MilesFox

Yes, the part will fit the same. go ahead and swap out, and then bench build your original for install later. swapping the knuckle is easier if you just need a quick fix for now versus time/mess/tools. make it easier and pull the knuckle and swap as the knuckle/axle assembly. make it less work by swapping the whole thing with the strut. this works if just the knuckle or the whole assembly is the same cost either way. But to just answer your question, yes, the parts are the same.

Strip the interior, rhino line it, and re-install the center console and the door sill plastics, as that will contain most of the wiring. any other wiring will be under the seats. you can slit down some heater hoses to make conduits for any exposed wires. Not a bad idea to lose the carpets. the wires will be fine.

Very Long Pipe. Slow, Steady Torque. You want a pipe that will slip over the entire breaker bar, and be long enough you can hang off the end of with your own weight. This is the only way short of cutting the nut off. look for 'impossible axle nut' on the tubes and you will find a video showing this

after you install the 2nd belt, rotate the crank once more to bring the operation back to step one. From there, rotate to the 0 mark and drop in the disty. There are two whole 360 deg crank rotations for the whole procedure

The crank rotations, cam timing, and disty timing is same as ea82. The tensioner, however, is different. You have to turn a slot on the bottom to install the belt. The only thing different is firing order being 6 cylinders. The front 4 cylinders rotate the same as ea82. As long as you know #1 on the cap. search the internet for 'subaru maintenance' or ea82 timing belt' and you will find helpful videos.

There is also a skinny hose that goes between the bottom of the thermostat and the top of the engine block. This one is easy to miss, and usually the first to fail. When it leaks, it puddles under the intake, and runs off the back of the engine. Check and fill the coolant at the radiator cap. don't just go by the overfill jug alone, and don't assume any coolant pushed out will suck back in. IF the coolant bottle is fuller, this means that coolant could be pushing out from other problems. Also make sure that the weep hole is not leaking on the water pump.

I would pull the engine for easier access. Make sure it's not TCU related, or the next trans will be doing the same thing. You will want to remove the exhaust header to allow room to drop the trans. You can yank the trans from under the hood, and install from under the hood with a crane, if you get the angle right. I find this easiest. otherwise, slide the trans under the car (the pitch bracket likes to be in the way) , and use the crane to lift it over the engine crossmember, and jack up the rear to bolt on the trans mount, and the motor is ready to go in. What you are thinking of is seating the torque converter correctly BEFORE bolting up the engine. There is a rubber plug in the bellhousing that you can use to get to the TC bolts (4) remove these first before separating the bellhousing, and use a bar to keep the TC with the trans as it comes apart. After install, mate the engine and trans first, then install the TC bolts, and the rubber plug.

Sounds like low coolant, or air in the block. Try filling aththe thermostat neck before installing the thermo. squeeze on the hoses to help burp some air. You will want to hold the idle up 1500 or 2000 rpms to draw in the fluids and circulate. When you let off the throttle, air will burp out. you may have initially had a coolant loss. if there is not enough coolant, no water passes over the thermostat, and it will not open. It is a little tricky to get it to open on fill up to get all the air out. If and when you are sure the coolant is full, and you still have symptoms, check to see if bubbles are rising out of the radiator when it is running at temp. This could be clue to other problems.

chances are it is stuck open if it is present. go for a good manufacture, one with a jiggle valve, and a large enough thermo couple. stay away from the off-shelf cheapo's

Check fuse #5 as this supplies constant volts to the ecu. IF you are getting spark, the ecu should be alive somewhat. Have you checked the fuel pump relay? Plug the green test connectors to cycle the fuel pump circuit. the intake harness grounds to one of the intake bolts, check that.

Dont forget to rule in properly inflated/size tires. my 94 has a slow leak in the front rim, and if it gets low enough, the rear end rumbles, or tires chirp during slow cornering. It goes away when all the tires are aired up at the same time. but mine is desperately due for a flush, anyway. You should bring up the term "duty c" to your mechanic, and have him explain it's function. I would imagine that they just use simple terms, as if the customer would not understand anything if explained in detail. Maybe that is why no one understands their cars, because it is never presented with such detail.

What you have is a fine thread in an aluminum bore, vs a coarse thread in a n iron bore. And for whom so the subaru is an unconventional project, the result is 'hillbilly torque' on these poor aluminum threads. The finer threads take less torque to hold a specific value than a coarse thread.

