daeron

Are you absolutely positive its not single point fuel injection?? is there a big blue air filter assembly on top of the engine, or is it a big black rubber boot, going over to the air filter on the side of the engine bay?? SPFI is essentially an electronic carburetor; a throttle body, with an injector mounted inside of it, perched at the top of the engine right where a carb would go. It just works ten times better. I am not trying to doubt you, I just have been mulling it over all evening and cant believe a GL-10 is carbureted in 1986. 85, yes, but I would have SWORN that all EA82 GL-10s were at LEAST SPFI. Anyhow, whatever, the important thing is that its not turbo so its simpler. Regarding the seats, You could always put seat covers on any seats of the wrong color. My bad on misinterpreting the vinyl comment, now it makes perfect sense. I really cannot see any reason to replace the back seat if it isnt damaged; a Subaru seat is a Subaru seat, as long as colors and patterns match I wouldn't fuss with the rear. Just added expense. If you want to, by all means, but it seems a bit frivolous to me; after 20 years you simply are not going to keep the car all original, some parts have worn out. Replace what has worn, but unless there is a fundamental mismatch (ie, different cloth patterns) it seems an utter waste to me; almost like replacing a full set of steel wheels with another full set of steel wheels because one of your steel wheels got bent. as far as the carpet goes, thats your call. Anytime anyone mentions the "a-word" I thank my lucky stars that I was born with healthy, well-adjusted sinuses and immune system.... A day or two out in sunlight usually kills any mildew type creatures; they kinda have this problem with UV rays :cool: Trust me, I live in a quite literal rainforest.. except its not a forest, its a meadow. (Everglades) Then again, you know your nose better than I, so I won't argue that point. Try posting a few wanted ads; there is a separate sub forum for that. We are all really karmic about hos things get traded around here; when someone is in dire need for some part that they cannot get ahold of, another board member usually comes through with the bit that is needed, and it is often free/gratis. This is good people here, and we are ALWAYS happy to welcome and assist another lady member; ESPECIALLY if she is striving to convince her peers and loved ones that her car is TOTALLY worth saving and driving for a few more years.. or decades...(because it TOTALLY is!) PS I believe your probly have the wagon wheels.. like, six or eight spoke steel wheels? Very common, again.

...but, my understanding was that you had to heat these to get them apart??? I've never done it, but I have also never read anyone who said they just popped them apart...

I don't recall any check ball or spring, but I didn't disassemble my cam carriers at ALL when I did my HGs... is this held in place by a plug or a bolt or something? In other words, am I in trouble because I have no idea what this is??? cars been running fine for four months now, so I cant IMAGINE I am in trouble.. but since it came up (and it keeps bugging me) i thought I would ask.

Carb'd GL-10? in 86???? Vinyl seats?? and apparently sealed beam headlamps??? You have a very strange car, it seems to ignore most of the rules... 86 and 87 were both kinda like that, though.. changeover years. find later GL-10 seats, they are OH SO comfy and will bolt in. oh yah, regarding the carpet.. I kinda thought that might be the case, I cant help you with replacement, but maybe a trip to a junkyard??? any idea if the carpeting changed, anyone?? its possible that you could find a very recent loyale (~92-4) to yank the carpeting out of.....

Tried to retrofit a bigger alternator??? regardless, it should still be a simple straight swap.. but I can understand your reluctance to go that route, heh... I only mentioned it because its a different plug on the alt, and since you had to replace your stock T plug anyhow... you get my point? Replace the plug before the alternator, or bring the alt in to test it when you buy the plug. There is a good chance that the plug is the main problem.

you have the quad headlight setup like this: Those are sealed beams. They are readily available at wal mart or auto parts store; most stores (not wal-mart, they are the devil anyhow so please go somewhere else ) have a book or a little computer on the light bulb aisle to help you look up the bulbs for your car. I would suggest pretending it is a DL instead of a GL-10 just to get the right part. The GL-10 SHOULD have headlights like this: That is a photo of what is allegedly an 86 GL-10 wagon. Both found thru google image search, so no clue whose cars they are... But that is the composite headlamp, with a separate bulb, that was described at the beginning of the thread.

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=74632

some people like to fully coat the cork gasket with RTV, let it dry, and then use it. Apparently it works well, but I haven't done it myself..

find a two row rad, they seem to be adequate for anything.

