So I am all rigged up with my engine finally back on the hoist and off the stand. Huzzah! Now I can install my Outback Motorsports Subaru to 091 Transmission adapter! I had to have free access to the flywheel end of the engine to be able to bolt all of that on. Up onto the hoist, and then rested at a 45° angle in a tire with the flywheel end up.
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| Look at the shiny! All I need now are the alignment pins...uh oh. |
Since the aluminum adapter plate pretends to be a Subaru transmission bellhousing so that everything must successfully align to it, that includes offering a pair of drilled holes for the dowel pins. The engine crankcase also has very precisely sized holes for the dowel pins because they *precisely* align the engine with the transmission in the stock Subaru application. When you try to separate the engine from the transmission in a Subaru vehicle, it is often the dowel pins that everything hangs up on. Any corrosion of these tiny steel studs make for an ill fit, They are essentially a friction fit when installed new at the factory.
If corrosion can hang it up, that has to be a beastly close tolerance, indeed. Often when the engine is removed, the dowel pins stay stuck in the transmission side. Or on the engine side. Or one on each side. You've got to have them both to re-mate the engine & transmission, or a failure to
perfectly align might cause parts to meet that ought not to.
Both of mine were missing from the engine. I can't check the transmission side, because it went away a month ago when I finally had the poor carcass of a 97 Impreza Outback Sport hauled away. Likely, those alignment pins went away with the transmission.
The only thing stopping me from moving forward are two lousy pins. Aw...crap.
Subaru has an excellent reputation for keeping exploded diagrams online for all of their products going back decades, so I figured I'd swallow my pride, hit the diagrams and then order the part number for the pins.
Except there was no part number for a 97 model year. 1998 with a different engine and transmission, yes. But not 97. The part number from the 1998 probably works, as Subaru doesn't change things around unless there is an engineering reason to, but there's no way to know without buying and trying from the dealership. Dealer parts departments aren't any nicer in Subaru-land than they are at any other dealer. Subaru just publicly documents their parts more liberally.
I called my local dealer, explained what I needed, and..hmmm, 'I don't have any P/N for 97MY (Model Year) Impreza. Hang on.' I sat on hold for 15 minutes, which made me wonder if the parts rep had gone to lunch. When he finally returned, he had news that caused me to bang my head on my desk, startling my co-workers.
"I really went digging for that part, but it isn't anywhere in the references. I checked every cross-reference I could and didn't find it either. This has only happened to me once or twice since I've worked here, so I called over to corporate, which is why you were on hold for so long." Here, he at least had the decency to sound abashed, "They said that you can't buy them singly, they only come with the whole shortblock, which is about $2500." WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP. (My head, beating my desk.)
These are two metal stud and are as common as grass, and I just want to buy the *right ones for my engine.* Will the 98MY fit? No way to know but to buy them. They're special order (two weeks.) You have to buy them in advance. ($1.73 for the pair) and can't be bought online because they're too inexpensive: I would have to go physically to the dealership, walk around the back of the building and stand in line at the parts department so I could push my $1.73 + tax across the counter...Just like it was 1939. What....the....hell.
I made other calls around to independent shops. Nobody would take the time to even consider an assist for such a small item. So I did what I am loathe to do: I went out to my garage, got out snap-gages and calipers and measured the holes. 1cm in diameter, and with both sides added up, about 2.2cm long. I called Fastenal (who specialize in exactly this kind of product) and was told that I could order them, but I'd have to pay 6 times their value in shipping for delivery to the store a week from now. If I didn't like my phone so much, I would have thrown it out the window.
So I ordered the part from the Fastenal website for delivery to my own address. (Why have it shipped to the store for the same price? To make an extra trip to go fetch them? What monkeys are running that company?) $1.53 each, plus $9 shipping, with no guarantee that they'll fit correctly if I have not measured accurately.
There is a poem, old, but which perfectly illustrates how complex and important affairs can be undone by the absence of a trivial component. If anything, it illustrates that today's world is ruled by the same laws of happenstance that have always been with us. I'll end with this and read it over and over while I wait a week for two tiny steel studs to be delivered.
For want of a horseshoe nail, a shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe, a horse was lost,
For want of a horseman, a platoon was lost,
For want of a platoon, a battle was lost,
For want of a battle, a war was lost,
For want of a war, a kingdom was lost,
All for the want...of a horseshoe nail.
