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Best news yet. Suspecting what I read as a common problem, fiddling around with the top mounted plastic elbow atop the pump caused air to enter the system (groaning noise). Cleaned the entire area with brake cleaner and traced the substantial rivulet of brake fluid back to a defective O-ring sitting where the return line enters the top of the pump. Aside from the O-ring being hardened, it is a poor design in that the fitting is only held on by a bolt on one side, allowing for torquing of the fitting leading to air being sucked in and fluid escaping when pump not sucking the fluid through the system. $1.70 for the O-ring and the area is nice and dry. Competent diagnosis comes before treatment. Watchful neglect paid off. One of my professors advised to follow the 6 Ps: Prior Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance

I wouldn't worry about it. You are not likely to need a rear locker. You can use the parking brake to help with power transfer on the rear or just modulate the service brakes to keep wheels without traction from absorbing all the power. The rear locker isn't cheap, takes quite a bit of knowledge to install properly, and make on-road driving a bit annoying since it will ratchet, pop, and bind around sharp turns. I would leave this mod to people that are doing 4"+ lifts and don't care about on road driving. You can do the modification for the duty-c to lockup the transfer clutch - it's easy and inexpensive so worth your time if you are interested. GD

Used properly it's a nonissue in snow, mud, grass, offroad. There aren't really many options though. The rear VLSD differentials wear out and function like the open rear differential you already have so they're kind of pointless to buy used. If you have a manual trans you can't get a locking center diff. If you have an automatic you can install a switch to manually control the Duty C solenoid output for the rear transfer cluthes (a.k.a. "center diff") - which is what I, and others here, have done before.

OK, took the Forester to our local ski hill and it shifts and moves the car just fine. The MPT clutch pack is just as FWD-y as the last transmission, so the basket is obviously worn. I'd like to address that at some point, but will probably hold off until Spring, since this is our ski car/dog taxi. But hey, at least it's back on the road!

I found the oem connector, stuck to the frame in some crud, replaced the strange right angle connector and attached it to the one that seemed the best fit for having had been violently removed. The short wire has the flat male standard looking wire connector and isn't/hadn't been attached to anything after the accessory drive belt replacement, before I don't know. Your tip will be used to look more closely as to what may have hooked up previously. I don't have a picture of the dash with me and the car is on the other side of town buried under snow, but now I have a decent clue and feel more confident I didn't and or won't damage this nice little engine. My friend took a couple cars to a long time local mechanic for a free inspection, ended up getting some service done (I haven't seen the records yet, legal action is pending). Next thing we know both cars are worse or coming apart and it's driven pretty hard until something happens and some improper color coolant made its way in and some stop leak oil treatment. When I got to it to replacing the drive belts, the AC compressor bracket mounting bracket was flopping around. Sorry I'm rambling, it was driven a few miles down hill sans belts and I'm trying to say it may have not been working properly before. Now that I think about it, that's a pretty long time with no belts. It seemed to be running nicely after the belt replacement, but maybe the damage had already been done one way or the other. 75000 miles on it, and I love flat fours, so I'm looking forward to see what happened and getting it back on some sound footing mechanically again. Thanks again DaveT and Ultimate Subaru forum.

Very unlikely. I've never seen it in practice. GD

Depends on what you want. Nobody makes a true selectable locker for a Subaru. The duty C solenoid mod for automatic transmissions is decent, but IMO if you're pushing hard enough to need it, it's not strong enough. I can't find the information now, but there's a company in Europe that can rebuild the viscous center diff for a manual transmission to be significantly stronger. Lock-rite offers automatic rear lockers for Subarus. These can be a little odd, as when you go around a corner, they only power the inside wheel, and the outside wheel ratchets. But offroad performance is 1000% better. There are a couple companies that make selectable lockers for Nissan r180 front diffs. Subaru STis use r180s in the rear. I have seen a couple examples where people have found the right combination of pieces to use those lockers in the rear of a Subaru. If you're a real baller, pontoontodd makes a unit that replaces the center diff on a 2006+ STi 6MT which gives simple FT4WD function (open or locked, no LSD) and a real low range. But you'll probably be in it $10k by the time you get it all set up with the 6 speed swap, and it would be kind of pointless without at least a lock-right in the rear.

EA82 was sort of an evolution of the EA81 (EA81 being 80-87 and EA82 85-94, here in the US), but with a lot of major changes. Biggest being the switch to overhead cams and timing belts (which moved the distributor). The single port intake manifolds can be swapped between them, so an EA82 manifold is a direct bolt on. But, there are other challenges (biggest being the distributor...). EA82 is a dinosaur (so is the EA81, but at least it's simple). Almost completely unsupported. Now, most of the parts you'd be using for the SPFI swap are simple and reliable. But no, there is not really any new anything available for it. You'd need a used front harness from an SPFI car, and cut out all the stuff that's not engine related (pretty detailed information in the write-up). Used throttle body, used ECU, used distributor pickup, etc. Again, these parts are not exactly prone to failure, but they're still 30-35 years old. And even if it works, it's still 35 year old technology.... When I get some free time (HA!), I would like to use a Speeduino and an EA82 intake/TBI on my Brat. But I only use it around the yard. I think I would use something a little more powerful/supported for a street car (I say that without actually having used the speedy, lots of people use them on the street). Sorry to bring up the EJ so much. Your first post sounded like a complete nightmare, so I jumped too quickly to "start over". I do think you'd be happier with the end result of an early OBDII EJ22, and there are solutions for most of your concerns. But it's certainly not your only option.

