Thanks robertsmith9756, appreciate that a good deal. This would be tough to do on the ground, as you'd need to have the rear of the car quite high in the air to allow the tank out past everything. You'll want to have a look at your wife's car just to be sure that this trick will work for you at all - I have only one Outback of this generation that comes to my shop, and I'll be honest that I've forgotten to look at it when its been in to see if the trailing arm setup is the same as my two Legacys'. One thing I will suggest is to pre-soak whatever you can get at at least once in advance of tackling it; southern Ontario is just as bad as Michigan for salt! For you to do it on the ground, you may be forced to completely remove the rear suspension to have enough space to pull the tank. Considering the salt/breakage potential with that process, you might be further ahead to pay someone with a hoist to do it. Either way, I wish you the best of luck!

Assuming we're talking about the same parts, the lines will almost certainly be dealer-only parts. Kits do exist to make and repair plastic (and steel) lines, but for a one-time use are probably too costly to be worth it. The larger hoses for the filler and vent would also be dealer parts - if any of it is still available - but you might also be able to find used ones at a wreckers. Lines include feed or pressure, vent (evaporative emissions), and in some, return. There may also be equalizing or balancing less going from one sending until to the other.

Hi Kenny, sorry for the delay in responding. 2003 is the previous generation, so I can't say with certainty if it's going to work exactly the same. That said, Subaru tends to make incremental design changes, so if you were to look at your car closely to see if it uses a similar layout and it did, I'd try. I have done a tank in a 2011 Outback (at work, couldn't video it) and had to undo the rear subframe entirely - leaving it still attached to the struts - which worked fine and went back together fairly easily. Best of luck if you haven't already tackled it!