joebmx

I'm not quite sure how much I want to spend. I don't have much right now but when all is said and done I'd like to be less than 4, maybe a bit more depending on how much I get for my car. A first gen legacy could be cool plus I've seen somewhere that it has ~1" more clearance than the forester with the conversion. I'm partial to to early/mid 80's GL wagons but don't think they'll have the power to haul stuff around without some modding. I'm okay to do suspension work not too intersted in playing with the engine.

so its been a few years since I've owned my 87 gl wagon. Picked it up for $200 bucks with a bad head, ran gasket seal, and drove it for a year and a half before it finally died for real. I learned a lot in that time one of those things being how great subbies are and even though it's been a few years since owning one I've never stopped dreaming. I've been revisiting getting a wagon but am not sure what will do the trick for what I'm looking to do. Currently I commute about 50miles r/t to work. I loved that my wagon got 30mpg on the highway even with a bad carb. I'd like to maintain someting with better mileage though know I'll likely have to sacrifice some. I ride mtn. bikes a lot and would like something to comfortably carry 3-4 people with bikes (on a hitch rack likely), it'll need to have some clearance as I will be taking it on access roads with passengers and bikes and I'd like it to have enough power so I'm not red lining it in 3rd over mtn passes. I'd like to keep mods simple, I have enough experience but don't want to give all my time right now to working on cars. It feels like a tall order though I know there is probably a good fit whether it be a modified gl or just a stock outback. I'd like to hear peoples thoughts on directions I should think about going. BTW, I'm in Seattle so I have plenty of access to subaru's for sale. Thanks a bunch. Joe

3 things; Does any body have the vaccuum diagram for an 87 gl hitachi carb? I have downloaded two factory manuals turns out both were for an 89 Dl and both had the the section for the carb omitted, probably since they came FI. I tried the trick of spraying arond the carb with cleaner to help identify a leak and when I got tho the front center, it seemed to change a bit, not alot but it was noticable enough even to a non-car person. There seemed to be a whole cluster of lines there, what would be my next step, in fixing this. Making sure they are secure, getting a vacuum tester? If I remember correctly I am pretty sure I changed out the hoses when I got the car, but don't remember for sure. Lastly, Does anybody know what this thing is? There was a small hose running out of it that connected to nothing, and then the last time i looked the hose was totally missing. http://www.flickr.com/photos/22619255@N00/3174551220/

Out of curiosity how much does engine temp affect your emissions? When I put the new radiator in, one that is a fair bit larger than the old one and the new thermostat, also rated to open at a lower temp, my temp gauge now climbs maybe to 1/4 of the way up the dial. No matter how hard its driven, hills, highway, revving, it never climbs higher. Just curious

So i went and took a WA state emissions test this morning. I have yet to pass one of these things but am getting closer except for my idle emissions which seem to be getting worse. Below are 2 links to copies of the tests. The first is the one I took today and the second is from last year. Everything else is great so what should I look into. Some quick history, pretty sure I have a bad head, head gasket fix has been used in the past, since then, radiator and thermostat replace, new plugs and wire, cap and rotor. I have been having issues with it holding an idle but played with the throttle cable a bit and all is better but not great. It fluctuates a bit at idle and sound like it misses every 3 or for seconds and dips. I seafoam'd it once and my numbers went crazy at a test everything got good again except the idle emissions. Cheap and easy fix please or is it mechanic time? I don't wnat to drop in bunches of money I want it to run until it dies. http://www.emissiontestwa.com/e/TestRecord.aspx?VIN=JF2AN53B8HE432867&TSDT=12/30/2008%2010:26:42%20AM - todays test http://www.emissiontestwa.com/e/TestRecord.aspx?VIN=JF2AN53B8HE432867&TSDT=8/22/2007%209:20:48%20AM - last years 1st test

I just came back from a 200 mile round trip on the button, 90% highway driving. I filled up b4 i split and when i got home, did the math and got 29.4 mpg. So i do not think my economy is suffering in fact I was very surprised by this the engine has 205k on it. Does that rule out the o2 sensor or should it be legitimately checked? I also played with the idle adjustment b4 i took off, tightening it a little and it idled fine without stalling until i hit a rest stop 60 miles in. It both stalled and then proceeded to idle high and wouldn't kick down. So i then played with the idle adjustment again and had good results, with only a few stalls over the next 140 miles of driving, off the highway off course, and the idle sat steadily around 1200rpm. would timing affect any of this? I also found a vacuum line only connected at one end and could not find its mate, I will post a pic of it tomorrow. it came out of a small black disc that was mounted in the middle and the hose came out of the left face, the I.D. can't be much more than 1/16" its tiny, it also resides right above egr valve. I wanted to check the egr valve but the hayes manual gives directions that seem ridiculous. With the car running it says to check and see that the valve is operating. How can i do that, should it be really obvious if the valve opens and shuts even with no visibility of it? Or should it come out? Thanks again

