wentz912

What's the reason for the Oil Return line being a pain?

Haha, how much? They're in working order I should hope? What all does it take to even replace a turbo eh?

So, I've been working on purchasing an RX from my dad's neighbor. The year is unknown as of right now, but its only got 160k on it and it's the dual range, full-time 4wd:slobber:. My problem is that, according to the owner, the turbo is done. Seeing as how I don't know ANYTHING about working on/with turbo's:-\, I'm not entirely sure what to do. I called the local Subaru Stealership and a factory new replacement is $1300. So that option is out. So, what can I do? Can I just take off the turbo and use exhaust off of a non-turbo car? Or, as I think I've heard here on the board before, I can replace the EA82 turbo with one from a EJ series engine. What turbo do I need to find to do this and what all is involved with retrofitting the newer turbo or deleting the original from the system?

Ok, hate to open this discussion back up and all BUT. The neighbor guy that has this cheap RX doesn't know much about it other than it's supposedly got a turbo that's no good.(He got it in trade.) Seeing as how I'm not at all familiar with turbos of any kind, what do I need to look for once I actually get to look at the car for myself? All in all the car looks pretty good on the outside, might need a good wash/wax/buff due to slight mold but it appears to be rust free.

Thermal, I know on my side of the river (WA side) the laws say that as long as all seat belts are full, people can ride in the back of pickup type vehicles without a seat belt as long as they are 16 or older. I'll try to find the WRC for you...

so how much are you going to give him for it?

Now having read Bob's post there, I feel the need to mention that I can smell fuel from inside the car on startup. I hadn't realized that the two problems were possibly related, so I didn't mention it earlier.

Well i did go ahead and buy the whole head gasket "set" from Fel-pro, the one that's got like 20 something gaskets in it. The thing is, I'm not entirely sure that I'm comfortable with doing a head gasket on a Sub, with what all it entails and such with pulling the timing belts and re-timing it and all that sort of thing. And I don't want to start pulling stuff apart thinking I can do it and then not be able to finish it you know? Am I making this a bigger deal than it really is?

So what do you guys think I should do?

So my car was smoking a LOT and I was losing a lot of coolant really fast, and my exhaust smelled STRONGLY of antifreeze so I assumed that my head gaskets were toast. Right? NO Now we get to the interesting part. I filled it back up with coolant yesterday, put a new cap on the radiator......AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND VOILA! No smoke, no smell of antifreeze in the exhaust. So basically, wtf? I dunno what I did or if this is just a temporary thing.... Can anybody help me out?

On that last bit, where the light comes on while the t-case is in neutral, does it turn off if you put slight downward pressure on it? Cuz that's waht mine does, except I'm pulling to the rear since my shifter is shaped differently lol.

Is there anywhere that I can buy a complete rebuild kit or do I have to piece it together?

HA! I knew it! I was so totally right! BWAHAHA. So much for telling him to ignore me eh?

Haha trust me. Now that I've gotten the whole head gasket issue's ball rolling. It's only a matter of time until that RX will be MINE. Just gotta find some work first.

Well, it has been assumed that becuase of the way I'm losing coolant, that it wasn't leaking fast enough to be the head gasket. So we assumed that it was jsut a uber small hole somewhere in one of the heads. I'll give replacing the HG's a shot though.

Well ************. This is awesome. What does a new turbo even cost? Are they even readily available? I'm screwed if I haven't got a driveable car.

Are you sure you're pushing all the way forward on the shift lever? I know on my 86 GL wagon the light for "LO" range will come on before the shifter actually goes far enough forward for it to engage. You'll be able to feel/hear the same sort of click that you feel/hear between FWD and 4-HI when it actually engages into 4-LO

So by general consensus, I've gone and cracked a head in my 86 GL Wagon with a carb'd EA82. I know of an RX here locally that I could probably get for $300 because the Turbo on it is no good. So what I'm thinking I could/want to do is pull the engine out of the wagon and the RX both, then put one of the heads from the RX's engine onto the wagons engine, then put the wagon engine into the RX. This would result in my having a Carb'd EA82 in an RX until such time as I can afford to do an EJ22 swap with the RX, at which time I could put the EA82 back in my wagon and preceed to build into an off-road only type rig. Is this easily doable? I'm not positive, but I'm assuming that the RX is fuel injected? Will this cause any problems with the harness, etc when I try to put a carb'd engine into it?

thanks guys that's what I was worried about. gahdummit.

So am I correct in thinking that, until the problem is resolved, as long as I keep it full of coolant I should be ok and not damage anything?

Ok so not to totally hijack jesse's thread but.... My 86 GL wagon goes through nearly a full gallon of coolant per week! My heater also decides to come and go, can't seem to find anywhere where I'm leaking coolant. Replaced the NAPA t-stat with a factory sub one. It doesn't seem to smoke anymore when it's full of coolant than when I have to fill it back up again, it just likes to make the temp gauge inside the cab ride the little white line that seperates the "H" from the rest of it. The only other thing of merit that I can think of is that my overflow tank/coolant reservoir had all kinds of dirt and other crap in it. Can any of you guys help me out? I don't want my car to have eaten a head gasket.

Any word on this yet? My 86 does almost the same thing, gets REALLY hard to turn at the same amount of rotation to the right or left of center. Airing up the tires a bit helped, but its still really tough. And this is a SERIOUS damper on rally-ability of my super scoob. FYI, mines also Manual Steering and the column moves up and down within with little pressure applied to the wheel.

Much obliged Scoob, thanks for the time.

Please post up some pictures of what HD mufflers you used. My dad along with most of the guys he knows all ride HD's so I know there has GOT to be at least a handful of spare mufflers lying around.

Thanks again mates! Now I've jsut got to find a Subi dealership...