daeron

are these for your 1500 pound wagon?

Where in NC are you, Mr Spock? I lived in N Wilkesboro when I was knee high to a grasshopper... hundred year old farmhouse, 40 acres, mountain out back, creek runnin thru the property, the whole bit. My dad got fed up watching his hometown (WPB, FL) being paved over, so we did the whole "Funny Farm" thing.... I would HIGHLY recommend replacing the water pump while youre doing the T-belts.. I didn't, and I regretted it about 10K later.. blew a radiator hose, then a water pump, then headgaskets.. in that order. You might want to flush the heater core while youve got the whole cooling system in pieces, and if you have no T-stat in at the time may as well use the garden hose to power flush the block, too.. although I don't know how effective this block flush might actually BE, I don't think it can hurt anything at least? (Someone please correct me if I am wrong; I know I did it on mine) Flush the heater core first one way, then the other... It may even be beneficial to run some sort of block flush solution through a heat cycle before draining, in car flushing again, and then disassembling.. but I am getting to extremes here. Feel free to do all, some, or none of what I suggest regarding flushing things out.. just ideas

D'oh! Now *I* am the retard, huh? Or (in THIS thread,) should I say, "I'm not that cool"? I wasnt thinking about a turbo car, I was picturing it on mine.. and I guess maybe I could even be wrong about that..

No; I think Sweet was referring to a third party who would shill bid on behalf of the seller to falsely raise the bid price with a bid that they had no intention of honoring. The seller is not only fully aware of this third party's intent not to actually purchase; the seller in this case has requested this third parrty to make false bids to drive up the selling price, thus being able to still say L@@K!! NO RESERVE!!!!!! Gotta love marketing, its what we americans are best at anymore.

you would think that they could find a way around this sniping BS... Good ol' human nature, foiling us again... I had never heard that, regarding potential ebay purchases before.. Thats a cool policy, helps keep the USMB a family

Dude, you are saying the same thing he is... knock conditions, retard up to -10 degrees, high altitude, advance up to +5 degrees.. net 15 degrees total change capable of being made by the knock sensor. you retard :-p (ive been a member for a YEAR now and thats the FIRST retard joke I've made. I feel somewhat proud of my restraint... )

the gauge temperature sender is a one wire sender, on the passenger side of the manifold, on the back side... there aren't too many one wire items that it could be confused with, and none of them appear to protrude into a coolant passage.

Same with my Z--Literally (the Z and the soob use the same key blanks ) *I* look at it as a FEATURE; who else knows about it that might ACTUALLY take advantage of your vulnerability?!?

Simpler way to check the MAF-- un do the four screws that hold it to the intake housing so you can just blow on the two hotwires. http://www.ch601.org/engines.html go there and dowload the two chunks of the 89 FSM. very very helpful. Now, regarding your poor running condition.. whew. I am no guru; but I have read alot and like to try to pass things on as much as possible. For starters, brake cleaner on the MAF should NOT have harmed it at all.. it isnt precisely IDEAL but it should be OK, or if it isn't then it was bad before you did it. (i am assuming you do NOT have a check engine light on) Our cars have a wonderful little onboard diagnostic system. There are two green plugs probably at the extreme rear driver's side of the engine bay; when you connect those, start the engine, and rev it over 2K for 30 seconds, the CEL comes on and a small LED on the ECU starts blinking with any codes that the diagnostic may have picked up. The FSM outlines the procedure in detail; there is also a "read memory" connector for checking codes thrown by CEL in the past. Anyhow, the green plug diagnostic is referred to as "d-check." You need to run a D-check and see what codes it gives you. If your problem is being caused by something in the FI/ignition system, it should throw a code. There is a write up in the USRM (go to the top of the page, click "USRM" in the top right corner) that is simpler, written in more down to earth language.. sometimes its easiest to read both the USRM version and the FSM version to make sure you are doing it right. A suggestion: Pop your distributor cap off and see if there is a screw on the back side of the rotor. Some have them, some do not; if your rotor has a screwhole, and no screw.. ha-HA!!! we have found your problem. very very common. timing belts can be done in the car, piece of cake. Wisdom suggest resealing or replacing the oil pump (as well as water pump and standard cam/crank oil seals) when you replace the T-belts.. and if the tensioner and ilder bearings arent silky-smooth, replace them. You CAN just press the bearings out and source new ones, it isnt difficult from what I gather. (bearings is bearings, and theyre cheaper than new idlers.) Regarding the oil in the intake (that IS what this thread was about, right? ) you likely have a bad PCV valve; never hurts to replace it. as far as the oil.. dude, SERIOUSLY??? subarus as a RULE do NOT LEAK OIL. NEVER. :lol: :lol: just kidding, get used to it. Buy some gunk, clean her up and try to pinpoint it. Seriously, barring any overheating issues, these engines will last 400-500,000 miles. THAT being said, next time she gets warmed up, touch the entire surface of the radiator, one handprint at a time. If you find any cool areas, thats indicative of a clogged spot; if you find much at all, replace the radiator before you somehow overheat and blow your headgasket. A new OEM only thermostat would be prudent as well.. cheap insurance. New sparks, cap, rotor and wires may well go a long ways in reducing your hesitation. Check everything out and report back! Hope this helped, and good luck.

