555Ron

In Australia, the NRMA (an insurer) did a study of all the accidents involving the cars made over the last 20 years... using actual crash data... not dummies... people. There were three cars they mentioned as being the worst. The Brumby (brat) was the second worst of all the cars they studied. It's an old design and a very, very light design which is the pure reason it rated so poorly. So, these cars are definately bad to be involved in an accident... but the older the car, the worse the crashworthiness. A common mistake about crashworthiness is judging it by the look of the car. If a 1970's Subaru and a 2005 Legacy had a head on... the Legacy would be all crumpled at the front, while the 70's car... well you could drive it away almost. But the new Subaru's are designed to absorb the energy of the impact, older Subies the occupants took this role. You will see that in these tests the windscreen doesn't crack in accidents involving newer Subarus because of the excellent crashworthiness of these vehicles. If you want a safe car, look at getting a newer Subaru. They are the safest cars on sale now imo. Unfortunately, its a risk with the older Subes, but so is driving. You just have to weigh it up and decide what your needs are...

Yup, WD-40 = Water Displacer, 40th attempt:-\

Hehe. I did at 10:30pm. I must be more keen then you. Though i just got a hand full of grease and couldn't see much, so i wouldn't recommend it. (however, i would recommend cleaning up after your CV boot goes... yucky molly grease) The AB Valve is connected to the Carbi/inlet manifold and i think it may only do stuff on deceleration. I think it lets more pressure into the manifold, though again, it doesn't make sense to me and i'm not too confident.

Yeah. You'll find the AB valve (as you look from the front of the engine) on the left hand side of the chasis between the air intake and the windscreen wiper bottle. The air injection system is driven by a reed valve on the rear right hand side of the engine. (left cylinder bank). Its plumbed into the y connecting pipe on this side only. Its connected to the AB Valve somehow, so this is good news for me at least... i've been trying to figure what the ************ this thing has to do with the price of eggs in China! This is all extremely new to me. But it's function is to put oxygen into the exhaust to help the cat converter to function. From what i've read, the AB valve should suck in air, and mine is blowing air out... this may be why its complaining. Again, i've not found much, but this is so far my understanding... I'd be interested to know what your AB valve is doing. Mine is hissing and rattling on deceleration... perhaps we have the same problem. If you find a fix, could you post it in here for me? If i find anything else i'll let you know...

Mine is the same. The mechanics i've talked to don't know. Its worse when its cold, and what my manual says is the Anti-Backfire Valve hisses at me on deceleration... i've replaced it with no success. I want it fixed, but i don't know where to start.

I'm no expert, but the TOD is just noisy lifters and a bad oil pump. It won't lose power if this is what is causing the noise. Perhaps its piston slap or something sinister like this...

Well, if the timing covers are crap, they won't do anything... and they don't do much anyway. Take them off now, assess the belts. It may have broken one of them. Leave them off too, you don't really need them.

Replacing the transaxle bushes. I got spacers and bolts as well... but you should only need the plastic/rubber bushes. I only replaced one set. (ie, 2 bits of plastic, 2 bits of rubber) You can crawl under your vehicle... and in my FWD there 4 set of joints. There's the stay rod and control rod. Just grab them and pull them. See if any of them are loose. They are right near the exhaust (hot) so wait for it to cool down before you have a look. I can go and get the price of the things i actually replaced. You should be able to get a dozen of these things for $5. I might go get some more and see how good i can get it to be:) If i do i'll write an article, because for such a small price, its a big difference... though it doesn't reduce the 'notchyness' of the shifting.

Well, its pretty awesome. The clicking noise is non existant. You can still see the gearbox move a little, but i can't hear it. There isn't much play... and i only used a couple of the parts i bought. It took about an hour and it removed much of the play in the gearbox. I reckon i could get rid of it all if i replaced all the bushes. I'm going to Bi-Tron the gearbox when i put new oil in it (soon as the bi-tron arrives). I've heard it will improve the shift, which is still notchy. Anyone else heard of Bi-Tron?

Yes, but only when its parked up a slope. So, now i reverse my car up the driveway. Problem kind of solved, though i still get water in the engine bay...:-\

Hmm, presslab, do you think anerobic sealant is the best? I got some Loctite blue max to do the job... as i've used anerobic before with no success. I found it didn't dry, though it was on a metal exhaust with high pressure...

Awesome, awesome, awesome site. Thankyou so very much for that. I just had a quick browse and printed off about 50 pages. (no ink left now:cool:) Excellent diagrams... a picture is worth a thousand words. Thankyou so much for that link, i so want that book now:D

Hi, I live in a 30F to over 90F environment. Went to the autoshop, and i kinda came out with not what i went in thinking i would get. I'd decided on a 10W40 motor oil and a 75W90 man transaxle oil. But i got a 15W60 Motor and 80W85 transmission. I'm considering taking them back, its what the oil manu recommends, but not what the Subies owners manual recommends. What should i get? It's got a 100,000mile engine in it, not really using oil atm. (20W50) [by the way... its an EA82 with a 5sp FWD tranny]

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/article.php?a=25 (This is for both ea81 and ea82, scroll down for ea82) Yes, it isn't easy. You will may need to take one or two of the inner belt covers off which may require one of the idler pulleys for the timing belt. (if this is the case the right hand and left hand belts will have to come off) But before you go too far... turn it off, and grab the water pump pulley firmly. Pull it up and down, left and right... if theres is any slight play then the bearing is starting to go. Next, turn it on, get a long screwdriver and stick the pointy end on the body. Put your ear to the handle on the screwdriver... what do you hear? Try and locate the noise where it is loudest. It could be your waterpump, it might be your alternator or one of you timing belt idler pulleys. No point replacing the water pump when all you need is a relatively cheap bearing for your alternator... which can be replaced.

