What did you do to your Outback today? V3

Epic post! I would think one of the advantages to pulling the engine, is less brute strength needed. Being able to wrestle with the trans in a position where you have more leverage, vs bench pressing it up from your back. or try to balance it on a jack. not that i have done it myself on the subie, but thinking of other cars i've changed it on.

 

 

To be honest, I still had to wrestle the engine to get it to mate with the trans, even with the engine leveler. It took me a while and a lot of patience. My back did hurt a bit too.

 

My jack has a wide platform, so it's not too bad to hold the trans with it. But yeah, still sucks too, no lies about it.

And back on topic, I just received two Power Steering Pump Seal Kit Gates 348532. Both of my cars have their PS leaking a bit and I hate leaks, especially on shiny engines! So off I go to change all the seals!

We were on our way back from Bigbear in the rain, and the wipers on my 2018 car started disintegrating right in front of my eyes. I was waiting as long as possible to manually activate them, hoping to make them last, until we were out of the mountain area and could find a auto parts store. Kids literally said "Wow!" when they saw how well new wipers work vs the last hour of crappy visibility. I had no idea the wipers were trashed, bc no reason to drive in the rain until that.

 

I believe I was seeing the beginning stages of disintegrating in these old wipers. Much like your kids, I was amazed. Funny enough, I manually activate them most of the time to minimize usage of the wiper. This doesn't make sense as I'm wearing out the switch/contacts more, and it's easier to swap out wipers than electronics. It also completely defeats the purpose of timed-wipers, so I need to stop this. It's a bad habit I picked up earlier in the rainy season.

I can suggest ceramic coating your glass all-around. Help with easier frost removal and ice build up.

Not as much rain here as your guy's way but it's a world world world of difference.

My one car I used Adams glass ceramic a few years ago. I reapply every fall. My other cars I've bought the Glassparency kits and it's lasted much longer.

If you don't do that just the standard rainX is still a good product to help

I claybar'd the windshield last week, didn't get around to waxing it as it started to rain. I'm not too worried about it since I developed a crack that now stretches the length of the windshield, and I'll be replacing it sometime soon.

Just a few recommendations. Even if you clay it or use some super fine steel wool that helps clear the windshield or any old sap and big guts. Easier on your wiper blades. Even guy a few squirts of a ceramic based detailing spray can help. Like P&S beadmaker, it's relatively cheap and gives good pop to be used on the entire car.

I think I have some Ceramic spray from Griots. I might give that I try this weekend!

3,166mi later the oil was changed. I also rotated the tires, and threw in a fresh panel air filter.

A couple weeks ago, I 'rebuilt' the PS pump with fresh seals. 152k on the old seals. Hopefully it'll last a long time.

No kidding! I have a tab open for the top o-ring PN#. Will probably stop by the dealer tomorrow for it. I also picked up a PS pump from the junkyard a couple weekends ago. OEM, and looks close to brand new.

 

My pumps been whining, am I'm almost positive it's original and never been serviced. My STi rack also needs to be rebuilt, so my PS system is a wreck rn. Still works, it's just not sealed properly, gives me some whine on full-lock, and requires a top off every other week.

Never rebuilt a pump before, but there are plenty of threads around here. Surely it doesn't take a rocket doctor.

On another subject, while reading numerous oil pick up/pan threads. I see that you caught yours in the nick of time from causing a catastrophic failure. You picked up a Moroso unit - obviously, you know this

 

My questions are:

 

Did the install require you to drop the header just to get the oil pan out?

 

Did you jack up the engine to help?

 

If you did jack up the engine, would this be a good time to replace the engine mounts?

 

I'll be ordering an aftermarket pickup tube soon to replace my original one with 140K on it. And to help combat potential oil starvation issues.

I had to look back at my notes: yes I removed the header to get more room. I do not recall jacking up the engine, but I am not 100% sure anymore . I may have done it just a tad.

Are you planning to do this to a 2.5i or turbo engine? I don't recall hearing the NA engine suffered from this issue.

