bbtyro
05-12-2010, 08:12 PM
Hello SL-i!
I'm a new poster, but not a new member. I've been reading your forums for a few months now. I know this will be a bit of a long post, but I'll try to keep it focused on my problems.
First, I have a 98 legacy gt with a 96 2.2L swap with 5spd. I bought the car about 8-9months ago. She currently has about 210k on the chassis and about 70k on the engine/tranny. All in all the cars in pretty good condition. It's fairly clean from the outside, dark windows, borla rep headers 2.25" catback. At some point in my poor car's life it was in a mild front end collision. This pushed the front passenger's side upper radiator support in about 1 inch (towards the center of the car). The guy I bought it off of put an outback front bumper on it (I recently went to the junkyard and got a good condition front end sawed off an outback, which I plan to install/make it work in the next couple months at my buddy's shop). I am no stranger to cars, nor working on them. I've done a fair amount of work on several different cars (including a few scooby's). In January, my friend and I changed my clutch and two weekends later I helped him change out the headgaskets on his dad's 97 outback (:( 2.5L headgaskets, same reason my car has a 2.2L). Each was fairly straightforward, and I kinda like working on these cars...
So, now to the problems I'm having. Ok so I changed out my clutch awhile back, changed all fluids etc... Just pointing that out in case something went wrong there. My car makes a grind at about 2000-2300 rpms in just about any gear. It does it mostly on accel. and its much less noticeable on decel. Thing is, its not consistent, but its been getting more and more consistent. This has been happening off and on for about a month now, but its definitely getting more frequent. What I think:
a. Wheel bearing? - but its not 'whining' throughout all rpms
b. Brakes? - not sure but maybe?
c. Axles? - definitely my gut feeling, but still not sure
d. Transmission? - god I hope not, but still a possibility
e. Clutch? - I just changed it, maybe I made a mistake somewhere?
f. Power steering? - I don't know, just throwing it out there...
When I say grind I mean that the steering wheel feels hard to steer, but it does not affect my steering ability. It is audible and sounds like metal grinding on other metal. It feels to me like its coming from my front wheels, and its difficult to say which one. I have gotten under the car and checked some things out. Everything generally seems to be in ok shape. Nothing bent or broken.
Also, this may either be completely unrelated or completely related, but when my car is idling and the clutch is not depressed at all in neutral there is definitely a weird 'whirl'-y noise coming from the engine bay (definitely where the clutch is). Depress the clutch about a half inch, and the noise goes away. My fluid is fine, and I replaced my slave cylinder about 6months ago.
So I'm thinking either something has gone wrong with my clutch install and over time it has broken something (or worn something down). OR maybe I just need new front axles? This all started happening about 2-3months after the clutch install, which makes me lean towards axles, but you tell me :)
Thanks in advance to anyone who gets back to me!
I'm a new poster, but not a new member. I've been reading your forums for a few months now. I know this will be a bit of a long post, but I'll try to keep it focused on my problems.
First, I have a 98 legacy gt with a 96 2.2L swap with 5spd. I bought the car about 8-9months ago. She currently has about 210k on the chassis and about 70k on the engine/tranny. All in all the cars in pretty good condition. It's fairly clean from the outside, dark windows, borla rep headers 2.25" catback. At some point in my poor car's life it was in a mild front end collision. This pushed the front passenger's side upper radiator support in about 1 inch (towards the center of the car). The guy I bought it off of put an outback front bumper on it (I recently went to the junkyard and got a good condition front end sawed off an outback, which I plan to install/make it work in the next couple months at my buddy's shop). I am no stranger to cars, nor working on them. I've done a fair amount of work on several different cars (including a few scooby's). In January, my friend and I changed my clutch and two weekends later I helped him change out the headgaskets on his dad's 97 outback (:( 2.5L headgaskets, same reason my car has a 2.2L). Each was fairly straightforward, and I kinda like working on these cars...
So, now to the problems I'm having. Ok so I changed out my clutch awhile back, changed all fluids etc... Just pointing that out in case something went wrong there. My car makes a grind at about 2000-2300 rpms in just about any gear. It does it mostly on accel. and its much less noticeable on decel. Thing is, its not consistent, but its been getting more and more consistent. This has been happening off and on for about a month now, but its definitely getting more frequent. What I think:
a. Wheel bearing? - but its not 'whining' throughout all rpms
b. Brakes? - not sure but maybe?
c. Axles? - definitely my gut feeling, but still not sure
d. Transmission? - god I hope not, but still a possibility
e. Clutch? - I just changed it, maybe I made a mistake somewhere?
f. Power steering? - I don't know, just throwing it out there...
When I say grind I mean that the steering wheel feels hard to steer, but it does not affect my steering ability. It is audible and sounds like metal grinding on other metal. It feels to me like its coming from my front wheels, and its difficult to say which one. I have gotten under the car and checked some things out. Everything generally seems to be in ok shape. Nothing bent or broken.
Also, this may either be completely unrelated or completely related, but when my car is idling and the clutch is not depressed at all in neutral there is definitely a weird 'whirl'-y noise coming from the engine bay (definitely where the clutch is). Depress the clutch about a half inch, and the noise goes away. My fluid is fine, and I replaced my slave cylinder about 6months ago.
So I'm thinking either something has gone wrong with my clutch install and over time it has broken something (or worn something down). OR maybe I just need new front axles? This all started happening about 2-3months after the clutch install, which makes me lean towards axles, but you tell me :)
Thanks in advance to anyone who gets back to me!