99 Subaru Forester Engine Removal

Postmortum of pulling the engine by a newbie that's never pulled a FWD engine. Hope it helps anyone also doing this the first time.

Car has 200K miles, engine has been loosing coolant & overheating. Leakdown test and coolant system pressure test are fine. No water found in oil or vise-versa but the inside of the overflow tank is sooty and these engines are notorious for blowing head gaskets.

I plan to post more vids on the teardown, diagnosis, and rebuild, and reassembly.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• subaru
• head
• gasket
• engine
• removal

[hashdfw]

Update on the CV I pulled apart: A week after I had it back together the axle popped out of the CV again. Not wanting to mess with it again, I put in another one. They're under $60 delivered and only take an hour to put in. There's a retainer on the end of the axle that I'd broken, which I think I broke by lifting the tranny too high when stabbing the engine - it just over-extended it.

[myronunchangco]

nice! im sure by now you know by now your subie is an AWD. how long did it take for you to pull it? finding all the wiring and hoses time included.

[hashdfw]

@myronunchangco I knew it was AWD before I bought it? Takes me ~2 hours from fully assembled to engine out. Wiring harnesses & hoses are much easier than other vehicles I've worked on.

[myronunchangco]

@hashdfw thank you. i was just replying off of the info, it said "fwd". thanks though. the quality is better. if you were near id ask how much to change out my gaskets. i have the same problem.

[hashdfw]

@myronunchangco Some guys change the gaskets in-car but there's not a lot of room to work because of the engine configuration. I think you can do a MUCH better job of cleaning the block surface by pulling it and putting it on a stand. Do a google search; there's a lot of info on HG changes on Subies.

[mafiouso]

did you check the thermostat isn't stuck, and the thermos turn on

[hashdfw]

@mafiouso Thermostat was fine. Head gasket on driver side was blown on both cylinders. Funny how the leakdown and coolant-pressure tests didn't catch it.

I resurfaced the heads, replaced the gaskets, and put it back together. It ran fine but it felt and sounded like the clutch was slipping. I ended up replacing the clutch and pulling the motor twice more before I discovered the problem was the driver-side axle had slipped out of the outer CV joint.

[sweetlikeADAM]

Thanks much. This will help a lot when I have to do my swap.