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birkhoff

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    Vancouver Island, Canada
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    these days, mostly a bike. Don't ask.
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    bad decisions
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    Keeps me busy

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  1. Thanks KZJ. I'm gonna keep the engine sensors at the bottom of the list because it runs normally when I jump the pump. That still leaves the possibility that some disagreement between the sensors and ECM are messing up the controller signal, but not an outright component failure. That said, early in diagnosis I replaced the crank position sensor 'cause I had a good one handy and it was easy to swap out, but nothing changed. I agree that failure of the controller at exactly the same time as my work on the engine seems far fetched. I need to carefully review what I touched in the engine and trace backwards to see if I messed up a wire or ground somewhere. Failing that, I'll put the front of engine back together and see if by some miracle it runs. It is missing one ground strap (RHS -- the left is intact) which I need to attend to anyway.
  2. The controller is bolted to the body stiffener at the left (driver) rear above the rear end of the wheel well. Unfortunately you have to take the entire side trim panel off to get to it. Disconnecting the module from the loom, I get a solid 12.5 V at the power-in lead (RB) when the key is on. It does not cut off after the dial sweep for prime, so that must be managed by the controller. Probing the ground line (B) from the controller confirms a good ground. The rest of the voltage measurements are confusing, so I'll do some more investigating before speculating how this works. After plugging and unplugging the controller, the pump still doesn't prime when the gauges sweep.
  3. Yes, do add this to the thread. From what I learned, you are one of the few where a subi-dealer took on the replacement under recall. On my 2005 wagon the records showed they had already dealt with it a few years earlier (under different owner) which amounted to nothing more than some wire brush work and anti-corrosion oil. The lines eventually failed in my driveway -- lucky me -- but I had to do the repair myself -- unlucky me. It is a huge job to do by the book. I think I added a writeup about it somewhere else on the site a few years back.
  4. Couldn't find much about this via site search. Car is a 2008 LGT wagon, auto, 180K km (canadian car) that has some worrying noises coming from a RocketRally built engine. Decided to open up the timing area and check the tensioner, idlers and WP just in case it was something simple. When I went to start the car with the timing covers off it cranks but will not start. No sound at all from fuel pump when ignition is on to sweep dials so priming/run seem disabled. Diagnosis so far: Both fuses good. Fuel pump relay clicks when gauge sweep initiated. Refit the Alt/PS belt in case the ECM uses the ALT signal for something. No change. Found no fuel at engine quick connect so confirmed no prime pressure -- not just that it is an unusually quiet pump. Hard wired pump to 12V and it primes and engine will start and run as long as I keep 12V at the pump. Digging into the manual it looks like this car has a fuel pump controller, not just using the ECM for this. To be honest, I'm working from a 2005 LGT manual, but this seems true for all 2.5 turbos. If there is something different for 2008? That would be good to know. The car has some minor rodent damage to the wiring in the engine area. No damage behind dash or inside car. No exposed wires found yet, but I can only see what I can see without tearing too much apart. This could be a confounding issue, though there were no other oddball behaviours prior to taking the front off the engine. The obvious clue is that I only messed with the front end of the engine prior to this happening. Drained coolant, removed rad and fans, pulled off aux belts and crank pulley; removed timing covers and then . . . no start/prime. I'm sure I've run one of these engines without coolant and covers for a test like this before and not encountered this problem. Temporarily out of ideas, I plan to check voltages and grounds at the controller. Where is it located in this US spec Wagon? Wiring diagram WI indicates it is somewhere rear-ish on the driver's side but where? Any other pointers or ideas welcome.
