MiniTransAm

I don't think it would make any difference but I have the knuckles off the car right now.

Hey guys. Decided to replace the axles in my 99 wagon to fix that damn idle shake. That went fine but in the process my ball joints were damaged from the pickle fork. Kinda figured that would happen. So I go to replace the ball joints and you guessed it. Pinch bolt head snapped off. Yay rust! So after a valiant fight trying to drill that thing out, I gave up and got two used knuckles from the junkyard. I removed the old balljoints out of those (air hammer FTW) and am now trying to install the new ball joints. Problem is, I can't get them to go all the way in. I ruined one already by wailing on it so hard it mushroomed the stem and the castle nut would not thread in. What am I don't wrong? I'm spreading the pinch area with a chisel as far as I dare go before I feel like i'm going to crack the metal. These things are not just falling in like I have seen in some threads. I cleaned the pocket out with my dremel, not rust in there at all. There are no burrs or anything else to hang up on. I have them coated with wheel bearing grease as well to aid in installation. What am I doing wrong!!! Help!!

Wouldn't be a bad idea. You can see how your oil holds up and if you can run it longer. If you commute is mostly all highway, I can easily see modern dino oil holding up to 5000. Use a semi or full synthetic, 7500 easy. Our outback does a fair amount of hauling things in the back so I think 6500 is the magic number for me. Since I got a good report this time around, I'll probably do an analysis every 25K from now on. Just to keep tabs on things.

Well for me, I just like to see what's going on inside the engine. Higher than average numbers can indicate problems and allow you to get a handle on them earlier before they cause a major problem. For example. If I had coolant in this sample, it would allow me to look for the problem and get it fixed before something like a headgasket goes and overheats the car causing more repairs. We also did one of these on my wife's Sunfire and it showed over 3% fuel in the oil. I would have never known that had I not done the analysis. I'm still in the process of trying to figure out what the problem is. This is also good for figuring out how long you can run an oil. Or if one oil is better than another as far a wear numbers go. Also as someone stated, you can get a pump and pull a sample from a vehicle you are thinking of buying. If you get a report back that shows some problems, you just saved yourself some potential major headaches. I hardly think they are a waste.

Came out awesome! Oil is Maxlife 5w-30 with a Purolator Pure One filter and a Purolator air filter.

Has anyone tried this fix using Valvoline Maxlife ATF? I'm considering going to a local valvoline center and having them do a complete flush using this fluid then adding the trans x after. Valvoline says that Maxlife can be used in any vehicle that requires dexronIII/mercon atf.

Only problem is how obvious it is that I'm not a mechanic. The front plugs are not bad at all. But the rear ones you don't even have room to turn the thing with your fingers let alone really know if you've crossthreaded it or not. Which I hope to hell I didn't do. I have all kinds of sockets and extensions. Maybe I need to find a really thin ratchet to use. But the thought of trying to get the plug back out again makes me cringe. I almost have to do this myself now though because I'm picking up my Trans Am in about 2 hours and have to shell out $2400 for an engine rebuild

Hey guys. Got the car at least running again. It's hesitating a bit but it's good enough to get to the dealer. I'm not messing with the plugs again, screw that. Just wondering how much this would cost to get done at the dealer so I don't faint when they tell me. I'm guessing at least 100 bucks.

I did read that walk through a couple times just to make sure I got it right. I've done spark plug changes a bunch of times on other vehicles. Hell I even did all 8 on my trans-am. Anyone who's done those will know they aren't a walk in the park. I just plain forgot about the clearance until my ratchet smacked the frame rail. My first thought was to simply switch the direction on the ratchet and run the plug back into the head and then take the ratchet off. Only it was just touching the frame enough that I couldn't switch it. So every time I tested to see if I got it, it's just loosened even more which pushed it into the frame even harder. I got pissed and wailed on it with a hammer so now the ratchet is broke. I'll be able to turn it by hand with some vice grips now. Problem is now it's off the ramps because I had to get the garage closed. So I'll have do this from up top or try and wiggle my self in from the bottom. I was doing both plugs from the bottom since I had more room to swing the ratchet. After I get that plug back in I'll be able to drive it back up on the ramps. But at this point, It will have to wait till Saturday or later in the week. I can't touch it now. I'll probably end up setting the thing on fire. Thanks for the advice.

Yup read that before I started this crap. Guess I'm just going to have to hack saw it out. It's not moving.

Should have quit while I was ahead. Got my other problem fixed, now this. I'm doing the plugs and wires on my 99 Outback with the EJ25. I got the front driver side plug done. Now I'm working on the rear driver side. Problem is, I forgot about the clearance issue and now I have the socket wrench wedged against the frame rail. I can't move it. I can't reverse it so I can run the plug back in a bit to get the socket wrench out. I need help quick! Should I disconnect the motor mounts and try to jack the motor up a bit? I wonder how subie tech's get these things out. This is almost as bad as doing plugs on my 2002 Trans Am

Just had the battery tested too. It's fine. It's got to be a battery cable. Only problem is the dealer wants over 100 bucks for both cables and they have to order it. I'd have them by Friday at the earliest. I don't see why I couldn't make my own cables from stuff they have at the parts store. Unless Subaru's are weird about resistances and things like that. I don't see why they would be though. Less resistance the better right?

starter is good too. That was a blast to get out. Can't wait to put it back in.

So let's assume that my battery, cables and starter are all fine and the connections to all of those are good. Where would be the next place I should look?

