Leaderboard

Just deleted 10 pages of spammer, 25 per page. My hand is numb Wish I had known about this earlier, for some reason I'm not getting notifications

it was one of those rare cases where id say: easier done than said even with the window stuck on up. all done in 20 minutes. in the name of science, opened the old motor, all damage was due to water ingression, god knows how it got there

ISSUE RESOLVED! When I bought this 513303 hub from Detroit Axle, it came in a 2-pack. I spoke with Martin at Detroit Axle customer service. He told me his system shows a 513303 and 513220 hub are interchangeable. He said I may have a damaged part, and he would ship me another 513303. I asked him to send me (2) 513220s since the 513303 isn't working. He agreed to send it. While waiting for the parts to arrive, I bought this magnetic field viewing film from Amazon for $18.99. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BCFM83XB?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1 When the film arrived, I checked the new 513303 hub from the box and it has 96 magnets in the encoder. When the new hubs arrived, I pulled the suspect one off the car and found it to have 64 magnets in the encoder. The hub on the left is the new 513303. The one on the right is the suspect one. You can easily see the difference. I compared a 513220 and found the bearing housing to be a little different, but it had 96 magnets in the encoder. The hub on the left is the 513303 from the car an the one on the right is the 513220. See the straight sides on the 513220 vs the scalloped sides on the 513303. So I installed a 513220 and took it for a ride. ABS light is off and the speedometer is within 2 mph at 60 mph, which is within normal range according to what I've seen posted out there. I will be returning the defective hub to Detroit Axle. It's worth noting their customer service has been great. They provided me 2 513220 hubs at no charge trusting me to return the 513303s and they sent a return shipping label. I'll be checking every hub I install now with my new magnetic field film before I install it.

I bought a set of the LED headlight bulbs that was deemed directly compatible with my OEM headlight bulbs. Big mistake. My digital dash went haywire and the engine began cutting out and otherwise ran poorly. Then the below dash relay switches were overheating and burning out. Finally, I realized that those LED's were screwing up my car big time, but only after I changed out my distributor, coil, cap and fusible links in a rain storm. Now I am back to the the OEM bulbs, have installed all new relay switches, and keep a handful of spare relay switches to pop in if I have any further problems. 524,000 miles on my 86 gl10 turbo.

B assembled the rear suspension on the Impreza. To make the Mustang rear calipers fit the Subaru front rotors I turned the rotors a little thinner, about a millimeter total. Second side I had to run a lot slower than the first. Since the opposite side of the rotor wasn't up against the jaws it was chattering at anything above about 100rpm. Also we only had one banjo bolt so I made another one. Will probably eventually get legit banjo bolts and better caliper mounting bolts but they all work well enough for now. Rear suspension and brakes assembled. ABS sensors and parking brake cables just zip tied up for now. Will eventually remove ABS cables and make brackets to connect parking brake cables. Black stuff running down exhaust is carbon washed out of the engine by excessively rich mixture when we first got the engine running. I cleaned up the wiring in the engine compartment, still some work to do there. Ditto the interior. Ready for the first test drive, just have to lower the car. Been on jackstands for way too long. For some reason the cam signal issue is back. Engine still runs but not as smooth as it has been, so I probably need to call Haltech again. On the plus side we drove the car around the block and everything important seems to work. All three pedals, shifter, and steering seem to do what they should. Didn't notice any tire rubbing or bad noises or vibrations. Didn't leak a drop either.

I swapped the stock fuel pump out for this Deatschwerks pump a few weeks ago. Will keep stock one as a spare. Z wired some plugs on my light bars that plug into the stock fog light plugs. Engine compartment is getting close. Have to mount the PS reservoir and clean up wiring. Got the cam sensors to show up on the Haltech but the engine won't run with any of them connected to the main cam signal, waiting to hear back from them on ideas there. Also have to have super low values in the VE table to run close to 15:1 at idle but we have gotten it to do that now and it runs pretty smooth and smoke free. Got the parts back from paint. B installed bushings in the various rear suspension components. Used Whiteline mainly for ease of assembly. Ordered some R180 inner CV dust shields and another wheel bearing, then should be able to assemble all that. Fuel tank guards installed. Transmission crossmember/skid went in much more easily than we expected. Usually after removing these things and welding them off the car there is some amount of bending and hole slotting required. Middle portion of exhaust not fully installed, might have to come back out to install stock shifter. Waiting on bushings and roll pin for that. Front skid installed. A little bending and slotting was required to get that to bolt up to the bumper but not too much. Front bumper and lights installed. Car is getting really close to driving but there will still be a lot of things to do.