if memory serves, the thermoswitch wire is the ground wire.. check with a multimeter first, though. Seriously, since its summertime anyhow I would just jumper the thermoswitch so that the fan is always on with the key.. foolproof and darn near failure proof. As has been stated, OEM thermostats are the only ones to trust reliably.. some may say otherwise, but what is your experience telling you? I must admit that my only experience with a thermostat was a failed one that was there when I got the car, and another failed one that was a stant replacement. Now I have nothing; so I can't REALLY vouch for the goodness of the subaru part.. but get it from the dealer. Until then, pull your thermostat so you know you arent having OTHER problems. ALSO, with our lovely digidashes, the temperature gauge can be INCREDIBLY off from a poor grounding connection inside the dash, or a crummy wire connection going to the gauge itself. In other words, now that the car is 20+ years old, voltage variances (ie, added load from turning on the AC, say) can make the gauge read a hot condition when the car isnt spiking in temp at all. Once again, this is hearsay.. BUT from reliable sources. Don't ASSUME that is what you are seeing; but keep your thermometer in the car and next time you get a hotspot, pull over, pop the hood, and check it out to verify that you are in fact seeing a spike in coolant temp.

sounds small to me.. but i dont know a number to give you. Do you own a set of calipers? if not, run to harbor freight and pick one up; it NEVER hurts to have a measuring caliper around. If you have a section of pipe that came off, something you could walk into a store with, you can go to pep boys or someplace like that and find other patch pieces to match it up to and find the ID that way...

I hate to sound rude, but go do a google search on "perpetual motion..." If you are using the AC, then you want cold air.. if it is being spent on cooling your intake charge, it isnt being spent on cooling YOU. Also, don't forget that all an air conditioning system does is MOVE heat... to the evaporator coil, in front of the radiator. All that "cooler air intakes" are good for is cramming more air into the engine than would otherwise be done. This is MUCH more readily accomplished by using a turbocharger than by re routing your AC to cool the intake. You're using say, 100 watts of power to add a potential for an extra 5 watts of output from the engine. "Diminishing returns" doesnt even BEGIN to cover it. If this sort of thing made that much of a difference, the automotive engineers would have figured it out before all the modern advancements in forced induction came in. It just won't work.

hey, at least you arent paying too much for car insurance, right?? ("we all do dumb things...")

okay, MAJOR apologies to the original poster for the hijack I committed.. but it IS good to see i am not the only one capable of the DUH here and there. I dont indulge in my "air conditioning" THAT much

could also be timing belt tensioners or idlers

not worth it.. if you REALLY want to lose the covers, invest the time now when you have it to spare to remove all that crap, and remove the covers properly. Busting the covers apart IS just asking for a piece of debris that you missed to somehow break off in the future and go into your belts. I run with the covers off, and dont hesitate to do so.. but I would HIGHLY recommend AGAINST just busting them off haphazardly. "Leaving them off" and "Breaking them off" are two different issues.. just wait until next time and simply neglect to re install them, or take the time to remove them properly to save yourself the time in the future. Running without covers IS a risk; anyone who does so will agree with me.. so may as well just leave them on until something necessitates their removal.

and dont feel bad; people have bought cars for $50 because of owners not noticing this switch.. "It runs great, but we cant figure out this pesky voltage drain...."

You would lose more power through running the A/C than you would gain from the colder intake air charge.

and just to clarify.. your engine has a total of three temperature sensing components.... these are what they are, and their most common technical names as they relate to the subaru, its manual, and the people who work on them... 1. Coolant Temperature Sensor (in other vehicles sometimes referred to as thermosensor) or CTS; this is mounted in the thermostat housing, has two wires on it, and tells the ECU how warm the engine is; 2. Thermoswitch- this is mounted in the radiator, has two wires, and is just an "on/off" switch that closes at a set temperature to turn the auxiliary fan on; (this is the switch I recommended bypassing if your functional fan doesnt come on "at temperature) AND 3. okay I cant recall the utterly unambiguous, technical term used in the FSM for the temp sending unit for the dash temp gauge.. but you get the idea for this one :-p I dunno, I just figured I would make that abundantly clear. Please forgive me if I am teaching you things you already know

best input i can come up with is the suggestion to mount it below the ashtray, in the center console. I'm not big on the whole "gauge pod" look; I have been negatively conditioned to think "ricer" when I see them. I agree wholeheartedly with the idea of adding the real gauges though. The digidash may LOOK cool but I think data is better than looks. I went from my 280Z with a tach, speedo, fuel/oil pressure, and amp/water temperature gauge, ALL numbered, to the 87 green digidash. I have 0-10 increments of fuel in my tank, 1-10 increments of heat in my water, and the oil idiot light. The TOD shows up WAY before the oil light.. I see my BRAKE FLUID light more than the oil light, and I have been pretty low on oil on this car While im whining about the green digidash.. WHAT EVER possessed them to break up a 1000 RPM span into increments of 8?!?! "Yah, She's idling at about 625-875 RPMS......" My engine accelerates in pieces of eight! yours is an 86; does it have the amber digidash or the green one? +1 on not trusting the walmart oil line; you dont want oil in your CABIN do you? not to mention the consequences to your engine of the potential oil leak...

