smurfmiata93

Did the clutch job myself. New throwout bearing, pilot bearing, clips and resurfacd the flywheel. New oil in the trans at the same time. The engine does not rev like it would with the clutch slipping. Basically it feels like the car is pulling a very heavy weight. Tires are all the same and pressure is good. Temp this morning was in the mid 20'sF.

This morning I started up my 99 OBW (67K miles) and everything was fine for about a half mile. Stopped at a stop sign, shifted down to first gear and started to pull away and the car then did not want to accelerate. With the clutch in, the engine sounded normal with the clutch out the car felt like something was holding it back and there was a groaning noise from underneath. Is the infamous "torque bind" i read about? Since the parking brake relaesed and I had driven about a half mile I have ruled out a stuck parking brake. Also the clutch and brakes were replaced about 9 months ago so I do not think it is either of those. Any ideas.

Just finished replacing the clutch on my '99 a month ago. I went the transmission removal route. I have a small transmission jack from Horrible Freight that worked quite well for me. The two biggest headaches for me were the exhaust - snapped off two studs while trying to remove them for replacement and seperating the trans from the engine - spray the alignment pins with WD-40 well in advance. I split the exhaust at the connection just in front of the rear muffler section before i realized that the whole exhaust can be simply dropped as a unit. Having a compressor and an impact wrench were a definite plus. With the trans out I removed the flywheel and had it re-surfaced. I also replaced the rear main crankshaft seal.

I just finished replacing the clutch and brake pads on my 99 Outback wagon and I am now getting a scraping noise when the car is in motion. The noise is not there when the car is just sitting. The noise does not seem to be from the clutch since it is not related to engine speed. I was thinking of putting the car on stands and running the car at idle speed in low gear to try to find the noise. Will this damage the AWD system?

I replaced one of the rear bearings on my 99 OBW a little over a year ago. I picked up a hub tamer kit on Ebay for $150 and got a few other tool pieces from Kent Moore. Got Timken bearings from Autozone and the seals from Subaru. The bearings had a little grease in them so I just repacked them with synthetic bearing grease. Followed the Subaru procedure (can be found on the old website). So far no problems.

After the piston is out there is a metal ring that holds the dust boot in place. When you pull the dust boot off, the ring should come out with it. If not, you should see it in the groove that the dust boot fits in. You should have gotten new rings with the rebuild kit.

Like Snowman recommends I use compressed air to pop out the piston , thats the easy part. After you get the interior of the caliper cleaned and install the seal ring and the dust boot (and its metal ring) how does one get the piston back in? For single piston calipers I have found that a little compressed air works wonders. I place the piston on top of the dust boot (make sure it is centered), place a piece of wood or metal between the piston and the other side of the caliper to prevent it from flying away and give a small puff of compressed air into the brake line fitting and the boot pops up around the piston which can then be pushed into the caliper bore. I have done this many many times and this way I am sure that the dust boot is properly seated with the metal ring in the caliper.

I was just surfing around the Cosworth site and found this: http://www.cosworth.com/shop_item.php?productid=345 A little pricy for my budget but might be interesting for some real power addicts.

I hav installed a set of Speedbleeders in my '99 OBW. for the front I believe they use an 8mm wrench. I tighten that short little 8mm wrench pretty much as tight as i can and everything should be fine. On all of the calipers I have worked with the bleeder screw is tapered on the end and makes contact with a matching taper in the caliper - no gasket.

I recently purchased an Equus 3110 to read codes on my MPV. In researching code readers I found that the OBDII standard is changing and by 2008 all vehicles must use the new CAN (controller area network) protocol. Some manufacturers have already switched over. I got the 3110 because it can read the CAN protocol and thought if I was buying a code reader I might as well get one that I can use for years to come.

When time permits I plan to do the left rear. I also plan to use the Hub Tamer set to replace the rear bearings on my Miata. I am the type that likes to do as much work on my cars as possible. I have been burned a couple of times by supposedly "certified" mechanics or the dealer where they did not properly diagnose the problem or adjusted things improperly (dangerously so). The bearing problem on my Outback has been developing for years. When it first started I took the car to the dealer where the diagnosed the problem as a bad rear differential. After leaving the car with them 3 times, they replaced it twice (under warranty) without resolving the problem. I got disgusted and decided to wait until the noise got louder.

Having just replaced the right rear bearing on my Outback Wagon this past weekend I can say that the process is actually fairly easy provided you have the right tools and follow the current procedure from Subaru. Procedure Since I knew that at least one bearing was going bad and only having a rough idea that it was the right one, I decided that I would replace both of them. Reading about prices of $300 for one and $400-600 for two I decided that if I could get the tools for a reasonable price I would do them myself. For starters, I found a Hub Tamer set on ebay for $127, then I got a slide hammer, a hub puller and a bearing seperator for a combined total of about $100. The bearings were about $100 from RockAuto and the seals and nuts were $70 from subaru. I also bought 2 additional pieces for the Hub Tamer from SPX/Kent-Moore the Subaru tools supplier for about $70 Total approx. $470. The axle pushed out of the hub easily with the hub puller and the hub popped off very easily using the slide hammer. Using the Hub Tamer and the additional pieces, the bearing came out very smoothly and went in easily. When I opened the Timken bearings from RockAuto it looked like there was very little grease in them so I loaded them with Mobil synthetic grease. While the Subaru procedure specifically tells you not to add grease, I figured that they were referring to bearings purchased from Subaru.

Do you have ABS? If you do it gets more complicated. The tone wheel for the ABS is bolted to the back side of the hub and prevents driving the stud out without removing the tone wheel. You may need to remove the hub to replace the stud. I just finished replacing the right rear wheel bearing on my 99 OBW and when I was putting the wheel back on I found that I had damaged a stud while doing the bearing work. The proper procedure for the rear wheel is to remove the hub and r/r the stud and reassemble. Not wanting to rip everything apart again and risk damaging the bearings and seals, I am going to get a thread restorer file and a thread chaser die and try to restore the threads. Hopefully I have only damaged the threads at the end of the stud and there are sufficient threads remaining to hold the lug nut.

I'm just getting started on replacing my rear wheel bearings on my 99 Outback Wagon. Picked up a Hub Tamer set on Ebay for $127.00!!! As project progresses, I'll post information here.