edrach

Gee, I wish you had posted first before attempting that job. I think there's a description of mine somewhere on the Board for doing this more easily (what you don't take apart, you don't have to put back together). However, Austin's description is right on. Hopefully, you can get this squared away; I'd take Austin up on his offer to help for a fee (he's more than reasonable).

Jason, you're quite correct that the boots from Subaru are the best to use as replacements. However, the heatshield will make any boot last longer.

You can have your current distributor rebuilt by http://www.philbingroup.com/rebuilt/distributors.htm if you can spare it for a few days...or they may have a rebuilt unit in stock for you.

With your talents you should be able to solve the "over the cat" problem. The other Jason welded a heat deflecting shield over my y-pipe. It gave me another 1/2" of cooler air flowing over the top of the heat shield by putting an air scoop on top of the heat shield. I never lost another inner boot on that side again. You can see it on the '86 wagon that flowmasteredGL is working on right now; a bit crude but it did the job.

Nice car, Brian. I have some really pretty wheels for it; you saw them at WCSS6--the polished alloys:) . Good luck with the car.

Yea, I saw the footage about the Anchorage snowfall the other night on TV. You guys looked like Seattle; almost like you'd never seen snow before.

Jason, if you're looking for parts to do your own rebuild, www.cvaxles.com will sell you quality parts also.

Fun time was had by all who attended. It'll take me a week to digest all I ate at Claim Jumper afterwards.....serious good food.

Good place to buy; typical price is $55 plus refundable core charge and shipping. They are one of the few reliable rebuilders out there. If you call them, say hello to Kevin.

If you're going to destroy the socket, make sure it's a Craftsman so you can replace it.

Another vote for Castrol DOT 4; I live in the Seattle area (can you get much wetter than here?) and have never had to change the brake fluid in it's entirety in any Subaru I've owned over the last 5 years. I've only changed it that way when I've replaced calipers or did the disk conversion on the rear brakes. If you plan on changing it every two years anyway, stick with the Castrol.

It looks like Jeanne and I are in. See you there.

Not that I want to complicate the issue, but consider finding a set of rear disks at the local wrecking yard (all the parts will cost you around $75 locally) and replace those rear drums. It makes the brakes work much better and rear disks are much easier to service than rear drums. You and your dad can come by my place and install them (I've done over a dozen of those conversions); it shouldn't take more than two hours.

It was fun to be there; I don't always miss out. Scored a nice tree today also. It took a long time to find it....but as they say...."the end result isn't what matters, but the journey to get there." Or something like that. It was a lot of fun. Thanks to Debbie and qman for all the snacks and warmth.

Here are the photos I took today. Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to load them into the appropriate folder so you'll have to look through my entire album for them---not too difficult since there are not a lot of pics there. On the way home, we had an RX scoot by in front of us as we came out of the forest onto the main highway. He stopped a local watering hole and we stopped to talk to him a bit; it's an '89 with dual range 5 speed as well as center locking diff and LSD; fellow was real proud of it (I was drooling to myself). Unfortunately, I couldn't get more information out of him; but it was certainly a nice car. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/photos/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=110

Austin, hold on to those y-pipes for me; I'll stop by in the early afternoon.

As of yesterday (Friday), no pug wheels available at Lynnwood or Everett. There's a place in Ballard that would straighten your rim, but it's not cost effective ($87.50 flat rate per rim); also expect to make a few extra trips until the job is done right.

Mike, sorry for the difficulty. It must be because the car sat for so long; it was always reliable for me when I had it.

Leave it in until the next oil change. One of the proponents of MMO says he needed to include it in oil changes for a year before the lifter noise finally subsided.

Looks like I'm still on with the Brat.

You can easily check the VR. Using a digital voltmeter (I'm sure you can find someone who has one if you don't---or they are pretty cheap at Radio Shack) measure the battery voltage with the ignition off; it should be pretty close to 12 or 13 Volts DC. Start the car and the voltage should be about the same at low idle, maybe a bit higher. Rev the engine to about 1500 rpm and the battery voltage should climb to at least 13.8 VDC. Continue revving the engine to about 2500 rpm. The voltage should not increase past around 14.5 VDC (if that much....13.8 is still okay even if it is a bit low). If the output is below 12 VDC, the alternator is likely bad. If the voltage keeps climbing with engine rpm past 14.5 volts the VR is bad.

Sounds like an alternator problem; could also be a major grounding problem. Have the local autoparts store check out the alternator and battery.

My first one was an '85 Hatch (2WD Standard model) which I bought for the sole purpose of saving on gas for a 60 mile roundtrip commute to work. It came to Washington state with my father-in-law who drove it out from Delaware for us after we moved here in 1988. We sold it shortly thereafter since we didn't need it at the time. I didn't get the bug until my middle son bought an '82 Brat as his first car. After driving it in the snow with bald tires I was hooked and soon replaced my Mazda pickup with an '86 GL wagon (which flowmasteredGL has right now). Since then I've learned to do more repairs/service for myself other than just changing the oil and filter. Currently, the '82 Brat was bought by my oldest son and is his rallycross car. I've replaced the '86 GL with a '91 Legacy wagon and added an '84 Brat as my play car. I will likely be driving a Subaru until they "pry the key out of my cold dead hand."

How much "play" did you leave at the clutch fork; or to put it another way, how much free play is at the clutch pedal?

Two new Legacies in the yard yesterday; an '89 and a '91--both are automatics.