+1, maybe if youre feeling adventurous just go to a junkyard, get an alt out of a 86-89 nissan maxima, cut the plug that goes to it, bring the alt and your old alt to an electrical shop and see if they can match the pulley on the maxima alt to the pulley on the soob alt. They are both Hitachi alternators, and the nissan is 90 amp instead of the soobie at 60 or 70 amp (i think 60.) You replace your plug AND upgrade your alt. If not, the T-plug should be available at any parts store in the HELP! section.

'nuff said. I know how it feels to be kept from the wrench, except its my wallet holding me back.. I am so starving for money that I shouldn't even have internet access, but the web is about my sole source of entertainment and diversion when I am not working or doing something else useful.

Hey, you fixed it; I was just brainstorming. You found the problem, I am sure. Since you made that string comment, I assume you can cope with the mis alignment Good luck and congrats.

One possible trick for short term use is this: find the little electrical plgu on the bottom, passenger side, engine side of the radiator tank. Unplug it, and put a jumper wire on the harness side of the plug. This will essentially fool your car inot having the electric fan on all the time, regardless of what the temp of the water is; you are replacing a switch that turns "on" at a certain temperature with a wire that is always "on." Thats just a band-aid though; Move your hand across the coils, while touching them, with the engine warmed up. Feel for cold spots, they indicate a clogged section of the radiator. Also, inspect very thoroughly for fin rot; corroded and nasty fins do NO good in dissipating the heat. Lastly, shine a bright light through the radiator and look to see how clean the coils are; I know my original radiator performed MUCH better DESPITE the fin rot after I removed it, soaked it with degreaser, and blasted it out with the hose. Check your thermostat and replace with subaru brand only. I run without a thermostat but I have recently finally learned why that is a bad thing even in South Florida, where 50 degrees is freezing my butt off. The thermostat acts as a restrictor in the cooling system, which raises the pressure inside the engine. This raises the boiling point further, and makes the water (or antifreeze) a more efficient coolant.

Seats: if the car the seats came out of looks like your car, they will fit. Or if it was an XT. They called them GLs, Gl-10s, DLs, Loyales, Leones, RXs.. Lots of things, but they were all the same car. HTKYSA: go to the link that was posted above; in the thread that was linked to there is a link to a place you can download the HTKYSA. It is written to be understood by us mere mortals; in fact, it is almost so easy to understand that it isn't the greatest technical manual in the world, but it is a GREAT "first bite." The Factory Service Manuals I linked you too are almost certainly applicable to your car; all that gobbledygook I typed was disclaimer to prevent anyone from coming and correcting me on the one obscure possibility, since your car is an 86, that it JUST MAYBE MIGHT not fit under the umbrella provided by those files; 87-94 GL/Loyale (collectively referred to as "EA82s" because that is the engine that is in them) hardly changed a bit, and 99% of that change was options packaging; in 86 about 90% of the vehicles made fit under that umbrella but a handful don't. Of course, turbo cars are a whole nother bag of fish. Little old lady: no confession needed! we are female friendly, and plenty of our best members have a few more decades under their belts than I. The more active users here tend to be the younger ones, but there are SEVERAL noteworthy exceptions to that rule, and many of those exceptions are "founding fathers" of the USMB, heh... My dear old mum is a sixty year old lady herself (still as red as the day she was born though) and that doesn't stop her; she drives a fivespeed Mitsubishi 3000GT SL She doesn't do much mechanicking anymore, but time was that she swapped the engines in our VW van (my dad's leg was busted, he coached her but she did it.) Seriously, though, this is one of the friendliest and most accepting and forgiving groups of people on the internet, bar none. Radiator: Has it been replaced since you bought the car? Do you use ONLY anti-freeze? If either question was answered "yes" then you are probably OK, but my point was this: these engines run GREAT as long as you change the oil regularly and keep it full,* and as long as the radiator is working well and the engine doesnt get overheated. Typically, when one buys a used soob, if you feel like spending a couple hundred bucks to give it the spa treatment to help it last as long as possible, that spa treatment includes: - a thorough flushing and inspection of the radiator (check for fin rot, and if thats good, and clean, then run the car until it warms up and feel across the radiator for "cool spots: which indicate a clogged area; no cool spots means youre OK) -A good oil and filter change, possibly a 3-way seafoam treatment (suck some up into a vacuum line and let it sit, then burn it off; add some to fuel as an injector cleaner, and add some to oil 3-500 miles before changing it to flush out the crankcase) -air filter, belts, fuel filter; -Radiator hoses, (ALL of them, but there aren't THAT many) thermostat (subaru brand only) - Possibly timing belts, water pump, and oil pump reseal, but the T-belts and water pump are only due at about 60K engine life... history tends to suggest that the timing belts and water pump each last about 100K before finally blowing up. Overheating these cars WILL lead directly to a headgasket failure; other than that, (and the possibility for broken timing belts) the engines are nearly bulletproof. Even broken timing belts are not disastrous; on some cars that can spell the end of the engine. * I want to make clear one thing: you engine will almost certainly TICK TICK TICK real loudly if there are any issues with the oil system like low oil, or buildup of crud. This is called the Tick Of Death (TOD) jokingly because it is VERY common. I could get into the why of it, but this is already a long, "bookish" post and I don't want to make your eyes fall out of the sockets It isn't good, but it isn't fatal. What those acronyms mean, etc: Go look at my comments about the applicability of the FSM above; a handful of 86 cars had an onscure, less modern type of air metering system. This only came on the Multi-Point Fuel Injected cars, the VAST majority of which were turbos or XTs. Next, download that EA82 FSM part 2 file, and find the Fuel chapter. Read the beginning of that chapter and it explains how your car's engine sucks in air, and how the computer measures that air intake, and a few other factors, and uses that to squirt the right amount of fuel, and spark the cylinders, all at the right time. It really is a simple system; you can PM me any time if you have specific questions about it. If "real time" conversation is easier for you to grok (grok: wrap your head around, fully understand) then I am on the AOL IM as TarDaeron. Fire away; I am good at explaining. You are RIGHT!!! the people telling you that you need a new car are WRONG! HAIL FUJI!

