DaveT

You checked the correct sensor.

I'm not familiar with the specific year / model / engine. But it sounds to me like you are describing loose heat shields on the exhaust system. Buzzing that happens at specific RPM ranges and comes and goes depending on temperature.

Everyone it goes over normal temperature while low on coolant headgasket damage is possible or increased. At this point checking before every drive is what I'd be doing. Bother for air in the upper hose and the level in the bottle. Waiting to see the temperature gauge rise is too late.

I have used both anti seize from NAPA and synthetic wheEl bearing grease and had good results in CT.

The sensor with 2 wires, on the thermostat housing is the one that the ecu uses. The ohm readings were posted in a thread this year, and are in the fsm.

Welcome to the forum. Thank you for your service. Lots of experience aND help here.

Tomcat Press N' Set - white plastic mousetraps at hardware stores. Put one with it's mouth facing an edge. No bait needed. Mice follow edges. I've lost count of how many tens of mice I have gotten rid of with these, Mostly just around the outside of the house & garage, make a little tunnel with a few bricks & patio block so your cat can't get at the trap. I keep one in the cab of my Dynahoe now. I kept one in the parts car I had also. When I first put the one in the Dynahoe, I was getting 1 in the AM, one in the evening. Every day. For almost 2 weeks. Holy crap. Every once in a while, I get another wave in various traps. Just had a week of 2 per day in the edge of house & stone wall traps.

A couple of things - looking at fuses does not verify that they are good. They must be tested with a test lamp or meter in circuit. I have seen open fuses that looked good. Odd, dim lamps usually has something to do with an open ground / Broken ground wire. Sitting, especially outdoors, is really bad for cars. Any unsealed electric connection /s can be compromised. Mice cause lots of damage, eat insulation off wires, pack the HVAC system with nest materials.

If you are running 3ATs, the oil pump drive shaft.

Coolant temperature sensor. An old one is likely to be as bad as any other old one.....

Changing to spfi won't change that weird electrical problem.

Loyales do what I need. I've consider the more power thing. If I had it, I'd use it. Don't need it, just more risk of getting tickets. I'm not usually in the passing lane unless the car in front of me is going under the speed limit, max around here is 65. I've maintained my wife's 2001 Forester, and now her 09. We skipped the legacy, just due to timing / cost when a new car was wanted. 10K is about the limit on what I'll spend on a car, and it had to be good for a decade or more minimum, if it's anywhere near that price. I can replace my Loyale timing parts for about 1/5th of the $ it takes to do the 01 Forester. So I have to do it twice as often. Oh well. I prefer the smaller size and turning radius of the Loyales over both the newer Foresters. I haul stuff moderately often, and have found that I could not fit certain things into a couple different bigger Foresters, a Tribecca - that do fit into my Loyale. Crazy, bigger cars, and the opening is smaller. I prefer part time 4WD over all wheel drive. I saved loads of $ using up mismatched pairs of tires. Can't do that with AWD. Smaller 13" tires are still cheaper. Yeah, not many choices anymore. I don't care, What I've been getting work. I prefer the way my Loyales handle driving in snow over the newer ones also. Maybe partly just my familiarity from driving them so long, but whatever. I have no interest in cars newer than 25yrs old, now that I've made it there. No more emission hassles. Lower taxes, Lower insurance. Yes, if you don't have a stash of parts, place to work, and tools and only one car, and have to pay people to do your repairs, 25+ year old cars like Loyales might not be the best choice..

Yes, if you are having no problem when the clutch is disabled, it's not a clutch problem. If it loads up and causes trouble when engaged, it's a compressor problem. The big bearing that supports the pulley will last a long time. It is just a big idler once you disconnect the clutch wire.

I have 2 EA82s, A GL and a Loyale. I intend to run them indefinitely, but I have the space, parts, time, access to machinery... If one needs work, I have the other, so no "get it fixed overnight" pressure.

Fan speed shouldn't change with rpm. The voltage regulator may be bad. The air vent controls are done by vacuum actuators. If they change under heavy throttle, the is a leak somewhere.

I have had problems with the Fel Pro intake gaskets, the oem ones are great, I bought a bunch. Not sure how much longer they will be around.... I haven't had a problem with the other gaskets and seals in the Fel Pro kits. Does Stone have them also? Or kits? I didn't know that oem headgaskets were nla, but I'm not surprised.

For EA82s, I have only used Fel Pro. Going by many other posts on this forum, Fel Pro or OEM are the best choices for EA82s. I haven't seen mention of Stone before, I don't know about them one way or the other.

In the original question, the idler is for the second belt, which the OP did not have installed. On the EA82, the load is more than 1 belt can deliver, so 2 are needed. His idler had a bad bearing, thus not using the second belt. I am not familiar with EA81s enough to know what they ran for belts originally. But if there are double pulleys, it's likely that there should be 2 belts. I've rebuilt the idlers long before they were making noise, since I check them when changing belts. If the bearing is dry or gunky feeling, it's time for a new bearing. Very dead bearings can make a variety of noises, so I'd check it out.

There are other similar threads with diagrams, I'm not sure how to best find them, unfortunately. I have many times more experience with the 3ATs than any of the standard shift versions. The 2 fixed terminals in the starter can also cause the intermittent click no crank. It wouldn't hurt to check them. They are replaceable. That is all I've ever had to do to the starters in several of these cars, since 1988.

The CTS can cause all sorts of idle and drivability issues without causing a code.

Be careful of the long spring that must be in there. I haven't had to take one apart, just guessing, probably just dried up grease gumming them up.

Did you clean and or replace the several connectors in the harness that are in the cranking wiring path? From the ignition switch, across the dash, to the neutral lockout switch, back to the firewall, out across to the starter? And the switches? I've had this on a few of my wagons. Many on the forum have had this problem. The easiest way to fix it is to add a relay under the hood. The existing wire to the starter goes to the relay coil. The contacts are wired to send fused 12V from the fusible link box to the terminal on the back of the starter. Problem gone. BTW, 12.26V [12.3V] on a resting battery is at about half charge state. 12.6 is fully charged. But this isn't causing the click no crank.

I don't see the answers as being unhelpful. There is a ton of experience on this forum. Making the long story short, it will be less work and money and time to swap in an EJ than adding a turbo to an EAxx. And no reliability penalty. I've read loads of threads about this mod and that mod to get more power out of an EA82. [it would be similar for an ER] Loads of time and or money, for a small gain, along with a loss in reliability, if not failure. If lots of people here had done these mods, and had success, we'd all be pointing to it. I have thought many times about how it would be nice to have more power in my EA82 cars. But seeing what I've seen done, and tried reading threads for years, the only way I would consider it [based on the return on investment of money and time] is to swap in an EJ22. But then I'd be loosing reliability in the rest of the drive line, so I'm not so fired up about it any more. I have had great success running these cars for long miles / time with high reliability. I don't think they were designed with huge safety margins to handle extra power.

You might have to measure it and go to an industrial bearing supply shop. Order by dimensions.

The cts in some ways is used to tell the ecu to adjust the mix like the choke on a carburetor engine. When it is cold, it takes a lot more fuel to run. Once it is hot, that same amount of will be too much. Either way, it will run crummy if at all when the temp is not matched to the fuel delivery.