I can be part of the club now!!! (again) Now with pics.

[Mighty Subie]

Okay so the oil pump is all sealed up again and put back on. New o-ring and new oil seal. The permatex I used on it was crumbly so I think it had just gotten too old prior to use. Not sure. The passenger side head head came off because one of the cam cap bolt decided it didn't like being torqued 2x the spec and snapped. Hence the oil leak. There is 3 oil galleys under it so it definitely was the leak. I decided to have a machine shop remove it. I could have but the chances of the alum head being damaged instead of the steel bolt waa just too big and I will not have any heli-coils in my engine. So the reason why I torqued them too much is because my subaru factory mechanics manual said to. Joel at evergreen and I were talking and he printed out the new spec sheet and it shows 7 ft/lbs and mine 14 ft/lbs... I will take a pic of them when I am back up there. I was totally not amused.

So the fixed head is in the back seat of the car I'm borrowing and it will be going on Thursday. I'm crossing my fingers and toes in hopes that its all better. It's also a lot more of a pain in the butt to remove that head than I thought it would be. It wasn't bad but for some reason, I initially thought I could do it without removing the turbo. Not exactly!

 

[Mighty Subie]

so the head is NOT ready to go back on. The machine shop actually messed the threads up. I think that he passed it off to the newest guy there, you know, the bottom of the totem pole because it was ''a simple bolt extraction.'' So he wasn't smart enough to check the thread pattern. It looks like someone ran a standard tap down in it or something. Soooooooooo the car will not be put back together today. I will be bringing the head back to them. I was told on the phone that he will do whatever it takes to make it right and fix it right in front of me. He suggested a heli-coil but I hate them so we shall see what's up.

anyway here is a couple pics

stripped cam pulley bolt:

my solution and it's replacement:

It was starting to look a lot like an engine:

my reason for the messed up bolt: (my original service manual on the right, and the new version printed at evergreen on the left) Note the torque specs

 

[Mighty Subie]

sooo just an update. The head has been properly fixed by the machine shop. I will post pics later. I tried to put the head on and apparently the guy at Evergreen (some new guy at the parts desk) decided that it would be better to give me the N/A head gasket not the turbo one. It's not like I explained what I needed about 10 times to him so he could move on past his ''I need the vin number mentality'' since I do not have the vin from the engine... SOOO I almost pushed the car into the driveway and set the damn thing on fire. I'm beyond upset. There is no need of having a new thing go wrong each time I try to work on it. Also since I have the car 120 miles away from my apartment, it's a weekends only thing. Sooo I'm taking two hours out of my morning tomorrow and heading to Quirk to exchange it, and since it's opened and I don't have the invoice from the sale, they will probably hassle me. I will explode. If you hear about a person exploding in Quirk tomorrow morning, it was me. I will make one hell of a mess.

 

[drvsdwz]

that sucks...I'll be working at papa johns if you want to stop by

 

[Ceedubya06]

you want me to give them a heads up? lol

 

[Mighty Subie]

no, I had called before your post and they said they would not exchange it. I ended up having to borrow $50 to go get it. So frustrating.

 

[blmpkn]

bump for updates!

 

[Mighty Subie]

Okay sorry! haha So I Got the correct head gasket. Brought it home and busted my butt and got the whole thing together that evening and made it back to work in portland. My old man helped me on it for a while and while he installed the fans, he neglected to plug them in. Thanks Pops! haha (it was cold enough in the meantime for it to not be an issue anyway) So it acting fine after that. I can still smell some burnt oil, but I think a cabin air filter will take care of that since I don't see a leak. Some idiot (me) decided to not pay attention while buying power steering fluid though so my power steering pump is unhappy. I will try to remedy that tomorrow. I just changed all of the fluids this weekend. It seems happier. There was some of the typical 'sludge' on the plugs but no chunks or large filings or anything. It's probably been way too long since the trans and rear end were changed.

I have been having a misfire in cyl 1 lately too under half-2/3 throttle. It's definitely a misfire not knock also. I'm going to bring the tune back into reasonable levels though and see what happens from a stock-ish map. It's set to hit max boost of 22psi right now... I can tell you that 22psi will not be reached on a td04 with a 2.5L block! lol and if I did, That's more power than a wrx drivetrain should be handling! So I will bring it back down to stock levels and see if the misfire is still there. It's not RPM dependent so much as engine load dependent. I can bring it up to high rpms slowly and it goes up fine so I'm not thinking that it's a bad coil pack. I could be wrong but common sense says 'no.' Like I said though... I could be wrong anyway. Thankfully it's not knock.

 

[Pedro]

If you want to swing down wed, I have the mighty-vac deal that works well on power steering fluid changes.

 

[Mighty Subie]

sure. I was just going to yank the hoses off, but that might be better. I'm tired of buying fluids for my car though. stuff is getting expensive. I'm going to replace the carpet tomorrow. The one that's in it is ripped. So I have a used one that is in better shape and I shall make sure it's all nice a clean and then throw it in. yay.

 

[Pedro]

I'll get home around 5:30. The Dextron III is like a buck a bottle so it isn't too bad.

 

[Mighty Subie]

Okay. Swapped out the floor mat. No more rips. ordered some floor mats so this carpet doesn't develop tears. About to head to pedro's to swap power steering fluid. Next will be a new windshield and then inspection and tires. Sucks being on a limited budget.

 

[Mighty Subie]

Okay. Swapped out the floor mat. No more rips. ordered some floor mats so this carpet doesn't develop tears. About to head to pedro's to swap power steering fluid. Next will be a new windshield and then inspection and tires. Sucks being on a limited budget.

