CornerHard

The car cranks normally when cold, and all other electrical accessories work fine, so I don't think it's a battery issue. By "cold", I mean the coolant is not up to normal operating temperature, such as when I first get into the car in the morning. The car runs perfectly once warmed up, and my weber 32/36 is only about 3,000 miles old, so I doubt it needs a rebuild. As far as I know, the 32/36 doesn't have an anti-dieseling solenoid, and dieseling is a big problem for the car since adding the carb. I've heard that you can add them on after the fact, which I'm definitely interested in. I will have to check though.

My GL has been getting hard to start recently, despite me not changing anything on it in the months since I've installed the Weber. Once warm, it will start fine, but the car usually will not start by cranking when cold. However, if I crank it briefly, then compression start it by rolling downhill, I can get it going. Sooner or later I'm going to have to park someplace flat, though, so I'd like to figure out what's going on. Anyone have any idea where to look? I'd like to get a timing gun and make sure the timing is good, since the car will usually diesel when shutting it off hot. Thx

Kudos to you! I've been trying to find a FSM for my 83

Do I have to call Subaru to find out the manufacture date from my VIN, or is there a decoder online? I don't have a door jam sticker

Hmm, I haven't seen any fluid leakage, and I've checked the PS fluid regularly. My car has 270k miles on it, so I wouldn't be surprised if the rack is just expired

The blue part is what is moving up and down. So it sounds like my options are to try disassembling my steering rack somehow and replacing the bearings, or just getting another one.

It sounds like I will need to buy a timing light and check my ignition timing. I work around my dieseling for now by going WOT as I turn the car off. I guess once the spark cuts, there's enough unburned fuel to drown out the dieseling when the RPMs come back down.

It looks like I may be the exception to the rule. :-\ I took the boot off, and the tie rod end looks just fine. However, if I move the front driver's side wheel left and right, the rack itself moves vertically up and down, allowing the tie rod to move a bit in and out. Is there anything serviceable in the steering rack, or am I stuck spending $250 for a new one? To clarify, this is the interior rack of the steering system. The out housing you can see without taking anything off looks fine.

How do you get the tie rod boots off without cutting them? Is there some trick? The inside portion of the tie rod seems too large to slide the rubber boot over. Sorry, I'm new to steering rack/tie rod work It appears the front driver's side is the side that has the main problem. How do I tell if the steering rack itself has an issue?

Also, looking up steering racks in junkyards online requires me to specify whether my GL is 3/83 and earlier or 4/83 and later. How do I tell which I have? Are they incompatible?

It appears my steering rack is loose on my EA81, and I'm curious how to go about servicing it or if I need to replace it. Here are the symptoms: - The car likes to wander on the highway, and there's a dead zone in the middle of the steering travel where you can wiggle the steering wheel back and forth but almost nothing happens - If I jack the front end of the car up, I can wiggle the front wheels left and right a little bit with my hands. If you look at the steering components while doing this, it appears the problem is somewhere past the tie rod boot. - The visible portions of the tie rods appear just fine, and move perfectly with the wheels - The steering u-joint under the hood appears old, but fine if I wiggle the steering wheel back and forth while looking at it - If I wiggle the steering wheel back and forth with the car parked, I can hear a slight "clunk, clunk" from the steering rack area - The power steering fluid looks normal and does not leak I've never replaced or serviced a steering rack before, so all information is useful. Thanks!

After fiddling with the idle mixture as mentioned earlier in the thread, I'm now getting 24mpg. Next step is removing roof rack, trying a higher tire pressure, and fixing weird front end alignment issues, which are probably ruining my mileage as well as tires.

Wow, I need to work on my setup! I average about 20mpg. I suppose I should start by removing the roof rack I never use.

Okay, after consulting my weber documentation, I found the idle mixture adjustment screw. Now I just need to read up on how to set it properly To clarify: the throttle doesn't close all the way, even when the engine is warmed up fully. I have the electric choke hooked up on the carb, and it works just dandy.

Thanks for the detailed replies! After closer inspection and fiddling, the throttle cable doesn't appear to be the limiting factor. The throttle plate will move freely, but it won't normally rest all the way against the idle adjust screw, keeping the throttle a bit too far open. I can close it all the way with my hand and a bit of pressure, but it seems like it's sticking in that last degree or two of movement. Is there something I need to adjust inside the carb? It doesn't seem like a problem that would be solved by just spraying lube on the mechanism. I'll have to search around for how to set idle mixture on the weber. I assume it's one of the screws on the carb.

Simple question: I have the spare, the pry bar, and the stock jack. Where would the stock lug wrench be? I could go out and get one from a junkyard, but I'm not sure where I'm supposed to store it on my car.