The wagon is now my daily driver,such a fun drive My 9 year old daughter has already reserved it as her own,and I’m under strict instructions to keep it until she can get her licence in it at age 15.. After 15 years in a field and destined for the wrecker,it feels good to keep some 80’s history on the road. Weirdly its not the oldies that stop to chat at the petrol station,more so the sticker on the cap youth,that either have never seen one before or follow hoonigan;) Lots more to post here as continue to document,learn,tune,fettle,but out of data onsite for images,cheers Westy

Went to the UP the last weekend of July with three Subarus and five people. B wasn't able to join us. Before the trip I was checking my notes and realized there was a crack in one of the rear uprights of the black outback so I welded that. The rear tires on the white Outback were almost completely bald so I put some less bald tires on it. I had looked before we went and saw a large area of public land east of Sagola we hadn't explored. There were several fire towers and the ELF (extremely low frequency transmitter) in the area too. Didn't expect much of those but gave us something to roughly wander towards. Fire towers turned out to not exist or be on private property which is about what I expected. When we went to where the ELF was originally marked on my GPS we couldn't find anything. Later Z looked it up and we did make it there but it's some kind of secure gov't facility so we didn't get to see anything. On the way up I was driving the black Outback when suddenly I looked down and the coolant temp gauge was pegged. It had been right where it normally is for hours so I figured it might be the sender or gauge or something. Pulled into a shady spot in a parking lot. Realized it was the same hose that had rotted out on us out west and replaced it with a spare I had. The oil leak there keeps eating those hoses. Left that skidplate off for the time being figuring we'd just reinstall it at camp. Crossed into Michigan and started wandering off pavement. Z got his Forester high centered and stuck on a stump (between engine skid and trans crossmember). Lifted it off with the high lift and threw some wood under the tire. This part of the UP was rockier than most of the UP but not like the Keeweenaw. Trying to follow a powerline grade Z got his Forester stuck in some soft mud. Good reminder that any time you see even a slight trickle of flowing water up there the ground is probably going to be super soft. At this point I realized I'd left my brand new speed strap and folding recovery ramps at home. Then we broke my 2” speed strap, it's seen a lot of abuse but I was still a little surprised. Z had a tow strap and with a combo of that and my marginal speed straps we were able to get his car out. One of those situations where we tried about ten iterations of straps thinking each one would work, might have been just as fast to winch or jack him out of there. Went the other way on that powerline grade which had some good rock ledges and climbs but didn't go very far before going off into the woods. Before one fairly big drop we decided we should put the one skidplate back on the black Outback so we did that while V cooked the burgers since it was supper time. Maybe the first time we've cooked supper before getting to camp. Saw a (juvenile?) porcupine standing in the road, got a few good pictures of it before it walked off into the brush. Late in the day the black Outback started making some fairly high frequency drivetrain noises proportional to wheel speed like a gear in the transmission was rubbing on something. M was driving and I played with the shifters and then it went away. Found a FS campground and stayed the night there. The next morning we did a little more trail riding but the transmission noise was back. It was making enough noise even in neutral that we didn't think flat towing it would be a good idea. We discussed a few options and decided the best would be to try to fix it. I have been carrying a stock DCCD so plan B was to install that and plug the shifter holes. We went back to the campsite we'd stayed at the night before since it was decent, close to toilets, and there had been no one else in the whole campground. Of course during the day two other campers showed up and occupied the spots on either side of us. Disassembly went fairly smoothly but time consuming. Realized we'd need gear oil so Z and V drove to town to get that and some groceries so V could cook us some fajitas since we knew he'd have plenty of time. The main problem seemed to be thrust forces (from the helical gears I assume) wore out one of the snapring groove lands to the point that one of the snaprings was just floating around in the middle of the low range. We just removed the snapring, the part it'd been holding on was already galled/peened in place. M and I tried about ten times to put the low range back in the trans and then put the cover on with no success. Finally we put the low range in the cover and put the whole thing on and it went right together. One trick we used was to tie the split needle bearing on the front output shaft on with a blade of grass since it would instantly dispose of itself, before that those bearings kept falling out of place during assembly even though we'd greased them. As it turned out the grass fell out during assembly but did its job. Then we put everything else back on and I took it on a test drive around the campground before dark. Seemed to work fine but still a little noisy. Camped again in the same spot we had on Friday night, something else I don't think we've ever done before. Sunday we had a solid day of trail riding with no major issues. Found a stunt area, unplugged a culvert that'd been dammed up by beavers, then Z got properly stuck in the mud in a clearcut area. Probably over 100' from the nearest fairly solid ground. Set up the winch and swapped the Anderson connector from the white car on to his battery. Winched off of several different stumps with the snatch block and eventually got him on to solid ground. Good reminder that having a winch you can put on either end of any car is far superior to having it permanently mounted to one end of one car. He was then able to drive through the clearcut along the trail back to where we were parked. The whole thing took under two hours with surprised us. I got the black Outback stuck after turning around and trying to climb up a steep bank. A backed the white Ouback back to where we were. By then I remembered I had a proper elastic snatch strap and soft shackles so we used those. They hit much softer than the speed straps. I couldn't really even feel when it hit even though A was taking a 10-20' run at it. He eventually pulled me up the little bank. Somehow the rear bumper cover of the white Outback had come off so we cobbled that back on and continued. Monday morning while we were following the black Outback it seemed like the rear camber on it would be both tilted to left, then both straight. Eventually A decided to pull over because it was steering itself. The subframe had pulled out of the remains of the unibody on both sides. We also had brackets connecting it to the skidframe which had mostly ripped off. We sort of straightened out the brackets and hose clamped them back on and ratchet strapped the subframe up into place. (We were able to ratchet strap the subframe back up to the body, not shown) A managed to navigate us down a fairly long and almost entirely off pavement route south. Got to an abandoned railroad track. Had to restrap the rear subframe a couple more times. The last time A came up with the idea of strapping the subframe to the skidframe laterally which helped a lot. Black outback is probably finally and properly totaled. Needs a trans rebuild, radiator, coolant hose, rear diff is no longer limited slip, rear axles and wheel bearings are ticking time bombs, and most importantly needs some serious body/frame repair for the rear subframe. In the meantime it is still driveable if I need to drive it around town some. Really need to get the Impreza running. Will try to post an update on that soon.

