New to DSM's, but I picked one up because of the deal

[Dopefish]

Thanks.

So in the last week I finally managed to knock out a bunch of maintenance.

I used AMSOIL for everything since I have an account with them and buy their products for one of my other cars.

Maintenance complete:

• Timing belt replaced along with the water pump and the pulleys that came with the Gates timing belt kit
• Oil filter housing gasket replaced
• A/C system converted to R134a -- replaced high pressure line, drier/accumulator, and all O-rings -- it cools acceptably now but it wouldn't hold a vacuum so there's still a leak somewhere -- there's dye in the system so I'll look at it later to find the leak
• All belts replaced with Gates belts
• Oil replaced with AMSOIL Signature Series 10W-30 Full Synthetic Motor Oil
• Oil filter replaced with WIX Oil Filter
• Coolant replaced with AMSOIL Coolant
• Transmission fluid replaced with AMSOIL 75W-90 Transmission Gear Lube
• Transfer case fluid replaced with AMSOIL 75W-90 Transmisison Gear Lube
• Differential fluid replaced with AMSOIL 80W-90 Gear Lube
• Brake fluid replaced with AMSOIL Brake Fluid
• Clutch fluid replaced with AMSOIL Brake Fluid
• Power steering fluid replaced with AMSOIL Power Steering Fluid
• Fuel filter replaced with WIX Fuel Filter
• Rear pads were metal on metal so I replaced rear pads and cut rear rotors
• Converted rear wiper from that f***ed up pin system to a modern J-hook system. f*** that pin, seriously.

I also pulled a heat shield off of the exhaust that sits about under the rear seats. It would rattle like crazy so it had to go.

All that's left is to get new tires, an alignment, fix the A/C leak wherever it's at, fix the windows not going up easily, and it should be a pretty solid daily driver. There's still a few things left in the list a few posts ago to address but they're not really a major concern.

 

[doubleclutch]

A lot of guys swear buy Redline tranny fluid. Amsoil probably will be fine, but some people have had horror stories with different fluids. Might be worth it to see if anything shows up about amsoil.

 

[Dopefish]

I run Redline in one of my Subarus, AMSOIL in one of the others, generic shit in a third. Honestly, I've felt no difference between any of them. Two of my Subarus get beat on pretty hard and I've had zero issues with either of them.

The DSM is just my daily driver so I don't think it will ever see the abuse that my Subarus get. The weight fits in with the specifications and it's a GL4 gear oil so it should be okay on paper.

Time will tell.

 

[Dopefish]

So I've been noticing oil leaking more and more from every possible spot (or at least it's just leaking in a few locations and getting everywhere from there). The biggest one so far has been from the oil cap and/or valve cover.

I looked into excess crankcase pressure since it's how I eventually determined one of my Subaru engines was shot. I replaced the PCV valve with one I got from RockAuto. Now I'm used to PCV valves on my Subarus. You can put your mouth on one end, blow into it, and air will pass through. If you put your mouth on the other end and blow into it, air will not blow through at all. The new PCV valve I picked up for my DSM would allow air to flow through from both directions when I blew into it. I don't know if this is just the design for the DSM or if it's a defective PCV valve.

Anyway, that was part one. I noticed my dipstick would occasionally pop out if I got on the gas hard. It just got me concerned for the engine. When one of my Subaru engines bit it at first I noticed the dipstick would pop out, and then if I took off the oil fill cap while running you'd see white smoke come out and a good bit of pressure. One of my piston rings was shot.

So at work today I did a compression test just to figure out whether I should put any money into alleviating the problem or not. If you're looking straight at the engine from the front of the car, left to right, my numbers were 155, 154, 152, and 145. The last one is definitely lower but altogether the biggest difference is about 6.45%. This is acceptable.

As far as the oil cap goes I picked up a new aftermarket oil cap from the autoparts store since they had one in stock. My old oil cap gasket is hard as concrete. The new one has a soft flexible gasket. I thought for sure it would seal well but it actually leaks more than the hardened gasket original cap. I took the two little metal tabs and bent them ever so slightly and put the cap back on. I checked after my drive home and there was no additional oil that came out from the cap. I'm probably going to pick up an OEM Evo oil cap instead.

I had an oil leak at the oil pressure light switch and replaced that sensor. While replacing that I noticed that the oil pressure gauge sensor was also leaking oil, so I have one of those on order.

Now the leak may be worse as well since I put full synthetic oil in instead of conventional oil. Synthetic oil definitely can leak out more. I ran into this issue with an older Subaru of mine and switched back to conventional and the leaks stopped.

Whatever.

 

[Type1DSMr]

Your compression test results are good. As far as the oil dipstick popping out that is usually excessive crankcase pressure. Check out www.extremepsi.com for all of your needs. They have an oem pcv for less than $10 plus they have an oem evo 8/9 oil cap that your interested in as well.