I plan on doing this to the 2.5i. I haven't read anything showing that the 2.5i (EJ253) suffered from cracked pick-up tubes at low mileage like the 255s and 257s do. Mine being an 2006MY, we do share the same pan and pick-up though. And clearly it hasn't been an issue for me in the last 140k otherwise a rebuild would've taken place.

 

I don't currently have a way of monitoring my oil pressure (no gauges), that I know of. In addition to piece of mind towards this preventive maintenance, I intend to use this car for a driving school, autocross, and maybe see the track this upcoming season.

 

From my understanding the lateral G force load is one of couple ways to cause oil starvation. Now, again, I don't have a measuring device on-board to even know what kind of G-forces I'm pushing on the back roads (probably not much in comparison) vs what I would be pushing on a road course. I'm not as concerned with the lateral forces put on in a parking lot for AutoX as I would be the longitudinal forces on the rods.

 

I figured the baffling in my factory pan plus an aftermarket oil pick-up tube, in addition to an proper AOS would help combat any oiling issues I could see on the track or on the back roads. Or do I have this wrong? I have no understanding of if oiling issues occur under spirited driving through the mountains.

 

Maybe find one of the Cosworth baffles?

 

I've been reading to see what ppl are doing on the wet sump, bc I'm not spending the money on a dry sump for a car that isn't a dedicated track car. In saying this, I'm starting to re-think taking it to the track. I think the driving school, and an Auto X here or their may be fine, but I'm starting to sike myself out for a dedicated track day beyond the driving school.

A follow up on my post from last month. I did go ahead and have the dealership replace my sticky dash and they ended up doing a great job. The tech apparently spent a LOT of hours on it and I'm happy to report no scratches, dents or squeaks. Again, it was in for the airbag replacement and, while that dealership typically does not pull the whole dash for that job, they apparently gave me some credit for the labor. In the end, the part cost around $600 and with labor the whole affair cost about a grand. Maybe silly to spend that on a 13 year old car with 80k miles on it but I plan on keeping this thing for a while and it sure is nice not having a ugly, sticky dash that collects every piece of lint and dust that passes by. Edited February 1, 2022 by Acerguy

Epic post! I would think one of the advantages to pulling the engine, is less brute strength needed. Being able to wrestle with the trans in a position where you have more leverage, vs bench pressing it up from your back. or try to balance it on a jack. not that i have done it myself on the subie, but thinking of other cars i've changed it on.

 

I did the drop trans way. It was pretty terrible. All hand tools meant that my forearms where shot for three weeks.

 

M Sprank mentioned he does it by leaving the engine / transmission in place and is able to get just enough space. Given my tools / skills no way was that going to work for me.

I go to the gym though

 

 

In all seriousness, yeah it's still hard.

Interesting. I tried to get SOA to replace my dash and solid nope.

Getting ready for a road trip to Boise to drop a friends off to pick up a truck.

Car has never been out of California! 244K on the clock.

It's not that far. It'll be just fine.

Fixed the door rattle on the drivers side.

Passenger side will be later.

 

 

Second part of the hose feeding the windshield spigots split so that's now replaced as well.

What is this a picture of exactly?

It that a loose rivet?

 

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

What's annoying on mine is the plastic cover on the left side of the driver seat keeps coming off. It looks awful. I bought new subaru 'clips' but it still pops off. Any idea on how to fix this?

What is this a picture of exactly?

 

Door jam under the weather strip.

I drilled out both spot welds. You can see the lower one had not pulled itself clear yet but was on it's way.

 

Upper was completely pulled and rattling driving down the road.

It's part of the rail structure for the window assembly.

 

Couple of 3/16 rivets in place and no more rattle. Passenger side is on it's way but still intact. Will do this before they fail.

 

Weather strip was simple to get out of the way with a little tug up and out to release the tab off the push clip. No need to rip it out of the seat as it would likely break.

Just ordered all four air control motors. Not looking forward to this install at all!