And now you know why I suggested to clean the throttle body FIRST. Glad you avoided total destruction. GD

Well, I got it fixed. When I bought this car I was told it had a bad knock, and the guy I bought it from had started to take it apart. The intercooler and a few other bits had already been removed and thrown into the back of the car. I spent about an hour putting it back together to start it. It did have a knock that was the worst I'd heard, outside of a diesel dozer starting in cold weather. Long story short, I put a brand new short block and rebuilt heads in it, and had been driving it gently for a bit to break it in. When I finally did put my foot into it, the stuff I mentioned in the original post happened. Based on lots of internet looking and some of the suggestions in this thread, I decided I'd try a new accelerator pedal assembly. I had the same issue afterwards, so started to pull parts to get at the throttle body. When I got the rubber boot between the intercooler and the throttle body pulled loose, I noticed the butterfly was partially open. I doused it with cleaner to see if that would free things up, but it looked fairly clean before I sprayed it. I pushed on the butterfly a bit and a "thing" that was jammed between the butterfly and body fell out, and the butterfly closed. I consider myself quite lucky that the "thing" which got blown into the throttle body when I put my foot into it never made it past the butterfly to an intake valve. I don't know if I somehow dropped this "thing" into the intercooler, or if it was dropped in there when the previous owner threw parts into the back of the car. I typically bag and label things as I disassemble something I am not familiar with, and this was my first experience with a DOHC turbo Subaru, so I was extra cautious in bagging and labelling everything I removed. Cleared the codes, did an idle relearn procedure, and all is well. The "thing" was a stainless steel lock washer.

Likely need to swap the crank and LH cam sprocket from the old engine. The tone wheels for the crank and cam sensors are part of those sprockets, and there are a couple different patterns.

B finished welding the rear brumper yesterday. We also finally got the EZ36 running in the Impreza. Seemed to be running on all six, the only leak we noticed was one of the injectors so I should get new o rings for those. Cranked it for a while to get some oil circulation and maybe pressure. Even without the fuel pump running it started to fire when we plugged in the ECU. Fired right up with some fuel pressure, responds to throttle pedal. Only ran it for 5-10 seconds a few times. Still needs a lot of little things but a bit of a relief to hear it run. I'm going to try to put all the details of the engine swap on this thread: Will probably start copying some of the relevant info from this thread into there and use this thread for our usual fabrication, repairs, and trip reports. Thought it might be handy for future reference to have all the engine swap info in one place.

They said they wanted to keep it. I told them, I could hopefully get it together and running. Get the old key, what is left of it out. Set the timing marks Install a new Balancer and torque to 140 fl lbs. See if it runs Alt install Fans install and give them a running Subaru.

