[sheepleshaker]

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Purchased one 06 limited as my wife and I took in some family and needed the third row. After getting the car road worthy replacing the majority of the components in the front end I have aquired a gusher of an oil leak from the center front of the engine. Thinking it's rear timing cover related. Haven't had time to confirm since I bout an 08 with transmission issues and it's taking up my limited work space. Wouldn't have taken on another project had I know the oil leak was days away. Contemplating a JDM 3.0 replacement.

Still have to run the tcu codes on the 08 but in the process of third drain & fill. Also pulled valve body and cleaning selonoids & replaced filters. Going to give freessm a try.

I was wondering if the upper oil pan could be a potential leak point? I know I'm not giving alot of information regarding the oil leak and plan to update when I have time.

My wife and I are sharing one vw bug between us and three kids at the moment because the day I picked up her family my Forester likely blew another head gasket at 328,000 miles. Feeling the stress on getting one of these tribecas on the road asap. Splitting my time between three non op Subarus at the moment.

On a side note fell in love with the tribeca pretty quickly and led to the second purchase. Also could have induced jealously in the Forester causing the head gasket failure lol

 

[Flat6er]

autel ap200 is pretty good tool (as oposed to FreeSSM - you won't need to have computer with me).

not sure what you mean with "upper oil pan" - Oil Pan - 2006 Subaru Tribeca ?
without clearing off oil residues and checking a bit later - you won't find out... though I think that more common are leaking solenoids (AVCS etc).

p.s. I have oil leak ~1qt per 300-500miles for 3yrs... not deadly if you refill ))

 

[sheepleshaker]

Greatly appreciate your reply. That is the "upper oil pan" I was referring to. My apologies if incorrect name. Just ran across the same diagram recently and was thinking it was a possibility. Really just hoping it's not the rear timing cover. I've only had a chance to look under the engine for a minute or so to view the leak. It is a substantial leak though. Lost a quart of oil on a 20ish mile drive. Pretty steady drip rate at ideal.

Only leaks when the vehicle is running. At least the leak im concerned with.

The 08 has a leaking avcs selonoid as well as the oil pressure switch but if it isn't a quart every 20 miles it's of little concern at the moment lol

 

[Flat6er]

quart per 20miles sounds like you beat me
would be interesting to find out - where was the leak!
p.s. timing cover, of course, is a lot of work, but at the same time you can replace tensioners - those are known to be failing more than chain itself...

 

[sheepleshaker]

That was my train of thought.. trying to decide course of action. While I'm that deep do I spend the money on new timing components & water pump or shoot do the head gasket too (appears to have slow external oil leak). Only hold up is the cost of all OEM will bring me into JDM motor worth it territory.

If it is rear timing cover I may just replace the orings and gaskets in the felpro kit and reseal to keep cost down. JDM swap down the road when funds aren't an issue.

Will be bringing the 06 with oil leak into my "shop" harbor freight garage tomorrow or the following day. I'll definitely keep you guys posted. Really love these cars and am looking forward to getting them on the road.

 

[jimihimisimi]

...

Still have to run the tcu codes on the 08 but in the process of third drain & fill. Also pulled valve body and cleaning selonoids & replaced filters. Going to give freessm a try.
...

How did you clean the solenoids? I want to do something similar on my 'Beca and the recommendation i saw was to actuate the solenoid with a battery while hosing it down with some MAF cleaner

 

[Flat6er]

I think better question is how to check them? some people in Russia have disassambled them etc... but... looking at testing facilities - I don't know what kind of output they are supposed to have...

 

[jimihimisimi]

Unless you have a good solenoid to compare against it will be tricky to know if a bad one is bad.

Hooking up a battery or source will let you actuate it - so if it's stuck then that test would show you it's not moving. But what if it's slow or not moving the full range?

 

[Flat6er]

that's the problem...
Проверка регуляторов давления ("соленоидов") на стенде. — ZF center на DRIVE2 - this is an example.on a picture with graphic - it has like lines between which tested solenoid should fit...

I will try to talk with local transmission shops about possibility to test... do they know these limits... not sure.

p.s. in my case - right now - I think some of my solenoids are bad (or transmissions "learn control" has been damaged in recent "let's drive with not enough fluid"....)...

 

[sheepleshaker]

Tested resistance with multimeter. All but one I believe are supposed to be 6.5 ohms. There's a writeup on it on on Google I'll try and track it down. Cleaned with maf cleaner like you stated and actuated with a 9v battery. A few of them wouldn't budge with just 9 volts so I hooked up to 12v on those.

Finally got freessm running and tcm code p0705 (range sensor) big bummer since it's not easily or cheaply sourced by itself. Picking up a valve body from Subaru but hoping I can "fix" the sensor myself. Already ordered a turbine speed sensor so I'll throw that in while I'm at it.

On the 06 I switched to rotella t4 and added 1/2 the recommended amount of Lucas oil stop leak. 1k for valve body is going to put the JDM swap on hold for awhile.

 

[sheepleshaker]

Really need to get these cars on the road. You wouldn't believe the story from dropping the kids off at school today in a vw bug. Long story short one boy we're taking care of has some challenges and was kicking the bug in front of the school. Was something else. Need a little more space in the car lol

 

[sheepleshaker]

Gears Magazine - Subaru 5AT Valve Body Explained

The only thing more difficult than working on some of today’s valve bodies is working on them when there’s no information available. Such is the case with the later version of the Subaru 5AT valve body. According to the manufacturers, if you have a problem with one of these valve bodies, you...

gearsmagazine.com

5.7 ohms apparently

 

[Flat6er]

been busy

 

[Flat6er]

any news here?

 

[sheepleshaker]

Breaking down and going to pick up valve body from Subaru today. Did alot of research on how the range sensor works and disassembled it. The circuit board was potted extremely well. Appears to be made specifically for this application not using an off the shelf hall sensor and the magnets are oddly shaped. Pretty fearful at this point the new valve body won't fix the issue as the range sensor doesn't seem to have many parts to fail.

 

[Flat6er]

care to share info about those range sensors?
fingers crossed!

 

[sheepleshaker]

New valve body installed.. OEM fluid & filters. Nicest car I've ever had with lowest miles. Pretty sure it's my 10th Subaru at this point. Loving it. Needs struts, lower control arm, and cv boots are tore. Just did those on the 06. Gunna tackle the oil leak on that one next. Got the boots rigged up though can live with it for awhile.

I can share photos of the range sensor if you would like. It's the second generation 5eat valve body. Could have bought just that sensor from China but didn't want to wait.

 

[Flat6er]

please - do.
did your car had external transmission cooler?