1 Lucky Texan

yeah, on another board I posted an adventure swapping the bushings with Prothane inserts. On our 03, the stockers definitely had some greenish fluid in them. Took them out due to NVH complaints from the wife. running Febest for the last few years. I personally don't think they are fluid filled but could easily be wrong. oem style are also L/R specific. The control arm needs to be brought up to 'cruising height' (more or less flat with the underside of the car. Mid travel I guess?) when OEM-style mount is finally torqued in place. Not required on poly units though.

Perrin also makes some rear bushings for the LCA;

one other quick thought , you might want to at least know about Heri heavy duty axles, particularly if you are going for an extreme lift.

there's huge forces on that part. almost all the acceleration and braking forces are concentrated there. Febest had some replacements that are affordable - dunno how they would be strength-wise. hope the captured nuts in the frame don't bust loose!

I have no experience with this stuff but, don't some Mazda MX5s (miatas) have a Japanese Torsen-clone rear diff? Or there's a LSD available for Miatas? Maybe it could be adapted into a rig? if your rig was always on dirt/gravel - never dry pavement - you could weld the gears inside.

do your next TB service at 60k or 75k miles.

you said they were worn but, are all 4 tires identical? brand/model/size? If not, red flag. as said, make sure the car is warmed up fully when you test drive, and after it's warm, take it to flat dry pavement and see if it smoothly does tight circles at idle or just above - any jerking grabbing is likely center diff binding, manuals may not show a problem when cold. - red flag never trust the o'flow bottle to reflect cooling system volume, look in the radiator. And, if it has a typical parts store rad cap instead of Japanese, that could be an issue - maybe the thermostat isn't OEM either. everyone expects a car to have working brakes, but flipped cars often have the cheapest pads on them. expect them to be poor performing or, at best, they will wear-out quickly. Timing Belt systems service schedule is 105monts or 105K miles w'ever comes first. Toothed idler is the weak spot but tensioner can be problematic too. Belts hardly ever break unless something else fails first. if you have a soob-friendly independent shop near your city, consider paying them for a prepurchase inspection.

www.crutchfield.com , for ideas even if not purchasing from them

double check crank/cam timing, maybe off a tooth ?

does it idle OK? any backfiring?

a 3rd gen 6cyl. with the 5EAT could work, but you'd really need to find a cherry one as they are getting old. maybe lease a CPO 2016 or 2017 ???

first start - keep your foot off the gas pedal. If there's a 'zero' position being recorded, it should be accurate that way.

try 3 drain/fill cycles on the trans - with a little driving in between. On the final fill, try a bottle of Trans-X . I have read a few reports of it helping with 'delayed engagement'. I'd use Valvoline MaxLife ATF

car ever set a misfire code? that cylinder's bank would be my best guess. wonder if you could idle or even drive until system is bubbling, park and idle engine, then quickly pull and replace plug wires 1 at a time while monitoring the bubbles? when you kill combustion in the leaking cylinder, bubbles should decrease right? Or, killing the leaking cylinder would affect idling the least? may need a helper to keep the engine running?????

I'm still resisting the allure of FB. I may give-in at some point . I dunno how groups even 'work' on FB. I check subaruoutback.org several times a day. I have felt that a good merger could be USMB and Scoobymods . I occasionally look-in at NASIOC I also check the newsgroup every month or 2.

+1 for RetroRoo

some good info here; https://www.subaruoutback.org/forums/99-do-yourself-illustrated-guides/43428-diy-c-air-conditioning-leak-refrigerant-repair-5-less-15-minutes-less.html

yeah, even cardoc used it on his supercharged outback here's part 1 of a diff-s[ecific repair -

^^^ those kind of tips can mean a lot to us DIYers, thanx

yep, not saying it's 100% but, BOTH of your symptoms could be aweak/blown-out tensioner. there's a youtube video of a knock sound caused by a weak tensioner.

any sound with it? you might check for a wobbling crank pulley. Old ones sometimes delaminate and can even slip. At least look at all the pulleys while someone else revs the car, in case something is going on there.

another option would be using Window Weld - there's at least one guy on youtube that used it to beef-up his original bushings and it seems to be lasting for him. I read of one other person that has used it. I think it can be messy, and there's some period of time required for it to cure. might be worth looking into

wonder if the heads were decked or some odd size gasket was used?

crossover? you can get a rig to pressurize the system while you look for the leak

swap tires front to back inspect suspension and steering parts look for frozen brake caliper