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I have not done that, but good point. I'll do that. Thanks!

Have you called around wrecking yards? Maybe Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist or the like? Sometimes if there's a car that's been listed for a while, the seller would be willing to part it out, especially if they mention the car will be wrecked if it isn't sold. I've gotten lucky and have saved some very scarce parts at a very good price that way. I see you're in Oregon, so you're in the Mecca of parts availability. I'm sure if you looked around you'd be able to find something used. If not, then that really is the writing on the wall for the rest of us in the boondocks. :]

Thanks for the update. It appears that for me, my only option will be to order a second TPS from PartsGeek and test it very thoroughly with a temporary connection to the connector, before cutting wires to replace the connector.

Good luck but i think you should be happy with springs or shop a true contemporary set up from the bag culture. I don’t see those as easily serviceable units. Let us know how it all shakes out.

Well, unfortunately my brilliant plan did not work. Not super surprised but still disappointed. I agree with you bushytails, that rubber is just too far gone, and even if I did fix it, who knows when the next one would go. I think my new plan is going to be to take them off, take them apart, and replace the rubber entirely with a similar material, or something that can hold the pressure. I am not sure how any of it is built, so if anyone has any details on what kind of rubber it is, or how the thing is put together, that would be super helpful. There seem to be some detailed plans in a 1988 manual that I found online, hopefully that should suffice. I haven't found any detailed information on how to rebuild those struts online, so I will do my best to wing it and document what I do here. Maybe do a little guide so that future people can do the same. Until then, I'll there is a junk yard north of me with an 86 GL in their lot. I'll take the conventional suspension off of that, replace the struts and use that until I finish the rebuilt of the air suspension. Wish me luck!

File or saw (hacksaw, sawzall, portaband...) the notches 1.5mm deeper in the castle nut. I absolutely would not run without the cotter pin. I've had multiple wheel hubs loosen up over time, and threadlocker does not sound sufficient to keep the nut from unscrewing once there's no compression force on it.

So I did everything I could to seat the axles in further. They did move maybe a fraction of a millimeter. After about 20 minutes of hammering on one side. I noticed the cone washer sat quite far out from the drum. On the OEM drums I pulled, the cone washer sits almost exactly 2mm from the drum face. Whereas with the aftermarket drums I installed, the cone washer sits 3.5mm from the drum face. The countersink isn't as deep. I know that doesn't sound like a lot but only about 1/4 of the cotter pin hole on the axle is exposed. So that extra 1.5mm really adds up. I'm kinda at a loss for what to do. I truly think the axles are as deep as they'll go. They didn't take this much effort to remove, I don't know why installing would take more force. The two ideas I have (both of which seem like big no-no's) are: 1: Do the old glass & sandpaper trick to the cone washers to hone them down and get them to sit more flush with the drum face. 2: Don't use a cotter pin. Torque the axle nuts to 200ftlbs, maybe use some blue thread locker and keep a breaker bar, 36mm socket and extra axle hardware in the car. Check periodically when checking tire pressure. I don't like either of these ideas but again, I'm kind of at a loss. I have new spring washers on the way too. Any thoughts? :]

Good to know Dave. No going back now for me though, if it still frays the belt some, I'm going to live with it and change the belt regularly.

Yes, I saw that comparison photo in your link before I ordered the module. I don't expect it to be a simple swap and likely use parts from both the bad and good TPS in my attempt to make it work. It is unfortunate that the base broke when you took it apart. I suspected that you had a crack already but hard to tell now. On fragile parts, I grind out any rivets with a Dremel tool and small stone tips. As you discovered, a drill bit expands the soft rivets as it goes through and cracks the hole quite easily. The black base material is likely phenolic (Baklite) which is great for high heat and chemical resistance but quite brittle at times.

I have a EA82 87 DL wagon and as noted, they have two different water pump pulley heights (because of A/C options). In my case, I found the pumps and shafts were actually the same parts between the two choices. The only difference is how far they press the pulley onto the shaft to create a long or short version. I got the long pump version before I discovered I needed the short, but was able to use a hydraulic press to push the pulley onto the shaft a little further and make it work, instead of doing an exchange through Rock Auto. If you can believe the images offered on Rock Auto, there does appear to be two different pulley choices in your application. One pulley looks like it is slightly deeper than the other so it might not be like mine where I could "fine tune" the pulley location on the shaft.

