Brett_Murphy said:
Thank to the owner of TurboTime, who commented a fix for the power steering pulsing on Facebook when I mentioned it. There is a small o-ring in the system that fails and allows a wee bit of air in the system. It cost two bucks at the dealer, took 5 minutes to replace and fixed the issue.
I threw on a new accessory belt while I was in there.
That's a great tip, thanks! I've got an 04 FXT that I blew up at the Challenge last year that does the exact same thing. If I ever do anything with the car again, I'll need to remember this factoid!
In reply to cafcwest :
How blown up? Manual or automatic? 
Today that AC compressor broke. It made it 17 years, so I can't complain too much.
I've farmed this work out to my local garage, I can't be bothered.
These struts and shocks have been abused for the past 50k miles. It was time to replace them.
Right after I replaced the shocks I hit a piece of road debris (I think it was a brake caliper) doing 70mph on the highway. I *almost* dodged it. Not quite, though, and it caught the sidewall of the tire and my BBS wheel.
It's going to cost $150 to repair the scratch on the wheel, and I'm paying them $50 more to take them down to bare metal in their tank so I can check for cracks. If everything looks alright, I think I'm going to refinish them in Gunmetal grey.
Been a while since I updated this, mainly becase I wasn't getting a chance to do events.
The return after 3.5 years wasn't bad:. fourth place at Hyperfest a while back.
The charcoal cannister went bad, so I replaced it today. When I removed it from the frame, a good ounce of charcoal just spilled out.
It also got new tires. Instead of going with light truck tires, I just went with passenger car all seasons.
Hyperfest is coming up in about a week. I'm guessing I'm going to lack a ton of grip.
The Forester refused to turn over today. Not even a click. The battery as showing 98% charged, so I threw it on the charger until I was showing 100%. Not even a click.
I'm going to throw another battery in there to make sure, but it looks like the OEM starter from 2004 finally went bad.
In reply to Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) :
Beat it with a hammer. Do not let it go gently into the night.
Try a load tester on the battery if you have one. My wife's Pilot had the dashboard light up like a Christmas tree one day. Voltage across the terminals was perfect, but it failed miserably when I did a load test. Will give you a good idea if it's the battery or the starter.
In reply to Stampie :
Bold of you to assume I didn't already beat it with a hammer.
I took a minute to look at the clutch interlock switch this morning. When I stuck my head down there, I noticed that the dongle in the aftermarket immobilizer (which came with the car when I bought it) was knocked ajar. I plugged it back in, and everything works fine again.
1. I should've started there, but I forget that it's even installed in the car.
2. It'd be great if every fix on a car took less than a minute, eh?
In reply to Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) :
But you had a good excuse to beat the starter with a hammer.
Today the shifter became sloppy to the point that if I don't concentrate on my shifts, it's easy to get the wrong gear. I recall replacing the shifter trunnion a while back with a "lifetime" upgrade, so I wonder what went wrong this time.