Another update, its been a while. Its running pretty good. Well it was until I messed with the charge pipe clamps. Have a boost leak now and I've already checked the clamps I messed with. But its not smoking like it was, so the rings have sealed. Also adjusted the valves again. From the way it was running before the boost leak, this engine is going to rock! Cant wait to finish breaking it in, then I can do the fuel mods and slap the VF39 turbo on

No. No practical way and worse than that - no one at the dealership that is A: Skilled enough to do it, and B: Willing. You see every technician at the dealer level is paid "flat rate" - so they get paid book time. And when you can do a 2.8 hour spark plug job in 1 hour and get paid for 2.8 hours..... or you can troubleshoot some random CAN code that at best is going to take MANY hours and you will get paid probably for fewer hours than you actually spend.... which are you going to choose? They are going to scan it - write "unable to reproduce customer complaint" on the invoice, get paid their 0.5 for the scan tool diag and move the heck on to an actual paying job. They don't have the skills and the dealer isn't going to pay them for the research necessary to acquire those skills for one problem child car. It's not economically viable. Now you are beginning to understand..... Could a team of engineers with a laboratory equipped with a dyno that can angle and shake the vehicle while it is simultaneously driving under various ambient conditions and is hooked up to CAN sniffer equipment, and all 4 channels of half a dozen oscilloscopes find the problem? Given enough time..... YES! Is that likely to be funded by you or anyone else? No - as a society we will just throw that car away and build another. This is how it's basically always worked with technically complex manufactured products. Hell my LMTV (US Army truck) had an electrical fault that took ME eight months to find. Because it was intermittent and the troubleshooting documents and the engineers that designed that particular system (yes I spoke with them - multiple times) did not foresee this particular interaction of failures and so the symptoms could not be correlated with the actual problem. I eventually found it by pure force of will and by resorting to testing every single wire end-to-end for every component involved in the subsystem exhibiting the problem. I found a manufacturing defect in the truck's wiring harness by application of brute force, time, and a lot of luck. And that truck has no CANBUS in the sense that none of it's modules talk to each other. The US government spent $230,000 to purchase that truck in 2008. They sent it to Kuwait and then shipped it back to El-Paso. From 2008 to 2017 the truck accrued 2,045 miles of use, and was then deemed "surplus to needs" and (probably) because of the electrical fault and some minor damage (not related to the electrical and easily repaired with only bolt-on replacements) it was not selected to be upgraded to full armor so was sent to auction. This is the DOD - with a budget of $860 billion. It was deemed not economically viable due to a single wire not having been soldered correctly at the factory that "in practice" no one could actually isolate. So the whole truck was sent to the corn field. Sadly - unless you want to become an expert in CANBUS networks and sniff out the problem yourself - at the cost of great expenditure of time and effort - Subaru could care less if they lose you forever as a customer. It's a statistics thing. A convert will come along that had a bad experience with a Ford to replace you. It really isn't to anyone's financial benefit except you to spend the effort to find the problem because in the end it will require so many hours to do so that it will far eclipse the value of the car and you won't pay for that so no technician is going to spend the time. It's a bit of a societal problem in general but the ever-increasing complexity, the drive for ever-increasing profit by creating the artificial need to replace products frequently, and the ability to release products while they are still in a software beta state and "online" update them later if and when there's enough complaints is really reaching an intolerable level. At least for me. Basically everything we buy is now total garbage and we have forgotten the two most important of the three R's. Everyone thinks it's all fine as long as it's "Recycled". No one bothers one bit with Reduce or Reuse. Just throw it "away" (where the hell is that exactly?) and get another one. Someone will recycle it.... probably into a landfill or into your lungs via a convenient incinerator. GD

Nothing to see here. Just a 94 legacy station wagon with a cargo carrier on the roof and a tow dolly hitched to it shoving a 93 Loyale onto the dolly with a 97 Impreza that's mid pickup truck conversion acting as a wall.

This kind of repair exceeded my limited capabilities for sure! Hidden behind a post office, with no signage,years prior had discovered two young guys that had setup a metal work shop,you wouldn’t know they were there and they don’t advertise.Often the way huh. Immediately hitched up the the death triangle and towed it down.They didn’t blink,well maybe a bit,but ripped into it. So far this was a very cheap exercise,but happy to pay for their ninja skills.