Hey, posting for posterity since the OpposedForces and Wheeling Subaru links are both dead, the part number is 73711-FA000 and supersedes 73710-FA020. Here it is on Subaru's official part website: Part, Diagram, Diagram (alternate in case above breaks) I'm not sure what this thing does, but it doesn't appear to be on a vacuum routing diagram. I don't have one under my hood because the car's been fiddled with so much, but from a quick search it's not acknowledged anywhere on the diagrams I could find. Initially thought it was part of pulsed Secondary Air on California-only cars due to a diagram pointing close to it, but the solenoid shown on manufacturer data has a little filter on the end of it like an EVAP Purge Sol. Hope this helps anyone in the future as this is currently the top result on Google when looking for an intake/vacuum valve on a GC with an EJ18.

Hey, I found the part number. It's 73711FA000, superseding 73710FA020. I'm not sure what it does with the vacuum, initially I thought it was part of the pulsed secondary air injection system to clean up exhaust emissions, but that one looks has a little filter hat on it. Here it is on the official website - https://parts.subaru.com/p/49283327/73711FA000.html For some reason it's listed as part of the air conditioning system and part of the A/C diagram, despite being connected to the intake manifold. It's not listed on any of the vacuum routing diagrams as far as I've seen, which is why I think so many have had issues finding it.

I wonder if this is the turbo variant of the EA81 that you got over there but we never saw over here - except in private imports from Japan. Hopefully someone can shed some light on this!

1600 vs 1800 ? Try a search for the 1600 using the same year and see what they say.

Well, I'm still confused. I still don't know why they list two different ones on RockAuto. https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/subaru,1984,gl,1.8l+h4,1268344,cooling+system,water+pump,2208

^ they’re talking about the EA82. The 1990 and 1991 Leone ran the EA82, they started in 1984 which was the crossover year from the EA81 models to the EA&2 models (and maybe some left overs in 1985). The EA81 continued in the Brumby/BRAT until production of those models ceased.

That looks about right and should do the job. Another way to do it is with a piece of pipe with a slot in it, weld a bar at a right angle to to the top edge (when pipe is vertical on a bench). This bar will be used to hold the pipe on the outer CV’s inner race component that holds the shaft. Use a BFH of choice and go hard on the bar section to knock the CV off the shaft. Have the other end of the shaft held in a good vice like you depict in your diagram.

That's what I thought too until I saw that they offered two different sizes on RockAuto and then found this thread:

I thought all EA81 water pumps were the same and that the height difference was in the EA82 water pumps.

It's getting to much air, don't really want to mess with the choke. It should be open when engine has reach operating temperature. That once I put my hand on the intake it levels out.

Replaced the water pump with the GMB 1601030 since it listed it being shorter. I'm not 100% but I really think I had the longer GMB pump, hard to tell from the level picture. Yes, those are monster hose clamps.

Hey folks For those of you who have gone down the path of putting a divorced transfer case and using a rear diff (plus fabrication) to serve as a front diff, how well do the diffs and cv axles hold up to the additional low range gearing? For context this is using the newer VA type 2 r160 diffs found in the Ascents and Outback Wilderness (with the 4.44 final drive) and newer style CV axles that don't have the stub out for the inner CV assembly. This would be getting mated to a Subaru dual range with 1.44 reduction Mostly curious if something like the Suzuki tcase with the extra low range gearing will be too low for the rest of drivetrain. If you've done this mod before, how well did the rest of the drivetrain hold up?

I wouldn't expect any reasonable repair to hold... And if it did, it'd just pop somewhere else next week. It's not like a tire where an object punctured it - it exploded because the material has failed with age.

They're fairly easy to clean. The one gotcha is, unless you have a full rebuild kit handy, be extremely careful not to tear the gasket between the top and middle sections. There's a little passage right in the middle that's easy to tear the gasket around, and it will run like utter spoob if you do.

I could do that with the passenger side, but the driver side stub was seized to the CV joint. I had to pull the entire axle through as an assembly and install the trailing arm and axle in all as one unit. Unless I back out the nut a bit and use two pry bars between the nut and the bearing housing. Maybe I could get a slide hammer on behind the nut, but I've had limited success with that.