edrach

Saw some cool cars here. Place is overun with toyotas )all the taxis(. I finally saw a Legacy and a nice ´84 wagon. Saw a fairly clean Brat today also. Driving here is insane. A santa cruz stop==ifyou don´t see anyone coming just cruise on through. If you see another car, step on it! Intersections are every man for himself....whoever has the biggest cajones goes first. The interesting thing is that there´s no road rage....everyone just drives aggressively and doesn´t take offence if they´re cut off...it´s just part of normal driving.

85 degrees and windy as heck. Coming into Land at SC the plane bounced around like crazy. Looked out to see the palm trees all at full extension like a field of windsocks.

Well, we´re here in downtown Santa Cruz, Bolivia. A new world for me. The trip down was the flight from Hell. Left our house after 4am. Got to the gate at SeaTac within 25 minutes of getting dropped off. Cool I thought, everything looks great. Turns out American Airlines had a massive computer crash that morning and every AA flight in the country would be delayed 2 hours! It got worse from there, when we arrived in Miami we had to circle for a while because of weather and when we landed we were twelfth inline waiting for a gate to open. Turns out the gates weren´t opening up since the flight crews to clear the gate were on the planes waiting for gates!!!! Catch'22 anyone. Darn these Spanish keyboardsÑ I can´t get most of the punctuation right!!! Anyway after sitting in the plane for four hours we had to run for our plane and then wait to leave )waiting for the crew to arrive!! Final tally 38 hours travel time from Seattle to Santa Cruz Bolivia. This is Tues...we arrived yesteday...going back to the airport to pick up our luggage which finally caught up with us!!!

No, I've never been south of the equator before. It will be an adventure I think.

Actually, both for now. It's going to be a long way to go to see the grandkids when they arrive!

I can always tell when the octane is lower than advertised. I have a '91 Legacy and SOA says use regular and I do without any problems. I have found however when I go to the "low priced" outlets like Tesoro, Costco, and other off-brands and get regular that I leave the pump and the pinging starts almost instantly. I don't buy anything more than what's needed to run okay; if it runs without pinging I'm happy to go with regular.

I'll be off-line until Aug. 17th. Flying to Bolivia tomorrow to attend my middle son's wedding. After flying all that way we decided to stay a bit longer. So don't be surprised if I don't reply quickly to any messages.

Don't confuse Subaruparts.com with 1stSubaruparts.com. The former is a dealer in Tacoma, WA and the 2nd is a dealer in Auburn, WA. I've never dealt with the Tacoma shop so I have no opinion there, but I have dealt with 1stSubaruparts.com numerous times and their service, delivery, and follow-up are excellent. As to the Liberty Subaru box, I would suspect that both dealers deal with the same distributor for their source of parts.

I'll second the second opinion thing. However, what have you got against engine rebuilds? It's highly unlikely that you'd find a low mileage EA81; especially at a bargain price. There's a few good rebuilders out there: ccrinc (http://members.aol.com/CCRInc/RebuiltSubaruEngines.html) for one; there's an excellent one here in WA state but that's a bit far for you to consider. By the way, from your description of the leak, it sounds like it's coming up from the dipstick hole. I'd have to look, but that part unbolts and I think has an oil seal which should be easily replaceable. Anyway, best of luck and welcome to the proud owners of Brats family! PS: Ebay has a pretty good fraud prevention program. It may not be worth the effort or aggravation, but you might have some recourse through ebay to recover some of the cost of resolving/repairing this.

Check out the WCSS6 link in the members meet/greet forum.

I was wrong about the a/c relay. I have an FSM for an '86 GL wagon (shouldn't be too different from your car). I looked into the wiring diagram for the blower for a 4WD carb'd model--again, shouldn't be too different if yours is a different version or model. Anyway the manual identifies the blower relay as being in series with TWO 15 fuses (#1 and #2) which would BOTH have to be open for your blower to not work. The relay is located "in the instrument cluster"; I think that means under the dash in the area of the instrument cluster; I couldn't find any relay on the inst. cluster itself. Any the blower relay is in a cluster of four relays and the connector to it is white and the four connections have the following wire(s): RY, 2GW, RW, 2LR. I couldn't find the color coding chart but I would think red-yellow, 2 green-white, red-white, and 2 ?-red. The two fuses get their power from fusible link #4 but if that were bad lots of other stuff would not work. 12V power originates from FL4, goes through 2 fuses (in parallel) to the blower relay to the resistor block and then through the blower switch to ground. This sounds like a lot but you seem to have the where-withall to figure this out. Good luck.

There are usually four in a row; I know someone else can tell you which one handles the a/c.

Given I can find the time I think it would be great! And I'd support it.