Front Valance. First big use of the donor was to rebuild what was left of the original lower skirt panel. blood spilt cutting both away in one piece. Cut and paste (jb weld) and eventually tack welded back into place,already paid back the few hundred spent on the donor:)

Knock sensors are simple devices and the ECU is only looking for a resistance value generally. Unless you plan on running poor quality fuel I would just stick a resistor in the circuit and send it. One thing you learn from years of tuning and owning a dyno - knock sensors are one of those "last 1%" items. Generally the engineering and preparation that goes into their use makes them worthless and inconvenient for motorsports, engine swaps, etc. They don't like noisy environments like custom exhaust headers, custom engine mounting situations.... they like very quiet grandma friendly environments. They will usually tell the ECU to pull a bunch of timing from erroneous "knock" detection in the types of environments we stick them in with regards to engine swaps, high performance modifications, etc. You won't find them on race cars. They are not applicable to that environment. Thus why I suggest to just bypass it and forget about it. Alternatively you could find/measure/guess the frequency response of the stock knock sensor (it's typically chosen based on cylinder diameter), and source something in the same frequency range and change the connector, etc. Knock sensors are just piezo-electric microphones that are tuned to hear a specific resonance frequency of the cylinder bore size. Figure out the frequency and find one similar from any other model. Problem solved. GD

In other news it won't be long before I retire out of the Subaru (and consumer vehicle) repair world. I'm going to move to retired military hardware. Both the CUCV (square body chevy truck military platform), and the FMTV's like my M1079. Stuff you can actually repair and that was built to be durable and to keep your privacy intact. Maybe head up to the northeast and do some snow plowing with M1083's with sanders and plows. I've had a lifetime's worth of plastic consumer trash and I'm going back to my roots and my first love - OD green, desert sand tan, and 3-color NATO. GD

Valves are bent. Probably all of them. Sounds like you're on a budget with more time than money. Tools and free internet education is cheaper than a mechanic You can often return tools after use - the various auto parts stores do this on purpose to get you in the door to buy parts (not required that you purchase any parts though). Amazon and ebay sell complete valve sets CHEAP - never had an issue with any of them if setup properly. Get HG's from Subaru ($150 for both). Get an Aisin timing kit and some cheap fluids. Unless you keep all the tools you buy (or hopefully you already have some of what you need). this can be a $500 repair. Or if you go to a shop and get the heads rebuilt and a new short block from Subaru because it's old and burns oil, etc then it can easily be a $6,500 repair. GD

INTERLUDE: Doing the Shocks! While I gather up the funds for the last couple parts I need to start putting everything in the car: new shocks! Well, not new new, at least in the front, but certainly better than the popped ones that are in the car right now. I had the good fortune of grabbing some spare parts with Gladys when I bought her, including 2 sets of front coilovers, and since a pair of brand new rear shocks can be had for $50 off Amazon, I'm replacing all four once the rears arrive on Friday. In the meantime, I've grabbed the front ones from my parts stash. Funnily enough, the pair I grabbed are KYB GR-2s, which means that with the Excel-Gs going in the rear, all four corners are gonna be on KYB struts. I dunno I just think that's neat. Here's the new(er) front shocks loaded up for transport to Gladys in The Imp, my GFC. In other news, I just got back from the junkyard with a couple of parts which'll be very useful if I plan on stopping the car A vacuum pump and reservoir, which I pulled from a Volvo, but it's the same model used in 2014+ Foresters and the Tribeca (which I was originally gonna harvest this one from but someone beat me to the one on that lot) Also on the lot was this weird little thing: A ZAP Xebra, a weird little 3-wheeled electric "car" from the late 2000s, with a top speed of ~40mph and a range of 20-40 miles depending on the model you got Anyways, update over, I'll be back on Friday with a report on how the shock replacement goes!

Went to a local car show today My son alerted me to it, said he saw a Subaru Brat turning into the lot. The front end of this looks just like the 1985 GL 4WD wagon I had, with the spare tire in the same place. I think it was a 1.8L. Mine was a 5 speed manual, great car.

Well, at least fuck off out of here. 2 stage verification is now enabled. You will need to answer 3 questions to be verified, for now

Absotively - I always pull the ground (first) rather than +12. There are some other delightful failure modes as well, such as your big college ring or metal watchband coming between that wrench and ground.

Welcome to the Forum Although not impossible, it does make the job a lot harder to do in-car. Lots of bending over the fenders, or reaching up from under the car. Murphy's Law states that if one head gasket goes, the other side is not far behind... you may be doing the other side in the near future!

What brand is the belt? OEM or Misuboshi are the only correct answers. GD

In my mind it's a tough call. There are pros and cons to both approaches. I've pretty much decided to go with a JDM swap. It looks like it's going to be considerably less expensive and doing all that work on a motor that apparently has over 200K miles on it just seems more risky than rolling the dice on a JDM.