The power is fine when it runs, that has never been the issue. The problem is that I am getting really good at running 3 pedals with 2 feet all at the same time. As far as I know it is the stock carb. I have not replaced the o2 sensor or the egr valve. both or either would probably cost me more than I paid for the car. I don't really know how to check for vaccuum leaks. I tried the spraying carb cleaner around the lines but had not noticed any change in the idle, i felt like I was missing on some point. Also I can only try that with the engine at its raised idle when it's first started because it will just stall if i try to run it at a lower idle. I did spray some down the carb and the idle picked up a bit but only for a breif moment and after spraying abit more it wanted to stall. I did replace a bunch of lines a while back but the car ran fine afterwards. If i try to pinpoint when the problem really started I think I started running into problems after a seafoam treatment. hmmm.... ps congrats on the 1000th post

my carbed 87 gl has been giving me some issues the past few weeks more so since the weather has gotten cold. The car will start up wonderfully and hold an idle so long as i don't kick her down, if I do she then wants to stall out. When driving her, the power is fine, the take off is fine just whenever i let off the gas it dies on me. When it is idling an not stalling it is usually really rough and the tach fluctuates about 200 rpm and will slowly lower itslef until it dies. The idle seems to smooth out when i hold it around 1500rpm. If it dies on me on the road and I drop it in gear to get it running again it will hold its idle jsut fine until i depress the gas again. It will sometimes not stall out if I take it out of gear right where it would want to idle at. So say I take it out of gear when it is at 1000 rpm rather than taking it out of gear at 4000 rpm and letting it drop. just some things i have noticed. I have no clue about carbs and this stuff, so simple clear instruction would be best. Thanks for your help.

i am about to pick up a 94 civic from a friend who has left it sitting in the garage for almost 3 years now. It supposedly ran when when he parked it, though you wouldn't guess from the looks of it. Anyway I am about to take it off his hands for next to nothing, well exactly that, he makes bank and has afforded much nicer cars, why it has been sitting and is giving it to me for a bicycle, sweet deal. My question is, what do i need to be thinking about when starting up a car that has sat for almost 3 years. Granted the battery needs to be charged/replaced and I will give it an oil change probably before I even start it up, but what else? should I treat the engine with something before putting in new oil, what does 3 year old oil look like/do to the engine? I know to check belts and fluids that's easy, how long do i run her for before taking her out on the road? Run her easy, a short trip around the block? Any thoughts you have would be great! This is really so I can get her out for a test drive and not do any damage to the engine. I am happy to put a few bucks in to make sure that she is running as best she can before I do decide to take or invest in her. My GL is my project car right now, I don't need another requiring engine work. Thanks.

So the thermostat is new following the additive and I replaced the radiator cap since the problem started. I went back to the old cap because it overheated even faster with the new one. I have started to have coolant loss since I fully overheated the system a few weeks back. I don't take it very far anymore so have been topping it off. Some days I may put in 8 oz of fluid after driving 50 miles sometime much more after putting on less miles. I figure I will need to do something with the head s at some point and am preparing to do that soon. I do not know how old the water pump is at this point.

No, what would that take (flushing the heater core)?

Ever since I used radiator seal in an uniformed panic as a safeguard prior to a road trip, my 87 gl has consistently been running hot. Its been flushed and refilled but no luck. Only with the heat on and the outside temp in the 60s does it seem to be okay. So I found a spectra radiator for 75$ through rock auto or can get a radiator from a subaru salvage yard for the same 75$, which path should I go? The scrap yard has a 30 day garuantee.

So I read through all these postings as I am going to be buying a radiator in the next few days, the moral of the story is...... you get what you get, single core or double, auto or manual, brass/copper or aluminum/plastic, they will all work!? How bout this for all you 87 gl's....what did you get, where did you get it, and is it working well?

just so I am in the right place...so embarassing considering how much I have done on my own.... The starter is located just underneath the spare tire on the drivers side with wires running directly to it from the battery correct? Is the wire from the ignition switch pretty obvious? I will have to find where that is located as well. I have never had a starting issue with any car so this is totally foreign to me, thanks for the patience.