They originally have either gauge or light. The same wire in the harness is used - slightly differently depending, but I have never seen one with both. I converted my 93 from light to gauge when I got it, so I had to trace out all this wiring.

Rear axles don't really break on any Subaru's. And a broken rear axle (as unlikely as that is) will not disable your car. The auto's are primarily front wheel drive till they sense wheel spin and by installing a fuse in the FWD holder under the hood they can be made 100% front wheel drive. The highly improbable nature of such a failure coupled with the fact that it doesn't disable the vehicle makes it a part I wouldn't waste valuable cargo space and weight on. U-joints are NOT field serviceable (they were designed to not be serviceable at all and Subaru will only sell you a complete driveline for about $800). But you bring up a good point - if they fail that would be a rather unfortunate problem and it certainly can/does happen. I would have the driveline preventatively rebuilt (a specialty driveline shop can install serviceable joints along with new yokes to accommodate them) with new u-joints if you are concerned. If you do have a failure though - again this falls under the rear drive category and you can revert to front wheel drive or temporarily replace the u-joint with some bailing wire and just drive really slow. As for wiring - if you have no idea about electrical then you may consider just leaving that to the pro's. But I would also point out that any equipment (the car being considered "equipment" for this discussion) that you plan to trust with your life in off-grid scenarios you should be as familiar with as possible. Understanding automotive electrical and how to do basic troubleshooting and repair could literally save your life one day - bouncing around off-road in a 25 year old car could easily result in a loose or damaged electrical component - at the very least some aspect of the car will become nonoperational - at the worst the car could light on fire and burn to the ground with you inside - granted that's unlikely but you could be left with the clothes on your back and a smoking pile of wreckage. You laugh but I've pulled people from burning cars due to electrical fires. It happens - and if you don't act fast you'll be watching the fire department put it out much too late to save anything. Something like this is probably fine for emergencies: https://www.amazon.com/Dorman-86689C-Electrical-Repair-Case/dp/B008ZCEKK6 Should likely add a fire extinguisher to the list as well. In general you need to familiarize yourself with the form and function of this vehicle. The complaint I always had about off-roading with Subaru groups, or lifted vehicle groups in general: If you follow me you almost certainly will eventually break something. I don't want to hear your big baby tantrum about A. How am I going to get to work - this is my daily and my only vehicle!, or B. I need help fixing it because I don't know how or don't want to get dirty. Invariably someone breaks their daily driver (or worse their dads/moms/sisters car) and turns out they are helpless and I get roped into fixing some junk in the mud/snow/gravel/all-of-the-above because somehow I feel bad for the poor broke moron and somewhat responsible because I encouraged their bad decisions or enabled them in some way. Don't be that guy. I'll find you. And I'll slap you. GD

Call carbsunlimited.com. You want a Weber 32/36 DGV with either electric or manual choke (if you prefer - get a cable as well if you go with manual), the adaptor plate for an EA81 (tell them it's an '84 model year, "Overhead Valve Engine"), and the SHORT air filter assembly (the tall one they normally include with the DGV won't fit under the hood). If they need to know what jetting you want, this is the recipe: Mains: 140/140 Air Bleeds: 170/160 Idle Jets: 50/50 It would be a good idea to also order a 60 primary idle jet in case you need it. Just depends on the engine - some will do fine with the 50, and some will have progression issues and will want a larger idle jet. There's plenty of threads on the install - it's pretty basic. Install the adaptor plate paying close attention to the base heat coolant passage so as to insure no coolant leakage. Mount the carb and hookup the linkage, distributor vacuum advance, and EGR vacuum if desired, and then mount the air cleaner and configure the PCV system to route to the breather nipple on the filter base. GD

That’s a crazy amount of dedication and effort for an engine that many, including myself, would’ve binned! Have a bit more faith in your work! I guess having a low expectation won’t be so disappointing if it does leak, smoke, not run! Make sure your valves are correctly adjusted. The first time I fired up my EA81 after a semi similar build, it was only running on one bank properly as the other bank’s valve gaps were too tight and not making full compression. It smoked heaps too, my heart sank - I forgot that I oiled the cylinders during the slow rebuild, once this burnt off she was smoke free! This is what came with my brumby many moons ago. One small bit of pitting at the top of cylinder 1 or 2, can’t remember now... We drained out about 15L of an oil and water concoction! This engine dropped an internal Welch plug and dumped the coolant into the engine. I’m still driving this engine, so with the work you’ve put into yours it should run fine, unless the carb etc needs further attention. Cheers Bennie