higher engine RPM means higher water pump RPM, which means its pushing it through the thermostat with more force. Also, as you pointed out, your auxiliary fan was dead.. so at idle, there was only a limited amount of air moving over the radiator.. normally, the thermoswitch cuts the aux on whenever it reaches the tempo threshold, and the aux fan helps keep it below that threshold.. on the highway, you dont need ANY fan; the car is moving more air than the fans could ever DREAM of.. You mentioned the electric fan failing; does the fan function when you give it 12 volts? IF the fan itself DID function, don't forget that the little thermoswitch that mounts in the radiator that controls the fan coming on frequently fails; I just bypassed mine with a jumper wire in the car harness plug which leaves the fan on all the time when the key is on. If the fan failed to function with direct 12V (i think thats what you meant but I wasn't entirely clear) then a replacement is likely all you needed, as far as THAT goes. You might want to try running without a thermostat for a while and see if it cools adequately, and whether it leaks or not.. I say this living in the tropics; but its not a good idea to do forever. The subaru OEM thermostats are generally recommended as the only ones to rely on; but I dont have anything in there. Again, I am in the tropics.. I know there are a couple of good arguments for me re installing one, but its not important enough to me right now. The coolant flows up through the thermostat and into the top of the radiator; most cars have hot coolant going into the top of the radiator rather than the bottom, so the heat doesn't soak up into coolant that has already passed through half the radiator and lost most of its heat. Hotter coolant on the top, cooler coolant on the bottom is the rule of thumb. I think that covers most of your questions.. I would recommend feeling your radiator coils for any uneven temperatures, to make sure there arent any clogged spots.. The cooling systems on these cars are the achilles heel.. protect at ALL costs!! Is this a turbo car?? if it is (or even if it isnt) you *may* have given it close enough to an overheat to make the headgaskets unhappy.. I hate to tell you, and you may just as well be safe, but be aware of that possibility in the future. For now though, it sounds like maybe a new OEM thermostat, and a properly functioning auxiliary fan, should have you going again

heh, i should have thought again about my firing order; a big loud DUH of relief here. thanks. that makes perfect sense now.. and to think, i was genuinely WORRIED there for a moment..

ahhh.. geee.... In reading this thread I was reminded for the umpteenth time that #1 cylinder is NOT the one I would intuitively think it is... I always think that DRIVERS side front is number one.... so now I get to thinking about when I did my headgasket.. and I, for the LIFE of me, CANNOT recall whether I went with my intuition, and set my timing light onto #2 spark plug wire, or if I did the sensible thing and put it on the ACTUAL #1 wire... Now, I was reading EVERYTHING step by step right out of the book, and actually re clocked my distributor to the proper setting (it had been incorrect before, from when i did the T belts when I first got the car.. but I can't say how it WAS clocked.. I know my spark plug wires actually FIT after I re assembled per FSM directions, so I know i did it RIGHT..) and got it to fire up on the first shot.. tweaked it down to right at 20*, etc... but seriously, my problems couldnt possibly be that I set my timing on the #2 cylinder by mistake, could they?? I mean, i have plenty of situations where the engine seems to be running perfectly normally.. I SERIOUSLY cant imagine I did this.. BUT like I said, I cannot definitely recall doing it right, and I know I always WANT to call the D/S cylinder #1... even though I know darn well that its the P/S... I *should* be able to just rotate my spark plug wires all around 180 degrees and double check for this, right? the timing light was my uncles, and he is in the hospital right now so going to his place and borrowing his light again isnt really feasible... Sorry for the hijack, but this thread was what started making me nervous about this. Seriously, I CANT have done what I am talking about.. I just CANT.. but I cannot be sure without double checking now. My memory is rather good, but its not good enough to be able to recall whether I made a SUPER dumb mistake two months ago.

gotcha.. Well, I think I'm gonna get a cheapo sensor from the junkyard to check the theory first, and I plan on checking the one already in my car as was mentioned above. If I get a sensor that passes bench check and STILL don't resolve my problem or my code, then I am going to borrow the 25 to pick up the ECU from the boneyard.. For the longest time the tuning buttons on the OEM stereo only worked once in a GREAT while.. so i had to keep my stations set. Any time the battery got unhooked it took me days to weeks of pushing the buttons waiting for the up or the down to work, so I could re set the presets. SO, once or twice, when changing batteries, I played some games with two sets of jumper cables to maintain voltage to the stereo... So what I am saying is, I HAVE played stupid games with the battery cables, minor ones.. and "games with battery cables" fall under the category of "the very few things that can hurt these ECUs" Basically, I *do* have a decent explanation for why the thing may have gotten a tad frizzled..... I am almost tempted to pull it apart; but not yet. I dont have a chance to work on it monday or probably tuesday, but I will let everyone know what happens as it comes.

try gutting the cat, thats about all i have to say...