Hi guys there's an xt6 project for sale locally and I'm thinking about picking it up. Its got no motor in it right now, but the guy has 2 motors for it that are dissasembled and a full engine rebuild kit with it. So I'm hoping that between the two motors I can mix and match to get the best pieces out of the two. Assuming that goes well, what other xt6 specific problems should I be aware of?

 

I'm pretty pumped about the idea of rebuilding the motor and then being able to drive. I'm not so fond of having a gazillion little problems with near impossible to find parts...

 

thanks!

 

 

Every interior and body part on the car is impossible to find! I wouldn't get rid of my XT GL10 because of that though. Of course, I have a shed full of XT parts, so... Welcome to the club if you get it!

In decent shape they're cheap, easy to maintain and make a lot of reliable inexpensive miles.  they're great usable vehicles.

 

Engine - valve train, pistons are identical to EA82's.  

Regrease the timing pulleys - they're in terrible shape.  Reseal the oil pump, replace cam seals and cam orings.  Timing kits with new pulleys are $400.  You can regrease them with a needle fitting on a grease gun rather than replace them.

 

Do that and replace the water pump, cap, rotor, wires, plugs and any nasty hoses and you've got a reliable vehicle.

 

The coolant temperature sensors fail the most of all the sensors, I sometimes just fix this right away on a daily driver because it's easy to do - the connectors get green crusties and corrode and fail.   You can replace the connector (there's a generic fuel injector connector that's the same) or solder the wires directly to the water temperature sensor. 

 

The idle air conrollers often get flaky and stick from crud build up inside of them.  Remove from car and spray out with cleaner - really easy to do.

 

The alternator plugs are usually brittle by now.

 

4WD versions have air suspension.  best to just convert them immediately and avoid the air suspension.  i prefer it and like how it drives and they can last a long time - but there's like 20 orings that need replaced to be reliable and they're problematic to trouble shoot.  by this age and season of life most are not in great shape.   impreza/legacy stuff works up front, EA82 rear to convert to conventional struts.

 

Electronic Power Steering - no power steering pump on the engine - it's electric.  Again - the'yre reliable if maintained well.  The electric motor usually needs brushes and the internals cleaned.  $20 for brushes and easy to do.   The system is supposed to take a specific XT6 power steering system fluid, but Subaru doesn't carry it any more.  You can still find some around or just swap to another type of fluid.

 

That's most of the major XT6-specific stuff - join us over at subaruxt.com for parts and such.