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What I've learned refurbishing my 3rd gen wagon (89 GL). Parts: Hoard them. Buy yourself an ultrasonic cleaner because there's gonna be a lot of greasy used parts you'll need to clean if you intend to run this car for any period of time. Engine: EA82's are simple to teardown. However, aluminum threads don't like to be abused. Be careful with exhaust flanges and intake manifold bolts. They tend to strip or corrode in some form or another. Pistons, connecting rods, valve springs, valves, valve retainers, oil pumps, OEM water pumps, cylinder heads without deep cracks, oil pickups, and more can be difficult to find. Luckily you're in the right place to find them but still. There's a reason EA82's have gone the way of the dodo. Buying a good parts engine (if you can find one) isn't a bad idea. Suspension: Front struts and good quality front strut mounts are difficult to find. The chinesium parts that makes up 80% of the parts market for these cars usually aren't worth giving the time of day. Look at DRW Bushings for suspension bushings. I've been very impressed with the bushings and the owner's communication, I'd highly recommend. Springs can be hard to find, there are overload springs out there. Wheels & Bearings: 4x140 is going to be your biggest hurdle. Looks like you've got a set of shallow wagon wheels (I'm jealous). It's just difficult to find known good wheels, new 4x140 wheels are quite obscure. Bearings aren't too bad if you have a bearing puller. Honestly the seals can put up more of a fight than the bearings. Remember to replace your axle nut spring washers. Axles: If they're not rusty and crusty, clean them and reboot them. Buy neoprene boots, I recommend EMPI. I use Yamalube ACC-MOLDM-GS-05. Use what you like but it's good grease. You may find out, if you haven't already, that if you do need to replace an axle, it's difficult to buy "the right one". There are multiple different axles (4 or 5, I can't remember) that are used depending on the cars drivetrain and fuel delivery system. Stay away from most cheap axles. Sometimes remans are okay but your best bet is used OEM that have been cleaned and rebooted. Get familiar with the identification bands on the axle shafts near the outer boot and your axle spline count. Outer axle joints cannot be disassembled, to clean wipe the grease off and pour a cleaning solvent into the joint. Pour out the sludge and wipe away the rest. Let the solvent off gas and repack with grease. Interior: Speedometer cables and throttle cables can be difficult to find. Yes there are cheap parts put there, but those are always a crap shoot. The foam on the HVAC blend doors has probably severely degraded and that will cause issues with actually feeling the full effect of your HVAC system. I'd recommend replacing the foam. Once you've torn the dash off, its easy to do again. Getting it back together can be a pain with the HVAC controls (4 vacuum hoses and a cable). Plastic trim pieces are NLA and will have to be a junkyard, craigslist, or eBay find. If you decide to manual swap the car, get a pedal box from a later GL or a Loyale. Older pedal boxes are prone to cracking. Glass: Junkyard. Literature: Get a copy of a parts manual and I'd also recommend a hardcopy of the factory service manual set. Yes you can find them mostly online but having a hardcopy is very helpful. Good luck :]

Lots of thoughts on going forward. But in general for now to just rehabilitate the carb’d EA82 that’ll be a bit of a project. Not so bad really but these days we see most folks immediately ditch the old power plant and sometimes as needed the drivetrain too. You have the last of the carb’d engines. In 1987 it’s a split year. You’ll find DL wagons and sedans with the carb until a certain production date. Then they’re SPFI. You can swap blocks and blank off the EGR ports in the exhaust should you want to try making it SPFI. Been ages for me since I’ve had that era but we had so many between parts cars and drivers. Pretty much all my stash is gone from that era. I never had any real trouble with the Hitachi in general from the 70s through the last of them. But those last run carbs have more emission crap and can in my opinion be more finicky. Less manageable. But they’re carbs so it’s always a little bit of luck and black magic. lol EA82 engine parts - the timing belts are hard to find or at least the drivers side which is the one that typically craps out. Oil pump. Reseal kits, you can imagine what it’s like now. There is zero support with very little exception. Carl Porter has some NOS from that era. He might see this here or find him on FB with the usual old school Subaru groups. West coast dealers you might get lucky. This era unfortunately comes with the New Subaru World Order when they made lots of threats to the new wave of dealers to scrap outgoing inventory and damage panels, components, etc so nobody could dumpster dive. So the spares left or much harder to come by than the 70s. It’s a sad story but at least parts lived on. History story: when the Subaru finally caught on here the kind folks at SOA headquarters decided that no longer would their cars be dealt out of mom n pop corner garages and such but they’d have to have a large parcel and big $ to invest. So many mom n pop dealerships closed up and we NOT allowed to sell their parts to the new dealers or back to SOA. Seversl large lots of NOS came to the public. I’m still selling off some of mine. But come the 80s it’s corporate control. Hope you enjoyed the read and enjoy that wagon. Took my young family on many vacations and romps in those. Another several paragraphs of stories there at least. Cheers!

That's a lot cleaner than any you see here! Good choice for a project. Stuck thermostat also can cause overheating and foaming, but head gasket isn't too bad of a project. The stock carbs aren't terrible, and often can be fixed with just a cleaning, being careful not to tear gaskets. Brake booster and master cylinder are usually reliable; no need to replace them unless you have issues. Try ebay or junkyards for better headlights.

No sense in rebuilding a 48mm block and crank. Trade it out for a '99+ block and crank - get back the 52mm rod journals and the improved #5 thrust bearing. You can use the 25D pistons and rods if you like. GD