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G’day SaltyMike, Those warning lights is an alternator issue. Measuring voltage with engine on or off won’t tell you much other than the health of the battery. The alternator might still provide charge to the battery but it will most likely completely die at some point. Other think to check is the health of your fusible links - one could possibly be just hanging in there. I’d be looking into an alternator upgrade. There’s the Nissan Maxima conversion detailed several times over on the forum here. I adapted an EJ square plug alternator to my Brumby/Brat and it’s working well. My EA81 has AC so the alternator sits more to the left than the non AC setups. To convert the EJ alternator, use the pulley off your old alternator, make an 8mm collar/spacer to alight the pulley correctly on the alternator, shave the front of the alternator housing until the pulley is clear/free to spin and it’ll bolt in from there. The only downer is that the main charge terminal points downwards towards the spark plug. It doesn’t touch anything though. Apparently there are alternators of the same design and hangers as the EJ alternators with the charge terminal on the opposite side of the alternator. Wiring will need to be upgraded for the extra amperage, don’t be tempted to use the standard wiring as that could be a recipe for disaster! Cold starts will probably be a carb issue. I find a double pump on the throttle before cranking gets my EA81 fired up in several cranks every time. If you have an auto choke that needs to be calibrated for your conditions too. Don’t ask me how to do that, it’s like a dark art getting those sorted! Cheers Bennie

So I went and did it. That 87 DL is sitting in my driveway now. I'll be posting in the 80's Subie section soon I'm sure.

Thank you so much Bennie! Lots of great information here I really appreciate it. I will be looking into an alternator upgrade!

Stripped hub splines. Usually caused by a loose castellated nut to start with. Cheers Bennie

odd I have only this to offer, it seems kinda 'binary' at a lot, in that, there would maybe have been enough fluid to operate, shift the car around a little from spot to spot, until the car wouldn't move, then, it would just get parked. not quite the same same as someone trying to , say, daily drive it on the highway day after day a quart low on fluid.

Check the wheels to see if a balancing-weight has flown-off. You can usually see some marks on the rim, where the missing weight was once located.

Since no one is responding here's mine. 81 doesn't have the AAV system and I just replaced the cat on the car so take these results for what they are, I have more years if you want to look at them. Some with the old/original cat. Issues I had before this test that didn't help emissions and probably hurt drive-ability. Choke pull off leaked so car had a small vacuum leak there and essentially wasn't pulling the choke off. Vacuum valve on the passenger side of the intake was not operational I think this creates a small vacuum leak on cold mornings to help with the mixture. One of the duty solenoid valves got stuck open this caused the car to run lean A line to the duty solenoids had a hole in it = vacuum leak. Vacuum leak in the HVAC system just plugged it but I think it's the recirculate vacuum motor for the AC system. Evap problems with the nipple on the top of the tank on the passenger side, nothing worse then passing the sniffer then failing the new evap pressure test.