  5. I just finished dealing with this myself, since the brake line recall had been done to my car already (surprise!) and the dealer quote for repair was 'up to $5K due to rust and corrosion issues' . The car lived part of its life on the US northeast coast. I was losing about half a reservoir of brake fluid every two weeks. And it WAS a huge job. Yes, it would be possible to haywire a line up and over the tank and jury rig something at the connection block but I didn't think that was a wise long-term solution. So out came the rear suspension, subframe and fuel tank. All were rusted to the point of not being reusable so I had to source good used parts as replacement. It took about 3 days just to gingerly remove the ten heavy subframe bolts that run up into captive nuts inside the unibody and if you tear those out, you basically scrap the car. Uncovered some suspension problems that had been wearing out my tires (already noted by the tire techs) and the source of an annoying gas smell that was due to an evap line nipple rusted off the top of the camel hump on the fuel tank. Other connections to the tank simply fell off when I ran my hand over them. Add to that new brake backing plates and e-brake cables, as well as a set of e-brake hardware. I had one bit of good luck, the rear brake calipers were not seized; well not completely. With a couple hours of coaxing I got them moving full range again. Countering that, I needed a new fuel pump. Even though I was super gentle taking it out, the flange was already cracked and leaked badly when everything went back into the new (used) tank. In the end, keeping in mind that the dealer would have had to use all new, OEM parts for this, and have to go slow or risk bricking the car, I started to think their quote was not that unreasonable! One thing that kind of kept me up for a few nights was finding out that in fact both LH and RH brake lines were essentially rusted through near the connection block. They both broke as soon as I started working on them. My theory had been, as a dual circuit system, I would not lose all braking if a rusted line blew out. Given the condition of those lines, I could have easily lost both circuits under hard braking. That may be the issue that Subie4 encountered and I agree, this is hard to forgive the manufacturer/dealer system for. Anyway, I now have the west coast's sweetest 2005 LGT wagon from the rear seats back!
  6. My 2005 EJ255/257 was eating oil at about that rate, at about the same mileage. On teardown it was simply stuck rings, specifically, stuck oil control rings. Everything else in the bottom end would have gone the extra 100K I'm pretty sure. HOWEVER What killed it shortly after 180K was a valve failure. If nobody has been in the top end of that engine yet, you might expect something similar as the exhaust valve clearances close up and then the valves burn. If compression is good and the valve clearances have been corrected, then I don't think it is beyond comprehension that the motor could run quite a long way before failing provided you keep pouring oil through it. As for mods at the time of rebuilds, I'll leave that to the experts. I rebuilt mine to stock (about 5 years ago) and never looked back.
  7. Definitely, these behave like some sort of interference thread, as you say. Over the years, I've had flare fittings that are frozen so bad with rust that they simply won't move at all. Or, the compression nut breaks free, but the hard line is `welded' tight inside the nut from rust and you have to cut the line off. Once the nut breaks free, it should reverse easily. These things are binding all the way out, even though the line is running free inside the nut. Interference threads! Still, I happen to have a 2006 Outback parts car here and all the brake line fittings are perfectly normal, though rusty, so I don't know what is up with this 2005 LGT wagon!
  8. Yes that was more or less the plan, but I was going to snake the line underneath and over the fuel tank following the existing line. You can drop the tank about an inch without removing the subframe for access. It was a good plan, until I found out my fuel tank was heavily corroded and some of the evap lines on the back had broken off (due to rust, again!) I guess that is where the gas smell was coming from Exactly correct. The rear nylon clip on the right rear box section up beside the fuel tank. The line actually broke in my hand at the clip when I started moving it around. Thank god for dual circuit brakes! Thanks for this. The problem I have is the same, but add in some issues with the flare fittings at all the brake line connections. It is a toss up to me whether I spend 10 hours fighting with the dealer (probably not successful) or just do the dang job myself. The entire undercarriage of this car is a mess of rust. My experience has been that any heavy work involves broken bolts and brackets if you don't watch out. Dropping the subframe with all those big captive nuts was not for the faint of heart, I'll tell you. This is why the dealer was really dragging their feet and advised that it could get very expensive. I talked with the lead mechanic as well as the manager. I get that. In the end it is not so bad. I have about 9 hours in so far, with the subframe removed and broken down and the tank dropped out. I can clean and prime the bodywork in there while the tank is out. Wrecker has a good rust-free replacement tank and all the fittings close by. I'll clean up and re-bush the subframe while it is out. All these are things that I avoided over the years because trying to work on it under the car without a lift was just too painful.
