Figured I would finally start a thread to keep track of what I have done and what I have learned over the last 6 months or so. I was looking for something 4x4, 87 or older, easy to fix at home, and with good mileage to replace my truck. so naturally Subaru came to mind (and my first car was an 85 2wd hatch).
So I scoured craigslist and this site and ended up buy this one off of the board here. 87 carbed GL Wagon.
Ran good, I drove it home. had a few issues though, Might as well just list the ones I know about now. a few I only just found out about.
Needed 2 front CV's
After fired badly when you shifted
Leaked oil
Idle was a bit rough
tires were horrible, had 3 different rim offsets, 3 different brands of tires, and one was all but using the belts for traction.
heater core was going out
tons of vacuum leaks and bad valves in the Hitachi lines
Hitachi had worn throttle shafts and leaked fuel out of them
bad vacuum advance can.
Clutch is slipping sometimes in 4th and 5th, but only when its not under load.
first things first, tune up and fixed the after fire. turned out to be an ASV baffle leak. I dont want the ASV system anyway so I removed the baffles and used large vacuum plugs to stop incoming air from getting in the exhaust. plugs, wires, oil change, etc. used up a couple cans of Seafoam.
Next up was the tires, driving on the highway was likely to cause dental work. bought 4 Pugs, 2 with tires on them, and scored 2 full sets of lugs from a peugeot mechanic on Craigslist. had 2 bridgestones put on and had all 4 mounted and balanced.
Next was pulling all the leaky junk off of the Hitachi. I plugged off the EGR and rerouted the PCV to get it off of the air box in prep for a weber swap in the future. Pulled and plugged everything except the bowl vent which got slightly restricted with a smaller hose. in spite of my best efforts to mess things up the car ran well, and peaked at 28.5 mpg highway. not terrible for a gutted hitachi with leaky throttle shafts.
the white one is the bowl vent. the car did not run well while it was plugged or while It was fully open. I shoved a small vacuum line on it and left it about 3 ft long. seemed to be the proper restriction or close to it to maintain balance.
at WCSS 14
Next was the front end. needed to do the CV's, so i just sprung for everything and did ball joints, bearings, CV's, Rotors, Calipers, Pads. Had the machine shop tank the spindles and grease and install the bearings. I did ball joints Cv's, and brakes.
Only problem was the CV's. I didnt listen and bought local parts store ones. bad idea, ended up paying a shop to replace each one, but at least they have a 1 year warranty.