I've recently installed a Weber 32/36 on my EA81 GL, and I've had a variety of issues with it, such as: - engine diesels for a couple seconds when I shut the car off - the coolant passage that connects to the underside of the carb appears to leak a bit - when the car is cold and idling, sometimes it will try to die The main issue of this thread, however, is the throttle cable. I was able to cut the upper throttle spring mount off my old hitachi and bolt it to the weber, so the throttle return spring works just dandy. However, because the location of the weber is closer to the middle of the car and farther forward, the throttle cable is stretched to the limit. I had to remove the firewall-side thottle adjuster nut to get the throttle cable as close as possible to the carb, and it still has enough tension that I can't adjust my idle any lower than 1500rpms. Are there any other adjustment points or tricks I can do to get a couple more centimeters of throttle cable play? Bonus question - is there a guide to altering the air/fuel mixture on the weber? It'd be fun to hook my wideband up to my Subaru and see if I can get the fuel curves adjusted properly.

It's a 1983 EA81. The fuel filter is fresh, you can see plenty of fuel in the bernoulli tubes, smell fuel on the plugs after lots of starting attempts, etc. Fuel being there isn't the problem, but maybe there's too much? I've sprayed down the choke bits with carb cleaner and tried starting with it completely shut and propped completely open. I'm not sure what else to try at this point. Yes, I've tried using starter fluid and it didn't really have any effect, which seemed a bit odd. There's plenty of fuel getting into the cylinders though, judging by the plugs.

I've searched a bunch on the forum and have been playing around with the car for a couple weeks now trying to get my EA81 running, but with not much luck. Since I've gotten my car, it's been gradually harder and harder to start when cold. One morning, it finally wouldn't start at all. It has plenty of fuel, new fuel filter, spark at plugs, turns over easily, etc. I've been able to get it started a couple times, and once it's warmed up, it runs perfectly, so I'm pretty sure the problem is with the choke. The only way I've been able to get it started is to crank the car a ton of times, taking several minute breaks between attempts to play around with propping the choke open with a screwdriver. Perhaps my A/F is too rich when cold? I don't think it's just the choke, though, since the car doesn't really want to start no matter which angle I prop the choke plate at. Possibly related: my car doesn't do the high-idle warm up when you start it up. Instead it just stumbles a bit at ordinary idle RPM unless you manually hold the idle high a bit to get it warmed up. Which element of the carb should I be looking at? The float bowl? Are there any guides to playing around with it?

I read up a bit on carbs today and took the air filter cover off my EA81 to play around and see what was inside. Searching on here for more info didn't turn up too much about the stock Hitachi carb other than it being complicated. So, looking down the top of the carb, there are two barrels. Only the bottom one has a choke, and the top one's throttle body only opens just barely at WOT. I tried propping the choke open and starting the car to see what would happen, and there was a spray of fuel out the throttle body and a lot of noise I let the throttle body close, and for the first time ever, my EA81 went into fast idle mode After letting the car warm up fully, the choke opened by itself. I played around with the throttle, and the fuel going into the bottom barrel was readily visible, but the top barrel would still only slightly crack open at WOT, with no noticable fuel going in. Questions: 1) Why does my top throttle body (the one with no choke) only barely open at WOT? How much is it supposed to open? It seems like I'm losing a lot of potential performance here if I'm only using half the air intake. 2) What could be stopping my car from going into fast idle mode? Why did it go into fast idle after starting the car with the choke manually propped open?

First off, you guys rock I've never seen such a collection of helpful replies when I first join a car forum. I guess old school Subie guys are just cool that way :cool: So Monday night I replaced the fuel filter and checked the spark, but didn't have any luck getting it to start. Tuesday night after reading this thread, I poked around a bit to see where hoses hook up to the carb, then was able to get it to start after a couple attempts by cranking it at WOT It seems to be fine now. Maybe the fuel filter + WOT start to air flooded cylinders was the answer? Over time the car has been getting gradually harder to start in the morning when it sits overnight. I don't know if the problem was solved by the fuel filter, or if it will continue to crop up. - How do I clean the carb? Is there a how-to guide w/ pics on a Subie site somewhere? - When I would drive up the mountain pass last snow season, if I was heavy on the throttle for too long, the car would eventually start sputtering, lose power, and die. I'd have to sit by the side of the road for a while before it would start up again with full power. - Other older subies I've driven hold their RPMs above 2k for a bit after first starting to warm up. Mine doesn't do that. Is this normal? - Where is the engine speed sensor for the tach located on the engine? Once in a while, my tach starts spazzing out, even though the engine is running fine. Thanks!

Yep, that was one of the reasons I decided to buy one

Hello, I have a 1983 Subaru GL 5Dr wagon (EA81?) which recently stopped starting. It: - Cranks - Has fuel (plugs covered in plenty of fuel after cranking) - Has spark during cranking - Won't start even if I take the air filter cover off to allow direct air to the throttle body What should I check next? Some sort of carbureator issue? I'm new to the carb world, so helpful resources would be nice Are there any online manuals with torque specs and info such as where the oil pressure sender is located? Thanks