So I get in the car yesterday turn the key and nothing. The radio comes on the lights go up but the engine won't turn, it doesn't even click. I check the connection to the battery, jiggle it around and still nothing. I take it the battery out (it's really old and not to be trusted) bring it to the shop down the street to get a reading and possibly a charge and he said it was reading 10amps or whatever the measurement is that they read at. He said it was fine. So if not the battery then what? I tired using my Hayes to trouble shoot which is only so helpful since they don't have diagrams for the starter and it took me 10 minutes just to locte the thing. The back of the engine makes perfect sense. ANyway it talked about solenoids and running jumper cables directly to the starter from the battery but it looks like the batter connects directly to the starter why would i do this? I don't know what a solenoid is and I don't have jumpers. Can anyone be of more help than the book. where to next....whats a solenoid? 87 gl - 200k, Carbed

So I fire her up this morning and no smoke at all, okay, maybe since it has been 50 degrees the last few weeks in seattle it was something else today its 8o, But today nothing! The fins in the radiator look good except for a select few, from what i saw only two were crushed in. Coolant tank clean....oh and oddly enough I drove it stop in go for about 15 miles and the temp held steady in the middle. This is the first time in weeks. I don't get it.

So I have had this weird thing going on with overheating/not overheating. I can drive 4 miles across town and when i park the car will see a small gush of coolant spilling out the bottom of my car I can also drive 20 miles across town on the highway and my temp gauge will run a little high with no coolant loss afterwards. Either way whenever I park I can here the coolant making a rolling boil sound I think in my overflow tank. I did a 350mile trip over 4 mountain passes a few weeks back and watched my temp gauge almost hit the red freaking me out every time but never overheated until I was ten minutes from home on the highway, no hills no nothing, all the coolant was gone when I opened her up! I had a pin hole in the heater hose a few weeks back and replaced the hose but had also run some of the radiator sealer stuff as a precaution as I was planning a big road trip, since then i have had this overheating problem. From what I have read maybe a new radiator cap and new thermostat. Would this be the best course of action right now? Will Napa or carquest parts make do? Thanks PS. It is an 87 gl carbed with 203k, there is no colant in the oil and no oil in the coolant. There is a bit of white smoke on startupbut it goes away quickly, I also only drive her once a week, maybe!

WoW, you guys are sure the best!!! So this morning I head out to work on the car prior to work and just reversed everything in the engine and upon starting her up.....purrrrrr. It sounds and runs better than it ever has for me which, hasn't been all that long. So my haynes manual which says all "left and rights, are in reference to sitting behind the wheel" well that obviously doesn't refer to which way to orient the illustrations or else I would have had this figured out last on monday. So one last question since you all are here. I have regular NGK plugs on bosch wires (I know..against all your recomendations). What do I want to have the timing set at. Right now I have it set at 12 degrees. I think spec is 8. It was originally way higher then the 12 it is currnetly at. something like 16 or 18 if I remeber correctly. I also need to pull the vaccuum hose from the disty when checking it right? Thanks again

whoa....so I don't know the history of the car. I hope that the disty wasn't turned so far that it advanced the timing so far ahead. The car is a 87 gl 4wd EA82 carb. The old cap was not numbered as is my new one and before i put it all together I butted them up against one another and they matched up to within maybe 1 or 2 mm in outer diameter. Does it matter if the capp is on backwards? Wouldn't it matter more the orientation of my pulgs regardless of the numbers on the caps. According to what Durania said I have my cylinders all mixed up. I will start moving plugs around this morning and see what i can come up with.

