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1987 EA82 carbureted


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Driving up to Wahtum Lake this afternoon and the car died. No prior indication of anything wrong.

The car was running absolutely fine. I was just cruising along the paved forest service road. I crested a small hill, and saw a small branch across the road. I downshifted, 4th to 3rd (did not overrev), saw that the branch had already been run over and was broken. I pressed the gas pedal to proceed and no throttle. I downshifted to 2nd, tried it again and realized that the engine had stopped. I tried restarting while rolling. Plenty of cranking, no start. Rolled to a stop, tried again, same.

Again, no indication of any problem, car was running as normal (not great, but good), and I didn't overrev.

I opened the hood to a faint smell of oil. Faint like a dirty engine smells when it's hot. I opened the air filter to an emulification of what looks like oil and gasoline coming from one of the tubes in the air filter canister. Did I blow the head gasket?

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Just looks like fuel, or smells too? Either way if theres liquids in there, pressure got back up the wrong way from the cylinders. As far as head gasket apart from the misplaced fluids, i would think not. Anytime ive had a head gasket blow, the car was still running and i felt a big difference in power. Suddenly off with now big shudder or power drop sounds more electrical to me. Id first pull the plugs to see how dirty they are and if theyre wet with oil/coolant (indicating either head gasket or if your really unlicky something much worse like piston rings). Next double check all ignition components are properly installed connected and have no noticable damage. When cranking does it sound normal?

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Turns out that I broke the timing belt. The mechanic quoted me ~$650 to repair it. He also mentioned that the oil pump may need replaced, too. I'm probably going to just bring it home and either replace the belt myself or look into an EJ swap. What do you think?

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I've heard that about the water pump.

I'm assuming if you're from NJ that your advice about leaving the covers off isn't a bad idea for the PNW.

What is this "TOD" of which you speak? Tick Of Death? I'm new to Subaru, and I'm definitely not mechanically, or technically inept. That being said, I need to to be able to do the work on nothing more than jackstands, outside. Is it doable?

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I think you should buy the kit with the pulleys and tensioner and belts, the whole shebang. Replace the water pump while you're in there. Leave the covers off and only replace the oil pump if your engine develops the TOD.

Is the kit you're speaking of the one that's going for $1K + on ebay? For that money, I'd rather do an EJ swap.

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+1 on Quidam's find.   Nice pics.  

Remove rubber bands before installing....

When you stop laughing, Consider replacing the water pump and resealing the oil pump.

Throw covers away ... or keep them ... somebody on here wanted to buy a set a few months ago.

Use seam where valve cover meets camtower as timing mark.

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  • 5 months later...

Why isn't bumping the starter an option?

Another option is to pull the rubber plug off the top of the trans bellhousing used for viewing the timing marks, get a long flat bladed bar and wedge the starter ring gear while using a long bar on the crank nut. Will need some one else to help.

If you don't have aircon, pull the radiator (should do anyway when do the belts as gives more room) and grill and use a rattle gun

Edited by wagonist
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That'll do it :P

 

Honestly though, I've never liked that option. Too much potential for something to go flying when it shouldn't...

Try my other idea. Just a bit tricky to hold stuff in place.

 

Makes it easier if you open the hood the full way up to vertical. Love how Subie hoods will do that :D

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Okay...

I have (had) everything back in place for reassembly, and I broke one of the bolts for the passenger-side camshaft cog. Now it looks like I need to get new hardware and extract the broken bolt from the camshaft.

 

Always something...

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Having a difficult time extracting the broken bolt. I can't get a good look at it and I'm trying to avoid putting it back together with only 2 bolts in the camshaft cog and rolling the dice...

Any advice? Without pulling the front end off, preferably. I need to get it on the road ASAP.

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