If you read the original edmunds article, they just say legacy and that it will come in Outback trim like they have in the past. There's no way that's an outback. It's too low to the ground. I'm betting that's the concept for the Legacy and the outback models will be lifted up higher. And did anyone notice that little blurb at the bottom of the article about a Legacy STi??? That would be awesome. That looks pretty sweet though.

Just tried jump starting it. No dice.

Hey guys. Haven't been here in a while. Love the redesign! Anyway, the wife calls me at work yesterday. She was just getting ready to leave the neighborhood and turn on to a main road. She said the car bucked 3 times and the check engine light started flashing. She did a quick U turn and brought the car back home. she was probably about a 1/4 mile away when this happened. The car never stalled. She had just turned the A/C on. On the way back the light stopped flashing but stayed lit. I just pulled the codes and it recorded a Misfire on cylinder 1. However, now the car won't start. It makes a clicking noise like the battery is dead. However the battery is less than 6 months old and shows 12.4V. I also checked the voltage at the starter and that's reading 12.6V I did put new terminals on the battery cables when I replaced the battery. It's kind of a cob job but the car has ran fine until now. Should I replace the battery cables? That's the only thing I can think of at this point. Car has plenty of oil and just ran strong on a 8 hour round trip to the Jersey shore. Thanks!

I suppose that would be true, especially if your car is facing downhill when you use this device. Perhaps the way the adapter for the drain plug is designed so that there isn't anything actually sticking into the pan and thereby would get more oil out. Judging from the pictures on Amazon it's hard to tell. I agree on the metal shavings. However I've also seen magnets that you can attatch to your oil filter that claim to attract metal shavings and keep it in the filter. I have no idea how well or if they work but if they do, that could be a work around for that issue. I probably will not end up getting one of these. Wasn't really considering it since oil changes are so not a PITA to me at all and I rather like getting a bit dirty. What caught my eye was how they pump the oil out through the plug. I would be nice if I could find someplace where they did a long term test with this thing and then pulled the pan to see how much junk was left in it.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000BQ08QO/ref=amb_link_1913962_1/105-9202320-1661241 Seems like a really good idea in theory. It would be much easier to do oil changes (even though it's not hard as it is) but it would definetly cut down on the time it takes. What I like about this as opposed to the other types of fluid vacs out there is that this sucks from the drain plug, not the dipstick tube. Not sure I'm quite sold enough to buy one though. What do you think?

Nice! Don't think I'm brave enough to drive on a frozen lake though!

Since we've had the car, (99 OBW) it will shake when accelerating. Some gears are worse than others. The tranny displays some symptoms that I don't think are normal for an auto but I've also been told these tranny's shift rough/engage hard. Is there any other causes of this that I should check into BESIDES THE TRANSMISSION?

Thanks guys. Picked up a Purolator pure one today as well as a purolator air filter. I wonder if purolator makes all of their filters? The air filter looked almost identical, except for different color paper.

Never will I put FRAM on a vehicle again. I don't care if John Force likes his no slip grip. I've seen too many reviews online about how crappy they are.

The wagon needs an oil change tommorow and since I work 3rd shift, I wasn't able to get to a dealer to get an OEM filter. I don't suppose that another company makes their filter's and I'd be able to find one in a regular parts store? It's a 99OBW with the 2.5L I can always wait till monday but every sunday we bring the wagon with the dogs up to my mother in laws and that's where I do all my maintenance since she's got a garage.

Honestly, I think that it's kind of 50/50 between a dealer or a quicky lube place. How do I know? I worked at both. I worked at a Jiffy lube for about 6 months. A really busy one too. Alot of times these places get really busy, especially on a Saturday. And the faster people work, the more mistakes they make. I don't think that we ever had a problem with the wrong filter going on, or double gasketing the new filter. We were pretty good about that. Drain plugs may have gotten overtightened a bit in a rush but we never used any kind of "power tool" to put a drain plug in. On the other hand I've seen reports of people using impact guns and air tools to put in drain plugs and I know that there are some really crappy quicky lube places around. My advice is to not go on a weekend. Go during the week if you can. Take an early or late lunch and do it then. If the shop is slower, there's less stress and less chance a mistake will be made. I also worked at a Chevy dealer for over a year doing nothing but tire rotations and oil changes. And nipper is right. I didn't have any kind of formal "car tech" training and they tossed me right in. During that year we had a couple guys come and go and they basically hired anyone off the street. At a dealership you get paid flat rate (at least we did at mine) We got paid .3 of an hour per oil change. And there is no way in hell that you can do a good oil change in .3 of an hour. Not with all the checks they want you to do. That's 18 minutes to go find the car, drive it in the shop, put it on the lift, change the oil, check the tires, grease the chassis, check the other fluids and filters, put the car back down, do the computer work and drive the car out. So again, the tendancy is to rush to get as many cars in as you can to get as much money as you can. Because if you go slow, someone else get's the cars and you lose money. The best thing about a dealership is that you get OEM parts. I'm a big believer in that. Rarely anything non OEM goes on any of our 3 cars. However like I said, it's basically a crap shoot. I say do it yourself if possible. It's really not hard to do. Try the dealer first and a quick shop 2nd. Or if you find a good quicky place and want to use OEM parts or your own oil, buy them yourself and bring them in. Most places are cool with that and will use oil and filters you bring them. But that's just more running around for you to do and probably will end up costing you more money. Dealerships also do not usually show you filters/fluids if they need replaced. We just tell the service writer and they try to make the sale. More than anything it's the person that's doing the work. Not where your getting the work done.