136 replies to this topic

[El_Freddo]

Hmmm… I’ll put that one on the list to check out Barbs! It doesn’t look like that’s the issue but I’ll give the fork a thorough inspection. I’ve got two here if needed. It still doesn’t explain how the bite/grab point of the clutch seems to be in the same spot though for a cracked fork.

I’m itching to get this one sorted asap as I’m wanting to drive it early next week and park it in public for several days. Better this car than my brumby I reckon!

I’ve got Friday night, Saturday morning and whatever I haven’t written off for Sunday to get this sorted… fun fun.

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

All done. Stoked. The weather was awesome this morning but by the time I was done it was very light sprinkling of rain on and off.

Anyway all works as it should now. I didn’t see this one coming!



Two broken fingers. Some damage to the inside of the bell housing as one of the fingers came out and decided to take a look around. The damage wasn’t worth a pic, one chipped rib and a number of dents on the bell housing and the clutch pressure plate housing. I didn’t hear a thing when this happened!

Luckily I had another pressure plate sitting around, I just threw that in. No need to skim the flywheel or anything like that. The clutch disc looked pretty good so it went back in too, plus I didn’t have another one anyway.

I used some round steel poles between the gearbox and the front gearbox crossmember to slide the box on, everything else was disconnected from the gearbox. This worked a treat and gave me all the access I need to get into and remove the clutch.

Mating the box back to the engine took ten minutes from under the car. It would’ve taken less if a breather hose didn’t fall between the engine and box.

Hopefully this lasts some time to come yet!

Cheers

Bennie

[allpaw4]

I'll get that ignition coil quoted up on Monday for you Bennie. Our post office isn't open over the weekend at all here.

That pressure plate looks suitably knackered! Would not have suspected that at all!

Cheers,
Ben

[JDP]

Good work Bennie. I've changed the clutch a few times that way, to get back on the road quickly without skimming the flywheel.

It's saves a lot of time and hassle not having to remove the box entirely.

 

Glad you got it sorted. 

[Barbbachello]

Thats a new one. 

[El_Freddo]

I'll get that ignition coil quoted up on Monday for you Bennie. Our post office isn't open over the weekend at all here.

No stress mate!

That pressure plate looks suitably knackered! Would not have suspected that at all!

  

Me either! Ive heard of cracked or broken fingers before, Ive even shattered a clutch disc after a spring got dislodged and I drove it 300+ km from the high country to Lakes Entrance and almost back with rev matching. It gave up in the end. I found 19 pieces of clutch disc with one or three missing bits

Good work Bennie. I've changed the clutch a few times that way, to get back on the road quickly without skimming the flywheel.
It's saves a lot of time and hassle not having to remove the box entirely.
 
Glad you got it sorted.

 

Thanks Kong! Yeah Im not into skimming stuff all the time if its not needed. Then again Im yet to get into the high performance game. For me atm, so long as it works why spend coin you dont need to? Plus in this instance I didnt have the time to bugger around with that anyway!

 

Thats a new one.

First for me! I had heard some weird noise several times when using the clutch in traffic and thought it could be a master cylinder or pedal box issue but it wasnt consistent. Im also glad it wasnt either of those as I dont have spares of that stuff! I just lucky that Subarus are Lego as I think this pressure plate was from a Gen1 Liberty but cant really remember

Got a run down the Calder tomorrow so thatll be a good tester. It can stuff up on the way home for all I care, just not on the way there!!

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

Had a shit my pants moment this morning on my way to work. Downshifting coming into a town there was a grinding/rumbly engine like noise that sounded like it was coming through the stez - and no engine braking, in fact no drive in any gears but the clutch felt fine! PANIC MODE set it for a moment.

Then I realised the low range lever was sticking up a bit - it was in neutral. I had to pull over to put it back in high as the gear checks I’d done didn’t make for good high range selection.

No issues once again. VERY glad it was an easy fix!

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

Basil is kicking along real nice at them moment. The touchy on/off throttle around town and in the carpark or at low speeds is annoying, I don’t know what Subaru did to the ECU programming but they definitely didn’t get something right there. Or something is out of adjustment, but I’ve heard of this being an issue for the EJ251s.

One thing I’ve been meaning to post about is a very slight surging feeling - fourth gear, +2000rpm (from memory) at 60km/h is when it occurs. Without moving my foot on the throttle it surges up and down ever so slightly by the butt dyno. I was wondering if anyone had some insight as to why this might be happening?

Another odd thing: cold starts. Can crank for about 5 seconds before roaring to life - then idling high. Or I can hit the key, stop then go immediately again and it will take one crank for it to fire up (and idle too high for my liking). A mate of mine says it’s an EJ251 thing as my vehicle is the third he knows of that does it. The other two are his old auto outback (2001) and his converted MY hatch that’s currently got the EJ251. He’s thinking of pulling that out for the EJ202.