Which bolt? she slot or the povot? If the thread on the slot is good, then all the pivot bolt has to do is not come out. I once had the idler pulley walk out, causinng a failure. I once had to thread a helicoil to the same pulley on a different engine. I had the same issue with a tensioner as you are describing, and i was just careful with my torque, and used lock-tite. I was able to have it apart and back together a few times with the poor thread without it being worse. If the lock tite fails, i would go for the helicoil (better) or tap it out to a standard size ( 7/16"x14 ), but you might have to enlargen the holes on the tensioner bracket.

The heater core bypasses the thermostat and runs directly from the water pump. If there is no thermostat, and the engine is not all the way warm, the heat is not all the way warm. What is your temp gauge doing? You are assuming the car will run hotter with no thermostat, but the opposite is true, as the engine will run too cool. The thermostat holds back coolant around the engine, and when it gets too warm, some of that moves to the radiator to cool enough and then it closes. It does this cyclically to maintain a steady temp of about 190 deg. If there is no thermostat, all of the coolant is going through the radiator, and at highway speed, the radiator is continuing to cool the coolant beyond the point that a thermostat would have closed oce it cooled back down to the desired temp.

I like your idea. IF going no-turbo then an mpfi xt engine is good to go with the highest compression, and dual ports. Otherwise, put the turbo heads on an spfi block. ...if you are building from spare parts. I have run turbo cams on a spfi motor with hitachi carb/manifold. This worked well for a more open exhaust, and i ran it with increased timing. it was better on low end torque for running no header! Interesting about the Yamaha pistons. That means i can start looking for motorcycles with burned pistons, because i have subaru pistons laying around.

You should be fine leaving it alone, until you need to replace the shock. At least the ea81 is torsion sprung, so there is no load bearing on the shock other than dampening. If it was missing, this would not affect ride height, but it would b e a bouncy ride! Compared to an ea82, that if you removed the coilover, the suspension would be collapsed, or the mount may shift around being secured by 1 bolt. I have had an ea82 or 2 with a missing coilover bolt without problem

Yes, an ea82 will fit down in an ea81 body. I have fitted 2 into 2 brats, one into my own ea81 wagon, and once again inanother wagon that was a 'replica' of the first. I have also fit an ea81 into an 88 dl sedan. The ea81t electrical schematin is near identical to the 85-86 ea82t, and it is possible to swap an ea82t engine in plae of an ea81t and it *should* run on the ea81 ecu if you can get the plugs to match on the intakes. The crossmember in ea81t one will clear the pipe of the ea82 And also, an ea82 turbo can be retrofitted on an ea81t engine I believe your buddy had a real ea81t, but for some reason thoughti t was an ea82, being that he was familiar with ea82's, but did not know of the ea81t. And it could have been where his carwas titled as a wrong year, or he just forgot the year after so long. I keep referring to my 85 wagon as an 86, forgetting about the 85's vs the rest of the years

:clap::clap::clap::clap::clap:

2 things to consider, the 85 and up brats are the same body and styling as the 83-84 with plastic bumper and 4 headlights. the ea81t looks a lot like an ea82t, being it has a similar style steering pump, and the battery is on the opposite side, same as an ea82. The 4wd plenum and all that looks very much like an ea82. I could see where this gut may have seen this car and just though t it was an 87 by how it looks, and that the turbo engine was an ea82, by how it looks. I would not guess the guy was full of bs, but didn't know the terms to describe what he saw.

Valve body as in electronically controlled shifting? could they have used the word solenoid instead?

MAke sure the coolant is not low. Make sure there actually is a thermostat present. The engine temp gauge should be steady, and not fluctuating.

Motor twice as big, 3.70 gears compounded by large tires. maybe you would get better mileage at 75mph in 4th gear instead. edit: I could see great economy with the larger wheels at slower speeds, but a more increased exponential loss of economy towards higher speeds. Also, if using the standard fuel economy measure of dividing the fill up by the odometer, how much is the odometer off, thus affecting the overall economy. I suppose someone should break out the tire size calculator and measure up against 185/70-13 There are a lot of variables, but the soob is a oversquare big-bore short-throw design, favoring higher rpms

1983 and 1984 with automatic trans only.

the light is based on a thermo resistor that lets it come on when the fuel level is below this sensor. Electrically, it is independent of the gauge. the light can still work when the sender for the gauge is broken. Drive until the light comes on, or until you run out of gas, whichever comes first. IF you want to test this idea, just take a gas can with a good gallons in it with you..

Here is a video about removing a sheared ball joint pinch bolt. The techniques illustrated here may be helpful for you http://www.youtube.com/user/MilesFox#p/c/FD039C4C1234B88C/8/qCy6sj74EIo (mild language warning)