4x4_Welder

Try having the wheels balanced with a balancing compound like Equal (not the fake sugar stuff). They pull the weights, but a bag of this stuff in, and air the tire back up. No spin balancing or anything, the wheel constantly rebalances itself as you drive down the road. This will correct any road force variation and even unbalanced wheel mount components. As proof, I have a 75 Jeep Wagoneer with 31s that drives down the road with no vibrations thanks to this system. It had a slow leak, my wife took it to Les Scwab, and they used a spin-balance on that wheel. Now it has a vibration on just that wheel.

The thermoswitch is in the radiator, therefore if your thermostat is bad, THE FAN WON'T COME ON. With the engine running, feel the upper radiator hose. If it's warm/hot, then the thermostat is opening. If it's cold, then it's not opening.

The excess caster is there because he only dropped the struts, and it sounds like he didn't make any adjustments to the radius arm. That's at an increased angle too, so maybe lengthen it as well.

90% of your problem is that you only dropped the struts, if you drop the subframe too, that will help since all the components will be flattened out a bit. You'll lose some ground clearance, but what good is ground clearance if you can't drive it?

That thread has some interesting ideas. I'm leaning more towards reaming out the hole in the control arms, unless that shim still allows good ball joint retention. If it does, then I might go that route instead since this area seems to have been declared an XT6-free zone.

Now that is cool and helpful. Do you have any specifications on that shim ring? That might be the best solution yet -if- the bolt still has enough contact with the ball joint body to retain it properly. Never mind, I found your other post: http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=87403

There's a bit of misinformation here so let's get that cleared first- That fan is only on EA82 cars with a/c. It's there because the condenser increases the heat load on the radiator, since it increases the temperature of the air going through the radiator. However, this is not the case if your a/c is not on, so if your a/c doesn't work and the electric fan does work, you should be -ok- without that fan. Pull the nuts off the hub, let it drop under the car, and put the nuts back on to keep the pulley in place. Nothing done to the radiator will fix a bad t-stat, but just chucking it is not the answer. If it wasn't needed, no car would have one. It regulates the temperature of the engine by slowing the flow of coolant. If the coolant goes through the engine too quick, it won't pick up the heat, and if it goes through the radiator too quick, it won't dump the heat. Replace the thermostat with even a cheap one, and it'll be better. Oh yeah, I'd like to see you cool a squared off chunk of metal with a fan. The compressor is cooled by the fairly cool refrigerant it's pumping along with the oil in that system, and you'll be replacing your heads a very long time before you replace the a/c compressor due to overheat. If you put an electric fan in place of the clutch fan, I would put it on a relay. Signal the relay off the a/c compressor clutch circuit.

Thanks for the info- The strange part is XT6 calipers are cheaper than standard EA82 calipers. To ask another dumb question, what is the reason for using the XT6 lower control arm? Can the EA or EJ arm be modified to work?

I looked that article over, and have a few questions since I know little about the newer cars. I have a 2wd 93 Legacy I am yanking the EJ out of, can I use those struts, hubs, and rotors with XT6 calipers in a 5lug conversion? I would probably put the EA82 tops on the struts to save body mods. The EA is an 89 AWD wagon, I am not planning on going anywhere heightwise, just throw on the 16s on the Legacy now.

I had a set on a Mitsu***************y Mirage, they were ok. I wouldn't trust them on anything bigger than a wagon, since they are pretty lightly built.

Do you just not drive much, or do you usually drive something else? I've put 7k on the turbowagon in the last four months, and 16k on my Courier over the last year (with a couple months downtime)

Is the 85 carb or fuel injection? If both are carb/spfi or MPFI, you should be able to just swap the engines underneath the intakes. If there is a difference, though, then you'll have to rewire. I wouldn't do that for an EA82. I picked up a Legacy 2wd sedan for less than your replacement engine price, you're in a better area to find one. Watch the Seattle CL, I used to see four or five Legacys a week in the sub-$500 catagory. Pick up one of those, and it's like a swap in a can, plus you have better seats, and parts to sell.

Order a clutch for an 83 or 84 model set up the same as yours- Most parts store computers see 85+ GL 1.8 as an EA82. Use a bit of heat, and a stud extractor on the exhaust studs. Use the kind that has three or four rollers inside and looks kinda like a spark plug socket. I have had good luck pulling pilot bearings with grease, Subarus have a huge pocket behind the bearing so it may take a few tries. I would recommend grinding a bolt down to fit the hole very snugly, then use a grease gun to fill the pocket. Use a needle fitting if the regular fitting doesn't fit inside the hole.

Yes, there are just a few nuts holding it to the flexplate. Rotate the engine over and undo the nuts, then while disengaging the engine off the bellhousing make sure to push the torque converter back into the transmission bellhousing.

It sounds like your timing is off, there is a leak between the MAF and the throttle body, or a large vacuum leak. Initial timing on these cars is 20º with the green underdash connectors connected. From what I have seen, without those connected it sits somewhere around 30ºBTDC at idle. Did you use the MPFI spider intake and injectors, or the turbo ones, and did you make sure everything was together properly for the computer you are using? I don't think the lack of a turbo is going to effect anything at low rpms, since the turbo doesn't contribute anything until about 2000rpm.

Pull the wheel, and there are a couple rubber plugs in the inner fenderwell. Pull these, and use a long extension to reach the bolts. You may need a wobble extension or a u-joint on some of them.

It's still there- What's funny is if you back up while looking north, you can watch her back out of the driveway in front of the van......... On the plus side, at least Google can figure out your area. Everywhere I have tried to look up across the west, they have been off a long ways. My last place, they were off by about a mile.

It's not even $1200- How much do you think shipping would be? Oh, you got a JDM engine? Well, I got a JDM CAR!

Air filter, fuel filter, intake boot, post-turbo ducting.

Is it possible your park light switch is on and you actually have two lights burned out? What was the car originally, did you just swap the tranny in or did you have to do a lot of other work?

Roadside EJ swap :banana: Well, not really. There is a guy in UT selling a pair of turbo heads, which you will most likely need. The chances you blew a headgasket without killing at least one head are somewhere between slim and none. I'd keep it though, unless you can get a few hundred out of it. I know you just did the same trans repair I did a few months back, now mine's getting an EJ22 for similar reasons (major overheat).

Sounds like you got EA81 rotors- What was the part number on those?

That is what auto parts houses are there for- I usually run mid-grade semi-metallic pads, they seem to hold up the best but do wear the rotors a little faster. Usually those pads are about 60-75% of the cost of the dealer ones, and either come with the springs and shims or those are available for fairly cheap separately.

Wrong bearing, or no/wrong spacer between the bearings? How hard of a rub is it, is it just touching or is it digging in deep?

It's probably the contacts in the wiper motor gearbox. On the gearbox, there should be three screws (maybe four- been a few years) and a wire coming out. That wire is attached to a contact that rides on another contact on the main gear, timing the park position and intermittent operation. Pull the screws, pop the cover off, and see what everything looks like. Chances are that contact is all bent to crap and isn't doing it's job.