It could be break-in related. That said - in a perfectly machined, and perfectly cleanly assembled engine - assuming it is primed correctly, etc - there *should* be NO break-in except for rings - which would be cast iron, steel, and I think the top compression ring is plasma-moly (100% molybdenum) coated..... there's really nothing in an engine that *should* wear that contains silicon. The bearings should float on a film of engine oil and continued excess silicon in my opinion is an indication of sloppy clearance, assembly, or cleanliness. It may wear to a point and plateau there for a very long time - or it may just eat itself in short order. It's really hard to say - continue to do analysis and watch the trends. GD

Based on reliability history, experience, and resale value I would pick the Toyota 4Runner or Tacoma/Tundra hands down. They are still available relatively trimmed down and simple, they are bulletproof, and they hold their value: https://caredge.com/toyota/4runner/depreciation Toyota has a host of other models also and don't seem to suffer (as much) from the foolishness that has plagued Subaru in the last decade. And overall they hold their resale value at least as well. Without adjusting for inflation you can practically drive a 4Runner for free these days - selling it after 5 years for nearly it's new asking price. Subaru is a puppet of Toyota and with the trend toward electric vehicles Subaru really has no technology to offer - leveraging Toyota for that space. Going forward they have nothing to offer other than a brand image. Once you go electric you no longer need the mechanical symetrical AWD, and the boxer engine is just an old gas burning relic. Toyota will milk the brand for it's image and toss the husk. Watch and see. GD

I'm tellin ya - sell that albatross while it still moves. RIGHT NOW you can sell it and cut your losses. When it fails? What's your prognosis financially? The ONLY course that makes sense given the reputation of this transmission is to get rid of it NOW. Gambling in Vegas probably has better odds IMO. If you look at the sum total of my experience - go back and look ay my posts from 10+ years ago - 15-20 years ago even. I was an EZ Board member of this forum when I was just a kid in my 20's with no money and a $400 Subaru. I've been AROUND ya know? You really think I got here without (once upon a time) being a fan of the Subaru design, engineering, and in general their simple construction and being friendly to repair and service? At this point I check in here from time to time - mostly to marvel at how much the tables have turned and to warn others of the writing on the wall that I see on a daily basis owning and running a Subaru performance/repair shop. You think it's good for my business to rag on the brand? Be grateful that I don't care. GD

I haven't driven Subies nearly as much as most of you here but I'm 4th owner of a 205,000 mile 03 WRX wagon and I'm sure the kid owner before me was not nice to it. He ran some Cobb bolt-on mods and tuning maps before he put it back to stock when I bought it. When I went to test drive, it was over a quart low on oil and black as tar. Today, it still has the original engine, turbo and accessories. I've not even had to charge the A/C system. It did need a radiator at 175k and the center diff at 199K both of which I found easy to change myself. Otherwise, I have few complaints other than typical vacuum hoses and such getting old and cracking.

Silicone is a no-go for gasoline applications. The best material I have found is Nitrile rubber sheets (aka Buna-N, NBR, etc.) and it is approved for gasoline and many other oils and fuels. I laser cut it to make fuel pump diaphragms for mechanical fuel pumps in my older classic cars. You can get plain sheets or Nylon cloth infused sheets if you need extra strength. I've bought from ebay, McMaster-Carr, Amazon and Grainger in the past. Plain Nitrile should be fine for your fuel tank sender gasket.

I’ve rebuilt a ton of totaled cars which many people claim is hard, terrible, and fraught with danger and potential rejection or unknown problems and the state is out to get you. I’m an untrained DIY guy, never had shop classes or been in auto business. Never had a problem rebuilding a totaled car and getting a real title for it. It’s not a big deal. I haven’t done a title-less car but after the rebuilding process I wouldn’t be deterred if the right situation presented itself. I’ve seen the process listed looking at potential buys and other car protocols. The state tells you what to do - go do what they say. In my experience the inspectors and people involved aren’t as bad to deal with as many claim. They just want to see the I’s crossed and T’s dotted and nothing sketchy and you’re good.

I accidentally discovered my oil leak when I changed out the oil pump. The old mouse eared gasket again got hot, expanded and buckled inward, so as to then pump oil straight outside of the gasket containing boundary. For my new mouse eared gasket install, I RTV'd the offending portion of the gasket in place, so that it cannot buckle and leak. My mysterious engine oil leak then completely disappeared.

