unclestu

You're in NC? For an excellent 10w30 oil at a good price, you might try the Havoline 10w30, at a Fred's Discount Store near you. Buy it anywhere, for that matter, but in my area Fred's has the lowest regular price around on Havoline. The current SM formulation is an *excellent* conventional motor oil, & consistently produces *very* low engine wear on used oil analysis results over at http://www.bobistheoilguy.com. AKA BITOG, it's the best lubrication site on the 'net. Just as good, if you can find it, is the Chevron Supreme oil- virtually identical to Havoline these days. If that was my old Subaru, that's the oil I'd try first. Other good possibilities at bargain prices: Philips 66 Trop Artic, Kendall GT-1, Union 76, and MotorCraft are all produced by Conoco/Philips, & in same weights are virtually identical to each other. These days all the major brands are very good to excellent in SM formula- heck, even the WalMart SuperTech does well in most cars! And while I don't have specific experience with Subarus(other than a tune-up & oil change about 25 yrs ago), I do have a lot of experience with old cars & helping them to last as long as they can.

You do nice work. Salute!

I may have caught some kind of disease, even without owning a Subaru. The "86" 4WD ATx wagon was pretty rough- body was straight enough, & seemed to have no rust problems, *but*: *it's an ATx, no low range. *was left outside for several years with the WINDOWS OPEN! They've been closed for a couple years now, but that doesn't help near enough. *spare gone *homely brown paint peeling off hood & roof, and LF fender has big spots of missing paint- maybe brake fluid or similar *hasn't run in years, lots of vac hoses pulled loose under hood. *Edit* forgot to mention, gas tank, tubing & wiring was mutilated years ago by some idiot thief in order to steal *gas*! It would be too much of a project for me. In its favor, the body was straight, glass intact, carb throat looked clean, had factory wagon wheels, & the cracked dry rotted tires still held air! Odometer read 147,xxx. Took some digital pix, but I'm really not interested in this one. If only it was a 5-sp D/R trans! A little later, while taking the "best of a bad bunch" route into Longview, TX, not too many miles away I spotted another Subaru in a yard near the highway, a yellow 2-dr w/trunk. After some research on the home page, I believe it's a 1980-1984 DL or GL coupe. If I make it back out there soon, will try to take a few pix of it. From what I saw, body looked straight on rear, RH side, & front. Didn't see LH side, & looks like it hasn't been driven in quite a while. According to the 80's Subie reference from the home page, some of those were available with single range 4WD 4-sp or 5-sp. Wouldn't be near as practical as a wagon, but it's nagging me now! Shoulda stopped & looked closer, but didn't have time.:-\ Have I caught some terrible disease? Will I not be happy until I get a nice old Subaru of my very own? This is gettin' worrisome...(Must find Subaru...Find Subaru...)

In your experience: What's a good real-world gas mileage guesstimate for an 86 GL wagon, 4WD with ATx? So far, dunno if it's carbed or FI. Figure on mostly highway miles, lots at 65-75 MPH. (FWIW: Local former Subaru mechanic says about 23-24 mpg for wagon w/ATx. While I'd love a higher figure, I suspect he's right.)

Well, *finally* heard from the seller tonight. Unfortunately, it's an automatic, which means no low range, so it's strictly a "no go" for me. If anyone else is interested, send me a PM or post here & I'll send you the guy's phone #. Fair warning: Returning phone calls is not one of his strong points, though!

GD, I hope you're right- but he thought it had broken from lack of antifreeze. For the past 2 winters, that would take some doing here in NE Tx- had almost no winters at all, as far as going below freezing. If he still has it tomorrow morning, & it's a 5-sp w/hi-lo ranges, I'll go see. Right now, batteries are charging for the digital camera, just in case. Man, if it just needed a few gaskets, it could be the best bang-for-the-buck car ever! And even at age 52:eek: , it never hurts to get a new toy.

Tom, just how much extra work is it to go from carburetor to fuel injection? And SPFI: is it Single Port fuel Injection, or Sequential? You can tell I'm a real Subaru expert, huh? Since the block is broken, the engine must be replaced, so if I could get a few extra ponies from a FI engine, & it didn't cost *too* much more, that sounds good. Listen to me, not even sure he still has it! But I'll call early tomorrow morning. It's been raining like h3!! all weekend, so I suspect few if any people have gone to look at it. I checked- the closest Subaru dealership to us is over 100 miles away, in the Dallas area. Don't see a lot of Subarus around here, so finding an engine locally may be a tuffy. If I should get it, I'm gonna have to get my compression tester & timing light back from my brother in Austin! Hmm...maybe find an engine in Austin? 5 hr drive away- but a possibility...

Hello, this is my first post here. I know virtually nothing about Subarus, except that about 25 years ago I installed points, plugs, & condenser on a little early 70's wagon, then set timing by turning engine over with a large boxed end wrench. gotta love a car like that. Friday morning, a new ad in the local paper: CAR, '86 Subaru SW, 4-WD, blown motor, $100 Finally talked briefly with seller Sat, we were cut off & then I couldn't raise that number again- maybe problems in his rural area. anyhow, only other things I learned: engine has broken block(so will have to be replaced), & it has electric windows. Says rest of car is is in good shape. I don't even know yet if it's an automatic or 5-speed. I've since done some research, & learned that if it's a 5-sp, it may have a low range for the 4wd- didn't realize before now that any Subies had a low range. Might be nice to do a little light woods-running again after all these years! If he still has it on Monday, & it's a 5-sp w/low range, & rest of the wagon looks OK- well, What should I expect to pay for a good used engine? My limited research indicates it should probably have a 1.8 L, 2 bbl carb engine. EA-82, maybe?