  9. Did Subaru have problems with a batch of hard lines around 2005? My 2005 wagon developed a leak in the rear hard lines above the fuel tank. Not funny, because the tank has to come out, so the rear subframe has to come out . . . a real can of worms. Working through the replacement I found all the compression fittings hard to turn. They bind all the way out. Not from corrosion, as such, but it appears the threads are bad. They look like a bolt that has had the wrong pitch thread forced on. Even the connections in the engine bay have the problem, where there is NO corrosion at all. These rear lines were the subject of a recall a few years ago. Dealer cleaned up the outsides around connector block and sprayed some wax rustproofing around. Fair enough, but when I took the car back recently with the leak they basically threw up their hands. Since the recall was addressed, they have no authority to do any more work for free. Estimated $5-6K for the job since they would be replacing a lot of hardware due to rust and age. Obviously not a viable expenditure on a 16 year old vehicle with 220K miles on the clock.
  10. Mine are scored beyond repair. Don't mind if they need rebuilding but they need to be good cores. Shipping or drop off at an address in Blaine WA. I live in Canada.
  11. Um, auxiliary air pump (smog pump) and smaller combustion chamber heads, for one (D25 or later). Not that these things make it impossible to swap over, but they add complications if you are looking at a pre-2007 engine, or an STI EJ257 donor engine. It looks like the changeover was 2006/2007 in the Outback XT.
  12. What kind of miles are on this car? 230K around town is very different from 230K highway. I recently tore down a 180K engine where the first 140K was run by a travelling salesman. Everything inside the shortblock measured to spec including pistons, crank, bearings and so on. This is what highway miles and good basic maintenance can do. If you are able to do this work yourself, i.e. cost=time, then why not just do the head gaskets with standard bench cleanup, check the valve clearances, correct where required and pack it back up. Replace rear main, and oil pump seals if they are leaking otherwise leave them alone. You stand a good chance of creating a leak that you didn't have before. If you need to correct valve clearances then the cams have to come off so of course new seals are needed. The idea here is to keep your outlay under a few hundred dollars or so in parts, because that engine may last the 5-10 years you are looking for, or it may die two weeks after you re-install. Once you open up the engine, you pretty much have to do everything just to protect the cost of parts an labour invested for each component. Example: would you really put that high mileage turbo back on the engine after spending 2K for a shortblock and 1K for head work? As far as the bottom end goes, buy or borrow a mechanical oil pressure gauge and check your hot idle pressure before you pull the engine. If it is within spec, then there is a good chance your shortblock still has some life left. Heads up: the oil line connection is BSW 1/8 pipe so you may have to adapt something. A cold leak down test once the engine is out may tell you something, but if you had no running problems like rough idle or heavy oil consumption so far, it will probably pass with flying colours.
