DaveT

Find a used OEM axle - which won't be easy. clean and re grease & re boot. 90% or more of the aftermarket ones were junk anyway, even when they were available.

IS the engine thermostat 190 degrees F? That is stock temp. and the heat air temp is pretty good. I have a 180 in one of mine, the heat is noticeably not as powerful. Also, verify if the door that selects fresh VS recirculated air is working. Normally, for any heat or defrost mode it should be bringing in fresh air. Another thing I have modified, I can switch it independently - if you run with the door on recirculate, the windows can fog. I only use the recirculate for the first few minutes from a cold start outside in winter. A/C Max is the setting that puts it in recirculate normally. Another thought - if the engine is running at stock temp [190] and everything else above seems normal, have mice ever been in the heater system? They could have removed the sealing foam from the blend door and you won't get full power heat due to leaking.

Take an old bearing of the same size. Grind a few thousandths off the OD. Now you have a nice tool for pressing them in with a vise. Unless you are 100% sure the jaws are parallel and square, do a little at a time, and turn by 1/3 [120 degrees]. Or tap with a medium hammer and aluminum or other soft metal drift, again, turn 120 degrees each time it moves a little. You should be able to get the feel for how hard to tap to get a little movement, and do one tap per 120 degrees. The sheet metal stamped pulleys, you have to support well to avoid deforming them. When installing, never apply force in a way that transfers through the balls. Or from inner to outer race in other words. Always move the OD by the outer race or the ID by the inner race. When removing a known dead one, this doesn't matter. I started doing this back 1988 or so, when the only source was Subaru, and they wanted $90.00 each. High quality contact seal bearings were around $7 - $10 each.

Looks good, sounds normal for psi. Carbs don't use high pressure. I remeber my older Subarus had a sight glass, but I no longer remember which side it was on. Obviously, the bowel side where the float is. Should be close to the fuel line goes in.

Yes, the air doors are activated by engine vacuum. See if the air is directed properly in the various settings.

Put the gauge between any online filter and the carb. This is to verify fuel pressure. If it turns out to drop too low when the problem occurs, now you have a clue for troubleshooting. Possible causes... fuel pump, filter/s tank pickup, crud in the tank.

My first guess would be starving for fuel. T in a pressure gauge so you can see what is going on.

And yes, the timing belt adjusters were on their way out also. All rebuilt with new bearings.

Does the ac work? Without the ac working , it takes a lot of heat in some conditions to defog. Other possible cause is coolant leak from the heater core, but that should be accompanied by a sweet smell.

Somick, I think we are referring to the same V belt idler. It's under the ac compressor, the one for the short V belt. That was the initial noise source.

The idler bearings are pretty much done when the timing belts are done, which is around 50 to 60 k miles. I've run them for many years, both ways. Since 1988.

Some things that may help from my recent experience - Started the car to drive home a couple days ago. I hear a high pitched sqeeeeeeeeeeee. Hmm.... sounds like a dying bearing. It faded after a bit. I got home, not really worried, as it takes longer than that for complete failure. Took off the fan belts, sure enough, the A/C idler's bearing was shot. Replaced it from my stock of contact sealed new bearings, and put it back together. Next day, took it for a drive. Started to notice a similar but less pronounced dying bearing sound. Hmmm. Took off the driver side timing belt. Yep, the idler's bearing is toast also. The seals are dried out and cracking, and crud got into it. Maybe running without the covers allowed more crud in - BUT I would not have heard it's death rattle until it had gotten MUCH worse - and that much closer to being stuck on the side of the road with a broken belt. Just have to install that bearing now, then check the 2 adjuster bearings. If you rebuild these, use bearings with contact seals, not just rubber [or other unspecified] seals.

you cannot get at the blend doors, heater core, AC evaporator, or the ducts on the drivers side without removing the dash. IF they only got into the blower, maybe they didn't go through the whole thing. In mine, they had. The passages are oddly shaped, and to get them cleaned, they had to be oriented in several positions to get all the crud out. They had also left fragments of stuff they eat, and poop in the evaporator fins, and all of that had to be cleaned out as well. NO way to do that under the dash.

My 87 came with that problem. I removed the dash and cleaned the entire system with bleach and other cleaners. Put hardware cloth in the intake ports that lead air into the hvac system. Had to restore the foam on the flap doors on the hvac box, as the mice had removed allmost all of it.

I'd the cranking sound an even 1 2 3 4 rythm, or sychopated? Broken belt is noticable un even.

Those spanner nuts are the adjustment of the preload on the bearings. Theoretically you could unscrew one to look. But you must mark it, and carefully count the turns. And if you don't get it back exactly, the mesh adjustment will be off. That would be bad for the life of the gears and or bearings. The fsm has the details of what to do when assembling the diff into the housing. It does not sound like fun.

If you turn those, you have to re set the ring and pinion gear mesh...

Oem gaskets. Best thing I ever found for getting steel bolts out of aluminum castings is this : heat the casting to near normal operating temperature. Use a heat gun and or a space heater and a thermometer. Then carefully begin working the bolt loose, rocking it looser & tighter gradually. Adding penetrant doesn't hurt, but the heat is the key.

Most of this points to axle / wheel bearing / brake problems. Very different than the pinion shaft bearings above. I have not had any other major transmission bearing failures.

If it is about 2 times per wheel revolution, it could be the pinion shaft bearings are shot, and the pinion moves forward until it hits the differential carrier. On a 3AT, it does this on engine braking, but will seem normal with acceleration.

The hack job wire I found on my 86 was wired to keep the AC relay energized all the time, so the compressor ran in any hvac mode except off. I was unaware of the mod when I first replaced the compressor, so I added a switch to turn the compressor off manually. When I eventually got a second similar car, I immediately noticed that the compressor would switch off when I hit the gas from a stop, helping noticeably with acceleration. Investigating that function was how I discovered the hack modification on the 86.

It's a pretty odd thing. The sensor is a bi metal thing with a contact. The other contact is on the diaphragm that is moved by oil pressure. The meter is a bi metal arm with a heater. The sensor heater is in series with the gauge heater. So when the sensor heater bends enough to open it's contact, the gauge bi metal bends a corresponding amount, moving the needle proportionally. It is normal to be open when at zero pressure. The FSM also warns NOT to apply 12V to either heater directly, as excessive current will flow and could damage them.

Part of the normal operation is a momentary run on start up of any hvac mode. On cars in this age it was common, not just Subarus.

Sounds like the sender is no good. The sender for the gauge should always have some resistance I would think. The fsm probably has a detailed ohm check. I'll have to look it up.

Not sure. But it was a real hack job. A wire was run to a bolt that mounted something under the dash. Just stripped and wrapped around the bolt, bolt tightened down. Too long ago to remeber- this was in 1988 - but the wire either tricked the unloader so it was always on, or parreleled it to cause the always on. Other thing to check is a microswitch in the heater vent mech. Really need the fsm to see all the details.