distortion all the time if a speaker was bad. Intermittent cutting out of a speaker is usually a wiring issue (would be voided by the aftermarket installation also) or the stereo itself. Also, unless you can find water damage to the speaker, the only thing that can damage it is over powering it from the now aftermarket stereo. Kind of sticks, but something you have to accept. Like how I've accepted that I will never expect Subaru to warrant replacement of my alternator since I've installed a pair of 100W driving lights.

What's a radius arm? I think you're thinking of the older subaru suspension setups. There is the A-arm, lower balljoint, hub/spindle assembly, sway bar, sway bar end link, strut, spring, and top mount in an impreza front suspension. That's all. Anyhow, did you replace all 4 rotors? What makes you so sure it's a vibration in the front? You've never mentioned a vibration in the steering wheel, which is typical if the front rotors are warped. Rear rotors warp just the same way front's do. They can make the entire car shake as well. If you didn't replace the rears then I would start there. Keith

Good chance you got water somewhere up on the engine that it didn't like. Caused a sensor reading to go out of line for a moment and trip the light. Most major autoparts store will read a code for free. I would start there. You can always try the route of unplugging your battery for a little while to reset the ECU, but I would try an autoparts store first. If they can read a code, they can also clear it. Also, on the newer cars the Cruise light flashes, and cruise is disabled, when the CEL comes on. I think it's there way of annoying you into getting it fixed and spending money. Keith

It doesn't lock the buckle part into the recepticle. You know, how you put them on right. You can still un-buckle the belts that way. You just can't pull the belt out of the mechanism any further. Also, I'm about 90% certain that all police and trained paramedics carry belt cutters. We even carry them, as well as a window breaking hammer, in rally cars here in the US. The concept of rendering a belt useless after an impact is all in the name of safety. Belts are a webbing of material that is designed to stretch under extreme g loads to help lessen the rate of deceleration in a collision. After the stretch occurs they don't go back. That makes the belt "not as safe" in the event of another collision. It's not like the belts are going to break in another collision, they just won't stretch and give you that extra bit help. In an ideal world you should always replace the belts after a collision, and I guess now in these cars you have to. In the racing world you have to either have your belts re-certified or replaced after an incident. Keith

Thanks for the thoughts guys. FWIW I know the gaskets were never done. I had gone with him 2-3 years ago to look at the car before he bought it, and it came from a single private owner who had records of the work done. I think the mileage is around 120k miles. I talked to him today and his mechanic will start working on it tomorrow. Keith

I have a friend at work with a 99 Legacy GT. Don't know the mileage, but monday he calls and says the temp gauge needle is almost at the H. He asked if it was just a stuck thermostat. I said sorry, but it's not a thermostat and that instead I would bet heavily on it being the head gaskets. Fast forward to today, he says his mechanic found a bad leak on the cross over pipe under the intake manifold and that he would have it fixed by the end of the week. My friend then says he had been smelling a faint antifreeze smell for a month or two, but the level in the resivior never dropped. So, the question is, how likely do people think it is that he may not have had a head gasket problem, but now that it was overheated it's just a matter of time until they go? I think he's going to wind up doing the head gaskets within 6 months. Keith

I don't seem to remember the ones on my 95 or 96 being security, just regular. If need to buy them anyway, just get the security ones since they'll work on regulars as well.

If you can, pull the timing covers and look at the timing belt in the area of the tensioner. 97 might have the newer style tensioner that is much more sensative when being compressed to quickly and can cause it damage. You won't know it's damaged until you install it and start the car because it still has some pressure to it. Once you start the car you will see the timing belt and tensioner flapping around, and hear a noise, if it was damaged. My friend did it on his 2000 RS and we thought something was bad in the engine. Keith

You said it goes away with increased temperature which in my experiance is the oposite of what I expect for rod knock. When the engine is cold and the oil is thicker you don't usually hear anything. Then once the engine heats up and the oil thins out you start to hear the noise. This is only my experiance with two motors. So I would not rule out piston slap entirely. However, the odds of Rod Knock are unfortunately in favor on a motor that had a blown head gasket. If they drove it for a long enough period before noticing the overheating and head gasket issue it causes this problem. Antifreeze mixing with the engine oil eats away protective coatings on bearings and they start wearing heavily.

The engine mounts are towards the rear of the engine so it leans to the front when you pull the trans. You need to support the engine from doing that some how or it will damage the mounts. I've done the method of a piece of plywood on a jack supporting the oil pan, but it's not ideal. You can fashoin a better method with some pieces of 2x4 and angle Iron bolted to something like one of the alternator bolts.

They want you to replace the bolts because of the forces exerted on them during the deployment of the airbag. I'm sure you risk some weakening of the bolts sheer strength, but I can't imagine it's really worth replacing them given their use. Worse case if the airbag deploys again and those bolts break, the bag falls to the floor after it's done it's job instead of staying attached to the steering wheel, but I highly doubt those bolts would break. Keith

Can you elaborate on the shorts and which grounds? I've been having a similar issue, but mine takes about 1 week to kill the battery and it's a car that is only driven when it snows, so it can very frequently sit for a week or more. I've started by cleaning up grounds since I only seem to se about a 30mA draw on the battery when the key is off. Thanks, Keith

I was just told by a subaru master tech to use 10w-40 instead of 5w-30 to reduce piston slap and it did. The car in question was a 98 Impreza 2.2 It also could have been that the previous owner had crappy oil in it and just putting fresh oil of any weight in would have made it quieter.