I swapped out the wires this evening and now nothing is working. I don't know what the f*%#! I tried using my hayes manual to get it all back together but it won't turn over. I know there is spark because I felt it when I touched the plug going into the cap. As I mentioned in another post the wires before it came apart were not oreinted the same as was shown in the book and you would think I would have taken note of how they were in there. can someone confirm for me the orientation of the cap and cylinder #'s. Cylinders (driver) Front (passenger) 3 4 1 2 Back Distributor 3 1 2 4 Also, the cap I got is from YEC. It is not directional so it will go on the dizzy in anyway I put it on. Is that a problem? Thanks Joe

PS... as i started to replace the wires I noticed that they were not going on in the same order they came off. The new Cap was labeled, the old one wasn't, and if I was doing everything correctly the wires were actually going to the wrong cylinders before. The 2 and 4 were reversed. I have driven the car about 2k and haven't noticed that it had been sucking. It was getting 26mpg on the highway. Can anyone diagram where the wires go on the cap and what the cylinder numbers are in the engine. Just as a precautionary measure. Thanks

I got the car used a while back. It sat for a few years before I bought it and has quite a bit of corrosion around the engine and some of the electrical pieces. Corrosion in the white flaky sense, not the rusty falling apart way. So Last week I start the car and I hear a clicking and immediately thought I had a something arcing in the engine. Low and behold my coil wire was coming off the coil and was throwing a spark, I winded up taping the wire to the coil because it wouldn't stay on. Problem solved!! A few minutes later I am driving down the road and and the car starts to rough idle and I think now something isn't firing. Today I pulled the plugs while the engine was on and found that my #2 wire, maybe the #4 had no spark at the plug. I made sure it was on the cap which it was and no difference. The engine ran no differently with the wire in or out. when I pulled the wire from the cap there was a faint spark, so I figured I would replace all of it. I had issues with the wire in the past, the connector ripped of the wire when I replaced the plugs and had to be spliced. It ran me $32 for the parts, not a big deal. So consensus says that Bosch.....fair...good....great? Also, I have already flushed the cooling Turboone, YEC is from Japan and I figured the same as you. If it's Japanese it can't be all that bad.

I have an 87 GL,4wd, Carb'd w/201k. It is getting a much deserved tuneup and had some questions in regards to product quality of the parts I will be using. I trust the NGK plugs I purchased but am a bit skeptical about the bosch wires and YEC cap and rotor. I did some YEC research and it is hard to find any info on them but what I did find said the company was a popular japanese aftermarket manufaturer. Is it decent stuff? I also got some bosch wires which since I had a toyota at one point that ran like poo with bosch products has left me reluctant to run their stuff. 1st thing i noticed was that the connector going into the cap isn't actually mated to the rubber boot properly. The connector doesn't have a bend in it, it runs straight and hits the side of the boot. Also the wire gauge is 7mm. The wire set I removed was 7.5mm and some of you guys mentioned using 8mm wires. Will I notice a performance difference with the smaller wire? Also, I read somewhere in the forums that changing your gear oil can actually improve your MPG. Did this guy have mud in there that it improved it 2-3mpg? Will it make a dramatic improvement? Regardless it should be done. Thanks for the info. Joe

I know there is tons posted on this but I went for it with all the information in hand and all I amnged to do was short out my clock. I am trying to out an eclipse stereo into an 87gl, the stereo has very clear i.d on all the wires and no harness in the soob, just really short cut wires whose colors don't seem to match up to what I have read here. I bought the car with no stereo here they are: yellow yellow-white white White-Blue Blue-Red Blue-Green Blue-Black Green Red Black- 2 wires White 2 sets white-Black 2 sets Grey Grey black blue-grey I took a multi meter and found with the car off got a voltage reading from the green wire, and with the car on got a reading from the Blue-green wire. Not what I have at all read for this car. I don't even know what black wire to splice into seeing as there are 2. My first attempt at it all I went with yellow as a constant and red as the acc and one of the black wire for ground. The stereo wouldn't go on, neither did my clock until i disconnected the stereo now my clock goes bright and dim every few seconds. This isn't so self explanatory, why are there 18 wires when I only need 9 or 10, Help please!!!

I completely understand where you are coming from and going with all of this and in light of my emissions being nowhere near passing i need to look into other causes, i.e. the ones you mentioned. What perplexes me is that the car was so close to passing having done a number of fixes that running a cleaner through the system should have made things better instead of worse. Now the numbers are so f'd I don't know how much affect any repair will have. I plan on running the tank dry filling it up and running it dry again doing the 2 things I thought I could get by w/o doing fresh plugs/wires, and new vacuum hoses. I will also be checking my O2 sensor this week, checking the engine temp and cat temp. We will see where this all gets me. In the meantime what has been peoples experience with seafoam? What the heck is the piece in the pic 2 posts back? Why did it blow sludge and what can I do about it? Before SeaFoam and Alcohol After Seafoam...