  13. The tools you need for a subaru may be less expensive than you think. You need two 0.0001 micrometers: 0-1 inch and 2-3 inch and a general purpose bore gauge. If you lurk on EBay a bit you can definitely pick up excellent quality for these, lightly used: Mitutoyo, Starrett, Standard, Etalon and so-on. You need not pay more than $100 for any one item, sometimes a lot less. You also need a straightedge, which I wouldn't buy used, but they aren't expensive for the accuracy you need. Micrometers are simple tools and good ones last forever unless you drive your Outback over them! A trick for micrometers is to look for ones with carbide faces and ask for clear pictures of same from sellers. Carbide chips (steer clear) but does not wear out so faces remain parallel. Most high-end mics have had carbide faces forever. Inch or metric is fine although constantly converting can be a pain. Maybe stick to one or the other. Bore gauges are comparator instruments so, combined with a reliable micrometer, they don't need to be calibrated themselves. I don't recommend big capacity mics or bore gauges for the cylinders, though I have them. Cylinders are impossible to measure with these engine apart, in my experience, so just find a way to measure the piston grade point (nothing fancy needed there) and call it a day. However, and this is a big however, using these tools is quite another thing. Once you measure in tenths, temperature, orientation, position of the moon (just kidding) seems to come into play. Not to mention that it takes a lot of practice to get the right feel. If you do this day-in, day-out, fine. If you pull out the big boys once every two years, expect to have a frustrating few hours while you relearn the feel and double - triple check everything. That being said, I haven't figured out how anyone could reliably build one of these blocks without doing the measurements to tenths and checking your list twice. Or paying someone else to do it. Otherwise, it is a crap shoot. Not that it can't work, but it may not work, spectacularly, as we have seen.
  14. That would be a nice trick if you can measure a piston pin to rod bore clearance with plastigage From recent teardown of a running (but w 180K miles) motor: piston pins mic to 0.9053. There is no discernible wear from that number anywhere on the pins. Bores in brand new pistons mic to 0.9055 so there is only 0.0002 (note tenths!) clearance from pin to piston boss. I suppose that is where the rule comes from that once well oiled, the pins should slide into the pistons with slight resistance. Oil clearance for the small end bushing in the rod is in the FSM. Interesting data point: I have some brand new pins floating around. They mic to 0.9052, one tenth smaller. Same mic, same temperature. Honestly, if required, those 180K mile pins could go back in an engine. Also the stock pistons still show machine marks on the skirts although all the coating is worn off. But with those parts being so cheap, and pistons a pain to clean, re-use makes no sense. None of the piston pins out of that engine showed numbers after a basic cleanup with solvent. Is this original hardware, or aftermarket perhaps?
  15. boxkita, I think you are almost correct on this, but maybe don't double up the oil clearance. That drops you 0.040mm on the total stack. Think about when you check oil clearance with plastigage. You don't put it on both sides of the journal, right? Since I'm in the middle of this with my own current build and the FSM doesn't have any of these (important) specs, here is a sample reverse calculation for stock, followed by numbers that come up on an actual engine at teardown. Also, aftermarket parts can have totally different specs, especially for oil clearance so modify accordingly. First we follow boxkita's lead: Crank journals 52.000 (diameter) Bearing shells at crown: 1.500 (radius, times 2) Oil clearance: 0.030 (diameter, shooting for mid range of FSM) Total stack height (theoretical) is therefore 55.030 mm. The FSM oil clearance target is 0.017 - 0.043, a big range, and we shoot for the middle in this example. Now, if your rod bore was equal to 55.030 there would be no bearing crush to lock the shell into the bore, inviting a spun rod bearing. So how much smaller should the bore be? Here are some actual numbers from the teardown inspection of a block with healthy but well-worn bearings at 180K miles on the clock. The base bores in the rods (with torqued caps) measure 55.022mm. This is *way* below 55.080 mentioned above. The catalogue from a well-known bearing supplier says the bore should be 55.000 to 55.020, so this real-life measurement is consistent. In the same engine at teardown, bearing thicknesses (used shells, decent shape) were 1.504 and 1.499; no surprise that one shell takes more wear than the other. That's 3.003mm in stack height so we are down to 52.019 for the bore with inserts installed. Interestingly, the *actual* measured bore with inserts installed and torqued was 52.024 so the difference (+0.005 mm = +0.0002 inch) is the effect of `crush' on the rod and accumulated measurement error. Crank pin dimensions show this engine was evidently running with about 0.038 - 0.048 mm of oil clearance, which is on the high side of spec in the FSM mentioned above. Again, no big surprise there for such a high mileage block. It wasn't the bottom end that died, however. Hope this helps.
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