Durania

Ordered 2 new Cardone axles from Walmart.com. They were actually way cheaper than RockAuto and had free shipping. Changed just the clicking driver side this afternoon. I only drove it enough to pull it out of my shop and into the next bay but I didn't hear any more clicks.

Friday night, I finally got a chance to tackle the shifter bushings from DRW. Thanks to @SuspiciousPizza for telling me they were an option. https://drwbushings.myshopify.com/products/subaru-2wd-5-speed-shift-linkage-bushing-set First time working on the shifter of an EA series car but I got them knocked out. Having a lift spoils you on something like this. I took a before and after video but can't link to it but it was a definite improvement. I also replaced the pitch stop rod bushings but I've not driven it to see if there was an effect.

Drove the GL to work for the first time Wednesday and have some initial impressions. 1. I need an alignment. 2.The heater is fantastic. 3. Driver side axle started knocking like my brat did back in 07 with a janky parts store axles. 4. I need a cupholder. 5. Hard left turn, my fuel gauge went to zero and then came back up. This was before I filled up with 100% gas so I assume it was sticking float. Once it came back up, it registered half-a-tank. I got a few thumbs up in it. Definitely gets more attention than my WRX does.

Thanks man. I'm definitely familiar with the shifter joint fix on the EJ series as I've done it three times before and makes me hate roll pins. I shot DRW an email to see what they have for it, I appreciate the referral.

Do you mean EA81?

Guess next on the list is to try and get some of the shifter slop cleaned up. How much of this fix applies to the 5MT?

Good to know Dave. No going back now for me though, if it still frays the belt some, I'm going to live with it and change the belt regularly.

Well, I'm still confused. I still don't know why they list two different ones on RockAuto. https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/subaru,1984,gl,1.8l+h4,1268344,cooling+system,water+pump,2208

That's what I thought too until I saw that they offered two different sizes on RockAuto and then found this thread:

Replaced the water pump with the GMB 1601030 since it listed it being shorter. I'm not 100% but I really think I had the longer GMB pump, hard to tell from the level picture. Yes, those are monster hose clamps.

Alternator changed Friday evening and had a muffler put on by a local mom-n-pop shop this morning. Next on the list is a water pump. I noticed my belt was fraying after that quick drive up the road last week. I am confident I've got the water pump for non-AC GLs and it's slightly out of alignment.

Wrapped up the cooling system project this weekend. I ended up going with this radiator: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DK323PVN. The fitment of it was good, not excellent, but good. I had to enlarge some holes at the bottom of the fan just slightly so I could get the bolts to line up with it. While I was in there, I replaced both hoses and installed an OEM thermostat and gasket. The real snafu was after I had pulled a vacuum on the system and got fluid in it to install the cap, only to find out the cap that I had ordered for my 84 was way smaller than this radiator could use. I did some research on here and found a GD post here that stated I needed the 82's radiator cap. Found an 82 cap locally and drove it up the road during a rain storm yesterday. I did notice the windshield seal is leaking so gotta get a plan on that, not that I'm going to be driving it much on rainy days anyway but we get quite a bit of rain here in the fall months. After the drive, I noticed my brand new Continental belt had some fraying on the sides of it. I did notice my alternator was quite loud and had planned on eventually replacing it. I threw on a spare that I had that came with the wagon and it was totally dead with nothing on the volt meter. Ordered one from Rockauto this morning.

Yeah, that Dewalt ratchet was a birthday gift to myself and that thing is super handy. Love that you can swap between 3/8 and 1/2 drive on it too.

Had a few minutes last night to piddle so I got started removing the radiator and hoses. Didn't get the thermostat out but I hope to sometime this week. Someone used a piece of PVC to merge the busted lower hose together at some point and looked to be slightly kinked. And not in a good kind of kink either.

Huge thanks to @2brat82 for shipping me a set of rear hatch struts so that I could use the brackets off of them to complete the hatch replacements.