Cheers

Bennie

[allpaw4]

Yea, my newer RX had that temperamental throttle as well, could be something with their tuning. Either that or the TPS needs adjusting/replacing after a while. Don't know.
Your cold start problem is pretty normal from my experience. My old B4 used to do it, and my first RX did as well. B4 doesn't have that issue now, but it also has a slightly weeping injector (I think) as well, after a couple of weeks its hard to start (read as like 4 or five good cranking attempts, even after a couple of initial primes of the fuel pump), but after a just a weekend, it starts first crank, barely even spinning the motor over one or 2 full revolutions.
It could be something else, but at this stage I'm thinking a weeping injector...

High idle when cold is perfectly normal. As the car comes up to temp, the idle setpoint slowly drops from 1500, although I've seen 1800rpm with the air con on; down to the warmed up setpoint of ~650 to 750, maybe higher depending on if auto and air con on. Once it senses that the car has been put into gear, it should drop back down to a reasonable cold start level of around 8 to 900 rpm. You should be able to get it to drop by just blipping the throttle, then it'll drop, but if it doesn't sense any movement and is still "cold" it will bring the revs back up again after a set amount of time.

Cheers,
Ben

[El_Freddo]

What you’re describing is bang on. Although selecting a gear does nothing to revs at any stage.

Replacement coil pack now fitted. I’ll find out how it runs with it on Monday and I’ll report back

If I find the motivation I’ll look into the throttle position sensor. I know the older versions needed a clean from time to time - and they could be opened up to do this easily enough.

Cheers

Bennie

[allpaw4]

It won't drop until it sees TPS sensor movement Bennie, and even then, if I put the clutch in and have no throttle when coasting, it'll kick back into cold start high idle maps within a few seconds until it sees the throttle sensor move again. Autos will know when it's in gear and respond accordingly.

I'm not sure the gen3 sensors are easily cleanable, but it's definitely worth a thought.

Happy that it's there. Hopefully it goes without a hitch man!

[JDP]

It's probably not related but worth checking anyway... accelerator cable, not adjusted too tight? I found out the hard way that they need a little bit of slack and I experienced similar symptoms to what you described.

[El_Freddo]

Hey Ben good tip on that throttle tap after start up, it brings down the revs a lot quicker!

Thanks for the tip on the throttle cable too Kong, I’ll look into that one and report back. The brumby gets a run tomorrow for a change, plus I need to pick up some stuff and it’s super handy for that work

Cheers

Bennie

[allpaw4]

All good man! Happy to help.

Cheers,
Ben

[El_Freddo]

Yesterday I confirmed that Basil is still rocking his original engine at 487,000km! The paperwork in the glovebox confirmed the engine number as the original. Without that paperwork it would be anyones guess.

Cheers

Bennie

[allpaw4]

I'm amazed that the venerable old 2.5 has managed that tbh, but its certainly cool!

Hopefully it keeps going a while longer too!

Cheers,
Ben

[El_Freddo]

So for a long time now Basil sported some offroad expedition stories with my sister, well one actually…

Late last year I tapped out the ding in the rear quarter that made him look way better even though he’s now got all the small little hammer marks from the inside if you really look at the bodywork. A week later I learned about a trick of putting a deflated basketball in the panelwork and inflating it. Bummer.

Anyway while at pick a part late last year I grabbed some parts to replace the story board that made him look like a real beater when viewing the LHS.

Decided to do it on the hottest day of the year so far, peak temp at 39°, under a tree on our street (no shed!) streaming the 2003 hottest 100 on double J that I missed yesterday. That helped the work in the heat! If I didn’t get stuck into it the work would continue to linger and possibly never get done.

I found some rust at the lower guard area behind the front wheel, not sure if this is normal for these models (also 20+ year old vehicle so it’s doing well!) but it turned out to be quite superficial after running the wire wheel over it and giving it several good coats of rust converter.

Here’s the before:



And after:



I had to swap the glass over due to the window tint. This task took ages as I basically had to strip the door to get it out. I swapped the external door handle over as well as it was missing the lock barrel and I didn’t like the look of it.

It’s 90% done now. Hanging the door, setting the door gaps and “tuning in” the stop point of the glass took a while. It all worked out well though.

What’s left to do now is replace a bit of wiring for the tweeter and swap that over to this door with the original door card as the other one was not the same style. The original speaker’s days are numbered too. It’s lost the outer support part that holds the cone to the outer ring. Both speakers were in the same condition. Still sounds ok, it won’t win a sound comp though.

Wiring looms were the same which was good and less work.

That’s it for now. Odometer is nearing the golden 500 with it being over the 494,000km mark now!

Cheers

Bennie