DaveT

Oh, my.... The following applies if the engine is an EA82. There should be a sticker a little to the left of the starter on the top edge of the bell housing. Also, cast into the block to the right of the dip stick, right up front by the timing belt cover. There are a few guys I've seen run a weber carb. But you have to switch the distributor to the carb version, from the SPFI version, I believe. Why anyone would do this hack job is a mystery to me. The OEM SPFI system I have found extremely reliable, and gives more power than the Hitachi Carbed version of the engine. I have been running these EA82 engines since 1988, have 2 that share my daily driving needs now. Never had an ignition system problem, even with 30 year old parts. So what I would do - assuming this car is in very nice rust free condition - is get another wrecked / rusty one that has the SPFI system intact, and restore it to original. There were some changes between years in between 86, 87, 88, so it will be a little easier if the parts car is the same year, but not 100% necessary. A few connectors and wire colors changed, but that's about it, all the way to 1994.

I still see a few big rust flakes in the bottom picture. Tap them with a cold chisel and hammer. I don't think I would bother with those rims.

Here is the setup I came up with - Not in these pictures, I added 4 mini plumb bobs, and used 2 tape measures to get the side to side distance. The FSM has the specifications on how parallel the readings need to be by length.

I have never seen any correlation between tick and oil pressure. On the several I have owned, an oil pump reseal, and the eventual cleaning done by the Amsoil 100% synthetic 10W-40 made it go away. I have seen at least a couple of medium gunky engines clean up inside after running that oil for 6 months to a year.

the oil and dirt coating is pretty normal.

Keep a close eye on the levels, as previously suggested. That kind of overheat is exactly the kind I have experienced that started the slow headgasket failure. Btdt.

It's best not to open the cap when hot, as you discovered. The head gaskets are not blown badly, if they are. When they are bad, exhaust gasses are pumped into the cooling system, and push the coolant out fast enough that you wouldn't have made the trip to the restaurant. Lack of white smoke doesn't mean a lot, as that is not the most common failure mode. Usually the white smoke is a failed intake gasket. Here is what I do to determine cooling system & head gasket condition - During this, never open the cap. Before every start from cold, check the coolant level in the recovery tank. If it's moved off the full mark, add some to get it on the full mark. Sharply squeeze the upper radiator hose, and listen for gurgles and the giggle pin. Remember how it sounds, so you can compare to the next drive. You can hear the difference between air and no air in the system. A little bit of air doesn't worry me. The real thing is to note any changes. More air or less air? Does the level in the tank change? Which direction, disappearing coolant, or additional coolant? Run this monitoring for at least a week of trip or 2 per day driving. Intake gaskets, or the seal under the carb or throttle body can make coolant slowly disappear. Also, they let air back in as the engine cools down. I have seen small leaks to the outside, from slightly loose cooling system, hoses, pinholes in the radiator, seeping from a head gasket. They keep or grow the amount of air in the hoses that you check with the squeeze test, and also cause coolant to slowly disappear. If one of these leaks is onto the block or other part that runs at 190 degrees plus, there is little evidence left to find it visually. About cooling system hoses - I use plumber's silicon grease when installing them - just a little - it makes removal a LOT easier. And seems to help with sealing - after the first drive with any re clamped hose, once it cools back down, re check the clamp tightness. Sometimes things settle in and they are loose. The tricky head gasket failure mode is when a tiny pinhole develops at one of the fire rings, that allows exhaust gasses to leak into the cooling system. These will slowly get worse over time. It can take 6 days, 6 weeks to 6 months before they get bad enough to make the car undrivable without risk of serious engine damage. The best way to catch this before serious engine damage is to check the level and air before every drive, until you determine that things are stable. Once this starts, any over normal temp while low on coolant accelerates the failure. At the beginning of this kind of slow leak failure, there is no other way I have seen discussed to detect it. Lots of ways once it's pretty bad, but the above will tell you before it gets bad, so you have more time to plan, and if you are checking, and refilling, you get away with it longer than diagnosing by the temperature gauge. I have nursed them along for months using this procedure, while I resealed a spare engine. Also ran one with a cracked head for months the same way. If you are near seal level, you can also modify a radiator cap and run zero pressure in the cooling system, which makes the coolant loss slower, which is also part of how I got away with that. This is probably not a good idea at significant elevation.

Reseal the pump with new seals. Run Amsoil 10w-40. Once in a while I get a little lifter tic, but then it goes away. I run 2 of these cars, so sometimes one sits for a few days.

The distributor sends the signal to the ecu so it knows when to fire. So, if the distributor was bad, it wouldn't run either way.

Need troubleshooting to be sure of the cause. The gurgling is not a good sign of a well functioning cooling system. Verify all 7 cooling system hoses are in good condition, not made in 1986. Verify the radiator is in good condition, all of the fine fins still soldered to the horizontal tubes. Including looking where the fan duct traps stuff to accelerate corrosion. Make sure the radiator flows coolant freely. Fill with water. Start engine. Idle only, no driving. Keep adding water for a few minutes, as the pump should stir up air. Tapping the throttle to momentarily rev helps work the air out. One of those no spill coolant funnels that attach to the radiator cap are worth having. If you see a never ending steady stream of bubbles, that is likely failed headgaskets. The stream can be anywhere from one small one per second, to a good air flow pushing coolant all over the place. Subaru engines of this era do not like running low on coolant, it is rare that the headgaskets survive running over normal temperature while low on coolant.

Is this the ej harness, or the older car getting the swap? I wouldn't attempt this without the FSMs for both cars, or at least copies of the relevant pages.

I used a helicoil type thread repair on a EA82 head bolt. Worked fine. I used 2 inserts to get the length of engagement. 11mm is a weird size so they were harder to find.

They released from the inside, if they won't pop out with reasonable fiddling from outside. The turn into place in the black piece once they are off the body. Then snap back on.

Maybe some other newer Subaru models? Just guessing.

I found a spare one to look at. Hmmm. One of the locks is crumbled off... another is intact. This post also reminded me how most of the bulbs in mine are + or - 30 years old, and Oem. I might try to 3D print a replacement part using abs.