Category Archives: Maintenance

Maintenance – personally or dealer/shop applied

Subaru Engine Assembly/Disassembly – Video

If you’re curious as to how Subaru engines are disassembled and assembled, the two videos below are bursting with knowledge and pertain to the EJ257 (STI engine in this case).

What’s cool is that the person in the video is a master Subaru technician. He explains a LOT of things (with the help of the person behind the camera). As well, he explains such terms as cracked ringlands (30 minutes into the assembly video). Ever heard the term “spun a bearing” and don’t know what the term means? He explains that term. He shows what bearings are and shows the differences between forged & cast pistons (and explains the differences between the two). He also shows the damaged caused by driving these cars with no oil.

These are great videos!

Note: I’m having a hard time finding the disassembly video, but will post it here when I find it.

My Winter Wheels

I swapped my summer wheels for the winter wheels today, since the temps are going to be in the single digits tomorrow. I should have done it a long time ago, but I procrastinate alot.

For those of you who are new to swapping wheels seasonally, I ran into a little surprise today. I had custom wheels on the car and had hub rings installed…well, I’d forgotten about them (the hub rings) and tried to put the winter wheels on top of them. The first wheel wouldn’t go on properly. Like a dumbass, I got all five lugs snug on the wheel with the ring still in place before I realized something wasn’t right, fitment-wise. It took me a while to determine that I was installing the wheel over the hub ring when the wheel didn’t need it. So, if you have hub rings, don’t forget to remove them when they aren’t needed…also, don’t forget to replace them when needed. They are easy to forget if you don’t swap wheels a lot.

Oh yeah. I froze my ass off changing those outside of the garage. It was 32F but 20Fwith windchill, and was dropping by the minute. I need to get the other car fixed so I can get it the hell out of my garage.

Some pictures:

     

Car fixed

So, I’ve been driving around with a driver-side rear wheel that had a stripped lug stud.  That meant that I was driving with only 4 of 5 lugs on that wheel.  That’s normally not a big deal, until it’s time for the annual state inspection.  I kept putting off doing the repair (because, while it’s not difficult, it is time-consuming, as it requires removing the wheel hub).  I took it to a local shop and they were able to do it, to the tune of $200.  They called me to let me know the “damage”, as they thought that it would be a quick change initially.  I knew that the work would be a bit significant, so I was prepared for a $180 bill.

 

But at least it’s now done.  And I had them knock out the state inspection as well.

 

What’s next for me?  I’m awaiting for the first hint of snow, then I’ll put on my winter wheels/tires.  I’m delaying because I don’t really want to take off my new wheels (the winters are ugly, but functional).  From there, I’ll try to schedule the windows to be tinted.