I'm stumped too; normally this is pretty straightforward. The only thing I can think of is that perhaps one of the wire terminals was pushed out while reconnecting the harness. You might pull on each wire--there should be 4 on each side--and see if one comes out or moves a lot within the plastic connector housing (I'd suspect the junkyard switch side). After that, I think you're right about it being something simple but easily overlooked. I wish you were closer because I've had pretty good luck with that area. I don't remember a separate ground wire; I think everything went through the connector. You might search the board a bit; this has been covered a lot and there are some good drawings I've seen that might help troubleshooting. Lastly, have you checked the blower fuse since you installed this; perhaps something shorted during the install and the fuse went. Good luck. You might try Hondasucks; I think he lives near you. Lastly, check the air conditioning circuit; I think the blower gets its power from the ac relay and the relay or a/c fuse might be the culprit.

Steel or Alloy? 14" or 15"? I have 14" in steel and alloy available. I expect to have them with me for sale at WCSS6 if they aren't sold before then. Seems to me there are lots available in WA/OR area on the Board.

Just a personal opinion, use a quality non-synthetic oil (I prefer Castrol GTX) for the first 10K miles or so before you go synthetic. Let the rings wear in first before you switch over. I've been doing my own oil changes for years now and drive what most people consider "beaters" but I usually don't replace them until I have over 250K miles on them. And then, it's usually because it's getting hard to find parts for them or I'm bored with it and have found something slightly newer. I currently own a '91 Legacy with 128K on it and I plan to keep it to 300K or more. I was changing oil religously every 2500 miles with a filter change every other oil change (only genuine Subaru filters). I got tired of changing the oil every two or three weeks (I have four other cars that I also do my own oil changes) so I've switched to Amsoil synthetic and change the oil and filter every 5k or 6k. Car seems to be happy about that. I generally buy my oil and filters by the case and the quantity discount is sufficient to keep me away from the low price stuff.

Sorry for the obtuse questions; I wanted to eliminate the possibility that you got the wrong resistor assembly. At this point I'd try a 2nd switch from the wrecking yard; hopefully it's a free replacement (it should be--most yards "warrantee" their product to at least work). If the 2nd switch yields the same results, I'm a bit mystified. It could be troubleshot with a multimeter but it would certainly take some time. Just to eliminate the possibility, was the resistor assembly intact? All the coils continuous and all of them soldered properly to their posts? There should have been no broken wires. Again a multimeter to do resistance checks might be in order since it's just possible you got a damaged resistor assembly. I'll get back to you later on this as soon as I have a chance to research it a bit.

Did I understand you correctly? You've installed a new resistor assembly as well as a switch from the salvage yard. Just for comparison, what did you pay for the resistor assembly?

Humble Nuto has the right idea. I used the original 5 speed mount and then extended it with multiple staps of stainless. It makes a world of difference....with the center just dangling the exhaust system has an annoying resonance at highway speeds. Wth the center supported it's okay and much better. I'd take a pic but my kid has my camera. By the way, Mick, the breather went off in the mail today. You might have it by Saturday if the P.O. is on the ball.

Some of the older GM cars required you to raise the engine 3" to get to the rear plugs!! A friend got rid of that V6 real fast after getting a whopping bill for a "routine" service. When he asked why so much the dealer told him "we need to hoist the engine to replace the 'plugs."

I've been looking for a decent radiator shop since moving out here from Delaware. I might consider sending a used rad down to you for "re-conditioning/checkout." Thanks for the info.

Two more options for you: www.books4cars.com. Also, Bentley has a manual (a re-write of the FSM which is actually better than the FSM) which covers models up to 1984. The Bentley manual can occasionally be found on ebay. Books4cars had one a while back for $50 plus shipping. If you're really desparate and investigate the Bentley manual and decide it will work for you, I have a copy I would let go for $40 plus shipping. Also, don't forget Amazon.com, they have a complete listing of used book dealers and can sometimes come up with amazing deals. Best of luck.

Hooray for AAA. With their Plus package I know that I only have to get within 100 miles of where I want to go. After that if I have trouble, it's just a wait for the tow truck to get me where I want to go. Sorry for the plug, but the cost of AAA Plus is well worth it.

The low temp thermostat won't make a signifcant difference. With the engine overheating both thermostats are wide open anyway; with the 180 degree version it just takes a little longer to start overheating since it opens earlier. Depending on the age of the car and radiator you have, if the temp guage climbs higher as you go faster or up longer hills, the only way to dissipate the heat is with a more efficient radiator (i.e. new, although double row is best). Don't waste your money on a radiator flush....they don't help a twenty year old radiator. Put that money to a new radiator instead, you'll be glad you did.

Cool, good of you to post this. I was thinking of changing to a cone type K&N filter from the low profile weber air filter since I think there's a bit of air flow restriction if I'm not using the full height filter. I guess I might go with the chrome round one that you selected. I wonder if K&N makes filters for it?