 

[Mighty Subie]

Visited Pedro and sucked out some nasty power steering fluid. It needs to be run a little more and then maybe sucked out again. It's a ton happier than it was already though.

I was excited to get over 300 miles on this tank of gas but since my gas light came on, I still got under 22mpg. I cent really complain though because I commuted to and from work all week, drove up from Boston, ran errands a couple times and visited Pedro twice on this same tank. It wasn't like it was all highway or anything. I have been keeping track on fuelly.com its pretty handy.

I ordered some LEDs for my parking lights a while back from amazon and they ended up being a little over 50 cents a piece per light before shipping. I saw the same lights in advanced auto for $5 each! Hahaha only 10x as much. After shipping mine were only 80 cents or so each. Still a lot cheaper than the auto parts store.

List of junk I still want/need to do:

New windshield

Mud flaps

Inspection (hopefully there isn't a lot that needs to be done)

Get my new rims and some all seasons or summer tires on. Have the rims, waiting on tires

Alignment

Get a trim piece for around my fog light.

Fix the misfire issue

Charge my ac system

Put my new floor mats in when they get here.

Paint my seat brackets

Okay that's about it. I will be pretty happy with that stuff. I have a mess of stuff I need to do to my bike too so I have limited time and money for the car. Riding the bike is more than just a hobby too. It saves a ton of money in gas and is s huge thing that a girl I like have in common lol. So I don't mind devoting time into it. Especially since a minor issue in a car can end my life on the bike...

 

[Mighty Subie]

Yup. So I got the new windshield in and went for an inspection. My oil leak on the pass side has shown up on the drivers side. Kind of a pita but fixable. So between that and low brake pads on back, I failed. That means the front end is all set for an alignment though. So yesterday I took this old girl up to evergreen and inski performed an alignment and did the test for the control arm recall. This thing drives great now. Not sure how long it has been since the last alignment but it needed it.

So back to Portland with parts to repair my cool oil leak. Hung out with killerbumblebee and had a blast. This morning I tried to get my tires mounted on my new rims but there is no way I am paying $100 to mount tires. So off to my friends driveway to work on my car. I noticed that its smoking a lot more out the hood than that tiny oil leak would cause. Apparently my hose on the vent on top of my engine decided to rip apart. So that was what was causing the smoke. Still need to repair it. Still need to fix the leak on the drivers side. Just can get the cover off because two of the captive nuts in the back cover decided that they want to spin. It's hot out and I'm tired. I have it half torn apart and that's where I'm at now. Sitting in my car pissed off at the world unable to proceed. *Sigh*

 

[Mighty Subie]

Cover came off with some brute force. My marks on the timing belt are gone so now I have a nee one being delivered to me because I sucked up to the right person. Time to do some more tearing down.

 

[Matt]

Should really only cost you like 40-50 to m&b tires.

 

[Mighty Subie]

Should really only cost you like 40-50 to m&b tires.

No kidding. He was trying to get me to buy rims there. Then because I wouldnt said that it's going to be 100 and he really shouldn't even do it anyway because they are not their rims. I told him that if he can shove that because theres no way in Hell that I am paying 100.

So they are still sitting in my car. Not mounted. Yesterday, one of their employees told me $42....

 

[wrangler25]

Well hopefully you wont run into any more snags , same thing when I rebuilt mine , couple stupid snags . I still have to re-do my cam seals . Thanks for reminding me

 

[Mighty Subie]

I have the perfect way to seat them. a 1 1/2 socket with a 12 (or is it 14?) mm fine thread bolt and a washer, using an old seal as a guide. just crank it on in until it's where it should it. no pounding with a hammer. No sideways seals. So I am going to need to make a car story thread up and condense this and stuff once I get it finished. Probably once I get a sticker on it.

I did run into another snag or two tonight, but we got it buttoned back up and on the road. That broken vent line is now gone. It's temporarily capped off until I can get some 5/8'' coolant hose and the ambition to fix it. It still has the corner vent so it's not like the engine will explode and die. I did put a clamp on the cap too, just in case! lol I put more permatex on the exhaust cam cap and new bolts and put that back on. New oil seal behind it. Couldn't see the passenger side marks on my timing belt so I got one from Patriot who graciously delivered it to me. I feel bad though because once I got it, I started thinking... I took out a silver sharpie and marked the spots on the old one after counting how many teeth over I needed to go on the new one. The old one only has 10k on it so It's not about to rip it's self apart. The reason I feel bad is because I'm going to return it. Hopefully no one catches on that it's the one they delivered because I will seem like a huge jerk for having them do something extra for me, just to rub it in their face.

Rear brakes are brandy-new now too! that is nice because one was down to the metal. I will pick up some front pads soon and replace those too. Now, replace my bulbs tomorrow and I should be able to get a new sticker on the old girl. I will have to hose down the bottom to get all of the residual oil off first though. I can say that it wasn't doing the ol drip drip when I made it back to my apartment and it was 20 min on the highway at almost 3k rpms so if it was going to be upset and puke, that would probably do it.

I still have the misfire but I am thinking that the coils I swapped around are cyl 2 and 4. I was thinking that front left (because on bikes and airplanes you read left to right) was 1, making the one behind it 3. I put a different coil on 3 and moved the one from 3 to 1. I'm thinking that I was on the wrong side though. Driver's side is 2 and 4??? I can't remember. I shall try to swap them back over tomorrow. Should only take about 10 min.