Well, *I* couldn't see the bumper in the first pic either, but I figured from this That there HAD to be more pics, hence my discovery that it was a TW. I couldnt even ID it as a soob in the first pic, at low res.. not at first.

:clap: :clap: you had the Air Conditioning cranked for the road trip, eh??? And you say it started burning a little hot? Gee, I wonder why..

Not necessarily; a radiator cap CAN go bad and open before the prescribed temp is reached... but things don't bode too well. I don't like the concept of "cleaning the injector plugs;" they are so incredibly readily available with a pair of diagonal cutters at the junkyard it isnt funny. Look around; if you can find a MPFI soob or a datsun Z car i can guarantee (off the top of my head) its the same kind of plug, and I know there are dozens of other makes and models that use the same. Try to find one of the "known matching" cars to snip a plug off of, and with that plug in hand, look under every hood you see that has nice injector wires on it. Pull one off, check the fit, and if its the same find four good ones.

How many DL touring wagons were made???? Seriously, if your observant enough to notice a little stripe thats there on all ea82s, maybe you should be more patient before posting and see what else you notice.

+1, I will quote me brudder again and say that "japanese engines like banging off the rev limiter." Try to find a good cheap junkyard near you, and keep your eyes peeled for an XT6 or a GL-10; those front seats will bolt right in and they are AWESOME seats, among the best factory seats I have sat in (CERTAINLY the best for this vintage and price class!!) You could also rent a carpet shampooing machine and possibly do some serious wonders with the carpet; spray cans of carpet dye are also commercially available to cope with any awful fading. However, I can see that there is a good chance that your prognosis of "dead carpet" may be right; my parents have a ford van that we bought new and the carpets in that were barely salvageable after only ten years use as a family taxicab (five sons) I can definitely see how 20 years' service as a truck could kill them Regarding the front end, it sounds like you likely need tie rod ends or possibly steering rack bushings. Anyone have a link to HTKYSA handy? How To Keep Your Subaru Alive is a great book, and to ME the most valuable parts of it were the suspension/steering system "checkup" procedures in it. Try jacking the front wheels up, putting the car on stands, making sure that the key is in the ignition and the steering wheel isnt locked, and grab each wheel one at a time and jiggle it side to side (ie, move it thru steering motion a bit, back and forth.) Watch the link to the tie rod end (the tie rod end is the piece that connects the steering rack to the steering knuckle, and if these terms don't make sense to you then jack the car up and look; its pretty easy to ID the steering rack, and the steering knuckle, just from what I've typed here) There is also a possibility that your bearings are going south, but I doubt that. Checking for that would involve wiggling the front wheels back and forth, but with your hands at top and bottom, trying to wobble the wheel on the possibly loose bearing. How many miles on the vehicle??? Do you still have the original engine? These engines, if cared for (which is simple and easy) can EASILY last 300K miles or more; however, the radiators aren't so hot. Any engine with 60K on it or more is only as reliable as the radiator that cools it. You seem to be one who is happy to spend some cash on the car simply for reliability's sake; Go buy a new radiator now and save yourself some hassle. Its probably more important than the engine refresh that you did. (just the swap; the other seal and clutch work you did at the time was just common sense. and yes, your car is still plenty "stock;" it just isnt what they call "numbers-matching" which only matters if its like, an Edsel or a 57 T-bird, or something) on your "since new" ownership and welcome to USMB! We can teach you all you need to know. The USRM in the top right corner of your screen is a helpful resource, and here: http://ch601.org/engines.htm go there and look for subaru EA82 parts 1 and 2; that is most of the more important bits of an 89 GL Factory Service Manual; all of it is applicable to your car unless you have the N/A MPFI system with the flapper door AFM instead of hotwire MAF, which I can't see as likely.