Hard to believe I haven’t had a thread going for this project unless I missed something. Pics as I can become smart enough. Quick version: over on the dreaded book of face a good member of the Subaru vintage cult posted that this wagon was being Given Away. Money end of things I couldn’t take it for free and threw the family $100 which the grandson would up with after they passed it around three generations. That and I threw my tow guy savior buddy $450 and covered the tolls. That little or that much got the car home. A little too much to discuss in detail but the previous owner is a cool little old guy not much different than myself or my dad or maybe some of you too. OK my dad was never a project guy with any type of hoarding it he was and still is at 94 a hands on guy who seemed to be able to fix or maintain anything. Henry the previous owner had cars, motorcycles, and all sorts of machine/tool items and generally a crap load of cool stuff. This wagon is a bit of a forgotten bit as far as he was concerned. The car apparently has been stored on stands inside the garage since I think 1990 or so but he wasn’t sure if it was the 80’s or 90’s. The car shows signs it’s an original 65k (I think) car. But also shows strange repairs. Keep in mind what life was like back then for small Japanese cars here in the States. So the car came to me with 2wd exhaust rigged up. And I’m thinking the engine may be from a 2wd as well but I need to check the distributor and a couple things to verify. Meanwhile the engine I’m dropping into it now is from another free sort of 1978 4wd wagon. So at least I’m sure the car will once again have correct engine not that there’s much difference. Just ND vs Hitachi and little more. On lunch right now so I’ll post more soon. Gotta manga ! Ciao!

It can be either the canister or the valve. It's easy to replace both and they're not very expensive, just messy because they're located behind the passenger-side rear tire underneath the car and road filth accumulates on them.

Only reason to post today is for good karma, good mojo, whatever you’d like to call it just generally good spirits from the once mighty USMB crowd. Funny how things happen. Lost parts that finally show up. Frost has now become the norm overnights so I’m pretty much past my goal, well past really but given the adjustments for life’s events I was hoping to at least be done and have the car running before any real snow. So far I’m still within that margin. Today I should be in proper shape to start this car for the first time in ?? Maybe since 1989 for the car and likely since 2005 for this engine I’m using. No need to post although the cheers will be appreciated. As long as I posted here that’s probably enough to spark the magic. I doubt it’ll be a first crank and run affair. But we can hope. I have to admit to being a bit of a hack at this point in regards to the carburetor. I truly should have lifted the float chamber top and at least sprayed the heck out of it. I’ll have all on stand by and that gasket for the float lid and then some. Hoping I spray carb cleaner in the fuel input and down the throat and get lucky. But I expect that float and it’s valve will be stuck or sticky enough they’ll need attention. Here’s to the weekend ! Cheers!

Just being an old ea81 I’d go through a few items, maybe one at a time and test after each. There’s a few changes as the EA81 goes on but yours may have the black plastic flying saucer looking thing which is upstream from the carb. One recorded event was that plastic breaking apart and minute bits and even chuncks getting into the carb. Also the flaps on the air suction valve. Four Phillips screws on the metal box with hard metal tubing. Check those flaps for serious degradation at the lower edge kind of like an old carburetor slide if you’ve ever seen a lawnmower or motorcycle carb. Heat causes expansion so then can create leaks. Spray some wd40 or carb cleaner around the base of the carb as it’s warmed up and running and see if the idle levels out. Several folks here still active with EA 81s so you’ll get more advice soon.

Happy to bring a rust free Colorado Subaru back to WI for you. I've done half a dozen over the years for family and friends. Enjoy the new to you Subaru,

https://flic.kr/p/2paDdEZ

M finally decided the old Impreza wasn't worth fixing. Compression had gotten so low the car would roll in gear with the engine off. In a way this is the one that started all of our Subaru off pavement adventures after I hit a deer over a decade ago. A little disappointing it didn't hit 300,000 miles. Certainly the most entertainment per dollar of any car I've ever owned. inside of the gas tank: Some of the parts we scavenged. The main things I wanted were the wheels (and tires), shifter/console (although most of that doesn't fit my '98), and the front axles and knuckles. The knuckles had been upgraded to the bolt on wheel bearing style and it had the big front wheel drive style axles. We considered removing the transmission (since it's the older style 5MT with the top inspection plate) and a few other things but had to draw the line somewhere. That left us with the question of how to make it roll. The simplest/cheapest idea I could come up with was to weld a tube to the bottom of the control arms (they're kinda rusty and I already have a few pairs of good stock ones). Then I welded some short pieces of tubing inside some space savers to act as hubs. These weren't centered or anything but it was just for getting the car out of the garage and on the flatbed. "hubs" were retained by tack welds. Gave us some hot Carolina squat action. Don't worry we kept the chrome lug nuts and only used a couple old rusty lug nuts per wheel to put some crappy tires on the back. M specifically told the tow company they should come with a flat bed but they didn't. He insisted the guy look at how poorly the "front axle" was attached but the guy was unconcerned. Put the front end on a dolly and dragged it out of town. Frightening. A day or two later when I unloaded the parts the one taillight still had plenty of blinker fluid in it. Have made some progress on the green Impreza too. Will try to post a few pictures sometime. Unfortunately I've been busy with other things. Mainly buying a building to move my machine tools into. In the long run that should be great but it's kept me from finishing the Impreza.