Nothing. I think its for Europeans. If you press that down it will let the parkers stay on with the ignition off... as my auto elec told me after i thought i'd better figure out what it does... then i couldn't turn the lights off...

I worked for an auto parts shop. We had one clutch come back and a windscreen washer, and we sold lots of parts to trade mechanics. (Oil seals, heads, reco heads, clutches sparkies, dizzies etc) But in saying that, i went and bought all my oil seals from Subaru. Doing the job myself saves me heaps of money, so i spoil my car with genuine parts. (plus they give me trade prices:cool: ) The only thing i would hesitate about would be going in without knowing what brands you want to buy. Some people will sell you whats on the shelf (sometimes because no one will buy it) because people never return for their ordered parts. So insist on what you want...

Doing it up properly. With 80 ft lbs of torque, i can't see it coming off. Mine came off, did it up tight and haven't had a problem since. Just check the tension of your belts, make sure they aren't too tight.

Here is one. It similar to the one above but with less information. It might make it easier if that is what you need... I have a larger one i can email you if its what you want. Just send me your address.

My EA82 goes pretty hard. Its a 5 speed manual though, the three speed will take a bit out of it. But it should go way better then a EA81. What sort of bus are we talking about... it should leave a bus for dead!

Probably the first thing to consider would be a head gasket. Check for water in your oil... oil in your radiator.

I would really appreciate if you could do that for me. I'd like to get it in asap, but if you aren't able to help, i'll go it alone or wait til you can. (theres really no rush) I don't know which wires i'll need help with because i haven't got access to one (instrument cluster) yet... i have no idea what the back of the instrument cluster will look like. The only concern is the odometer atm. Am i just going to get the amount of kays the donor dash has done? Hmm... i wouldn't like to be tampering with it... What did you do?

Yeah, i'd agree with the timing belt/not bent valves. I mechanic i knew bought a Subaru over 10 years ago very cheap because it was running like ************. He was going to drop a new engine into only to find he had a perfectly good engine, just the timing belt was installed correctly (1 tooth out, and it ran absolutely horribly)... cheap car and a cheap fix. And i believe this was done by a factory mechanic. It can happen... But to me, i reckon this mechanic is a con. I wouldn't recommend taking it back to him to get him to fix up his messy work... who knows what he will do, in my experience, mechanics like to cover up their errors rather then fix them http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/article.php?a=24 Here is an article by MilesFox who is a member here on how to go about it. You can do it in the car... just take the radiator out and you'll have plenty off room. (An AC compressor will make it a little harder). I would recommend you keep reading this article over and over, go out to your car and think about how you are going to do it. Find the fly wheel marks (put some gloves on your hand if you are going to turn the engine by the crank pulley belt, don't ask how i know...) and keep reading until you are reasonably confident. You've got nothing to lose and you don't have bent valves, many times i've read these things are non interference engines. Anyway, i'm about to do my timing belts in a week or so, i've got a digital camera to make sure it all goes back together how it came apart... other then that, i'll just go by that article and the workshop manual (which you won't need if you read that article..)

Well, i chased it up and i can get one for $55. The guy said the Dash instrument cluster had an extra 6 connections on it and didn't think i'd be able to swap them over. It's a 2wd car, ausubaru92... what was your conversion like? Are the wiring looms going to be there or is the car wired for the instrument cluster i have. I got the feeling by reading this thread it will go in, but i don't want to drive down there to find i wasted my day... Edit... Well, i justed tried to take the dash surround off when i heard a hissss... then i though i should quit while i was ahead. Now it makes the hissing whenever i put it on to get air from outside. When i put it on recirculate the hissing goes away. This isn't any good to me on a hot day... the car has no air conditioning. :-\ Maybe i'll work up the courage to try again. When i take the dash surround off, will it be easy to fit the wire connectors up again... are they all colour coded well and non ambiguous? Are there hoses to disconnect... i think i might have ripped one of them off... any ideas? All the switches work

Yes, unfortunately. GM made Subaru develop this car jointly with Saab. (GM owns 20% of Subaru and likes to push them around, which they are not very happy about) Saab will be unveiling their car later this year which will have a H6 engine, but i think Subaru are going to detune it slightly. The chief engineer, Andreas Z...something, who designed Alfas cars not so long ago says that this car is distinctly Subaru and will not be very similar to Saabs offering.

Okay, thanks guys. I'll go and order the parts tomorrow... and maybe start this week. I was thinking about borrowing a digital camera and writing some articles for others... i'll see how it goes. Most of its covered, some of its not... but hopefully my workshop manual will cover it well enough for me. The only thing is it says to have the #1 piston at tdc when removing the cam housing, but it says to have it on timing mark to remove the timing belts, which are pretty far apart on the fly wheel. Should i ignore the tdc stuff, and use the timing marks, or is there a reason for this?