so essentially, in addition to the additional resistance from the knobbly tires, and the unsprung weight, etc.. ..the entire "gearing" thing is actually a parabolic function as opposed to a simple square or linear function then? I mean, smaller tires hurt fuel mileage and larger diameter helps.. but only to a point, and then once you get beyond that any increase essentially kills you. Right? This is an end of the automotive spectrum I have NEVER EVER played with, so i have zero real world experience.. Even when it comes to sports cars, if someone GAVE me a set of 18" wheels for my Datsun I would sell them in a HEARTBEAT but hesitate long and hard before they went on the car...

i think i said it already.. alcohol. Alcohol. it works. its easy. its cheap. it is a rare rare rare opportunity to have it fast, easy, good, AND cheap; take advantage of it!

valve cover bolts and timing cover bolts are first cousins, could they be valve cover bolts? Also, that bracket looks like the sort of thing that is used to retain a relay or plug or other such thingy.. probably superflous in the grand scheme of things. Look at the relays hanging from the passnger side shock tower and you'll see what I mean. Longish bolt on the right side of the center unknown group is probably to hold that bracket wherever it goes.

Usually listening to Nancy Sinatra helps me get the Struts out.......

air bubbling into the radiator overflow?????? Check to make sure the radiator cap is on tightly; bubbles like this normally indicate either a failure of the rad cap to hold adequate system pressure, or a headgasket failure, leading to the introduction of cylinder compression into the cooling system (and thereby over pressurising it and causing it to bubble the air into the overflow.) I didn't go back and re read your whole thread, so I am not 100% certain what problems you are still having versus the ones you have resolved (for instance, I don't see how a marginally bad headgasket would prevent the boost light from coming on?) but I would run a compression check on the engine; remember, pull spark plugs, pull fuel pump fuse, install checker in one plughole at a time, floor the gas pedal while you crank the car, and get three readings from each cylinder to get a good "average." Having one or two cylinders that vary more than ~10% from the others is enough to cause a rough run condition. Actual numbers can range from 100 to higher, and possibly a bit lower than that, and still provide you with a good running engine; the key to a compression check is testing the cylinders against each other to ensure that they are all about the same. Good luck; I hope and pray that my entire post here was pointless and needless, and there is NOTHING wrong with your headgaskets. Hopefully you just have a slightly loose rad cap. Something about that comment alarms me, though.

the secret is to go to harbor freight and get a cheap set of ratcheting box socket wrenches, it makes those valve cover bolts (especially the driver side) POSSIBLE, not easier.. I wouldnt consider the job do-able with the engine in car without a 10mm ratchting wrench. Fel pro perma torque HGs, OEM intake mani gaskets and cam carrier O rings (its the little o ring sandwiched between the cylinder head proper, and the cage that holds the camshaft; its metal reinforced.) BOTH OEM brand parts are available thru http://www.thepartsbin.com and no need to retorque the FPs. Fel Pro HGs are available from autozone for like $40 shipped; many recommend to also get a cheapo ebay "headgasket set" to use EVERYTHING ELSE from, since youve got it all apart anyhow. apparently theyre like 20-30 bucks?? so its worth doing; but the intake gaskets, exhaust gaskets, and head gaskets are all crapola. Round file. Clean the engine bay out while you're at it.. Dont mess around, just get some nice concentrated degreaser like Simple Green or any personal favorite, spray it on, blast it off with the hose, and repeat until clean.