Overrun fuel cut deactivation is typically a table based on coolant temp. Minimum RPM at full temp is usually somewhere between 1200 and 1800 rpm at full temp. Above that RPM any throttle position under about 1.5% activates fuel cut. There is typically a large timing retard that occurs during activation and deactivation to smooth the transition. GD

Be careful with aftermarket radiators (is there anything else these days). On the one I bought for my 87 DL, I found the inner filler neck sealing surface was not at the correct depth for the caps we use. It was too shallow but the radiator cap fit and I didn't even notice the issue at first. The over-pressure relief spring was being compressed too tight so no fluid could expand into the overflow tank. This was not a problem while there was still some excess air in the system from the refill but once the air was burped the trouble started. Coolant would properly be sucked from the overflow bottle when the car cooled off at night, but no fluid could expand out when I drove. This worked for almost a week with no overheating or leaks. Eventually, all of the air is burped from the system which is a good thing up until the antifreeze needs to expand ever so slightly but has no place to go. I started seeing antifreeze leaks in several places, all while the engine was running well within normal temps. To prove I was right that the shallow filler neck depth was the issue, I installed a pressure gauge on a section of the heater hose and before the engine was anywhere near operating temps I was already seeing pressures well above 25 PSI. Sadly, I did not catch this soon enough and it cracked the plastic heater core case and also swelled up several hoses and caused the new radiator to leak at the tanks seals. Moral of the story is to be sure you have the correct radiator cap and test it. I bought at least 5 caps and also tried every cap they had at both NAPA and Autozone. Not one of them fit correctly. I have a lathe and ended up making my own adapter. I could not send the radiator back because I picked it up long ago but did not install it until much later. This repair was done in April and now that we are hitting 110F here in Phoenix and I'm running the A/C full time, I have no leaks. The flow in and out of the overflow bottle is as expected and I rarely see anything close to 13 PSI on that temporary pressure gauge. Highest coolant temps I've hit are 205-208F. No issues at all now.

There's tons of cheap screw press kits available now. Just 10 seconds on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Orion-Motor-Tech-Replacement-Automotive/dp/B01FLVOAZI

Been a while from last update. Sorry Took the brat to the track for the last round of the summer series. At this point I was coming 3rd and with all the teething problems you get from a new build. Mainly with the boost soleniod not doing what it should. So just put a manual tap on it and added a 02 gauge to keep an eye on fuel ratios Started with 6psi qualifying then to 8psi for first race. Starting to go like it should but noticed it slipping the clutch a bit at the end of the race. Only 9.6 on the 02, so really rich so cranked it to 10psi. No good the clutch was pretty much stuffed on the warm up lap. New clutch only done 2 practice events which the car wasn't even going propalley, 2 qualifying runs, so just warm ups and a fast lap. 5 of the 9 races. So disappointing for a upgraded clutch, but was running 3rd out of most corners so lots of torque. Will have to save up for a really heavy duty one. But anyway just an update for those who are interested in whats been going on.

I've never had issues myself with aftermarket T-stats but I have found have crappy water pumps where the impeller falls apart or slips on the shaft. If you are 100% certain about the integrity of all the other work you did and that the engine condition was fine before the repair, how can it be anything other than the replacement pump? With that in question, how are you actually determining that you have "good circulation"?

I get the P0420 on my 2002 EJ251 every few months, and then I delete the code. My car normally just does local runs. But once in a while, I go on the freeway at high speed; if it's a hot day, the CEL comes on and it's a P0420 code. So I delete it. Been doing this for years. The engine runs beautifully!

Whats up everyone? I thought I would show my Subie here so I can finally get some work going on it. I got it during 2020 but it just been sitting around and I would drive it once in a while. Some things I would like to do is lift it a little and convert the lug pattern. I'm deciding between converting to a 6 lug or getting one of those adapter to put vw dune buggy wheels on it. I do have a donor car (95 Legacy) and would like to take the EJ22 out of it and put it into the Loyale.