WagonsOnly

The hard part is going to be finding one that's already been rebuilt, or one that's had a blown gasket and is being sold cheaply enough to warrant the repair. I'd just as soon steer clear of the whole Phase 1 mess and wait until the Phase IIs become more widely (and affordably) available.

The easiest way to tell whether or not it's in 4WD (short of putting it on a lift) is to turn the wheel to near-full lock position and see if the car is more prone to stalling. Do NOT do this on pavement! The 4WD mechanism will cause your wheels to try to spin at the same speed--this can make the car feel like it's bogging down a little bit on a dirt/grass surface when going through a tight turn. You won't notice this when it's in 2WD. (Attempting to do the above on dry pavement, and discovering that your car IS going into 4WD, may cause your tranny to bind. This is not recommended under any circumstances. You are forewarned.)

Is the lag the same amount of time when shifting from Park to Reverse? And is it the 3AT or the 4EAT?

Because if everything is normal the wheel shouldn't turn at all. The parking brake applies pressure to the front wheels. I wouldn't worry about driving it in RWD for a while. Moosens must have about 3K on a bad axle by now...my mom's GLF has had a bad one since we got it at 144K, it now has 151K on it and it's still complaining royally but hasn't given in yet. (It's only 2WD though--when it pops it's done for.)

None whatsoever. Your best bet would probably be a '99 or '00 Forester for under ten grand, or wait until the new gen Legacy/OB comes out this fall. The price of the previous (right now the current, at least in North America) generation should fall within reach. Stay away from the '00 models, though--I've heard bad things about their brake setup. (The brakes were too small for the car, especially with the added weight of the auto tranny and OB suspension.)

According to Steve (TROGDOR!) they're very tough on rust down there.

JCWhitney has them for 2,3,4,5,6,8,10 and 12-cyl. engines. You just have to dig through their catalog. (And not everything in their catalog is on their website.) But since it's a Justy...just get an RS or GL dash. It was meant to be a sleeper. As for Chilton's manuals--the Chilton manual for '85-'94 L-series cars doesn't cover the Gen 1 Justy, and most of the wiring diagrams for the first two model years of Justies are different from the '89 and later cars. Unfortunately they changed more than sheet metal. An FSM would probably be your best bet.

It's not fair if you put them on a real STi.

If you want a tach I recommend a gauge cluster out of an '88 (first and only year) Justy RS. It matches the interior very nicely and bolts up no problem. (This is assuming you wanted a sleeper.) Since the Justy had a very limited market in the US, no one that I know of makes a repair manual for it. Chilton's may have, for British markets, but I'm not sure. If you get an overseas manual, make sure it's for pre-1996 Justys. 1996 and later models share components with the Suzuki Swift/Geo Metro, were not available in the US, and are absolute junk. And I don't think your Weber will fit, but I'm not sure. With some creative reengineering I'm sure it could--but with an I3 instead of an H4 layout I think it would probably be more trouble than it's worth. (There's also a huge displacement discrepancy.)

Be better to put it on non-Subaru vehicles. You know, like a "My other car is..." deal. I think it would go quite nicely on minivans and domestic pickup trucks. Especially with the fluorescent pink edging:)

Indeed there is...the only problem is that it's in Japanese. (It's a racing club for Japanese 360 owners.) There are some great pictures there though.

Hondasucks, can you edit your post? The club URL is http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Garage/5360 .

That's right, one more year and I'd have 25 horsies under the backseat instead of 16...oh well. I also have two '69 parts cars and a '70 Sambar rolling chassis.

But I don't want a step up. I want weird. People have already compared the new look to Porsches, Alfas, BMWs, Fords and Buicks. What would you compare an XT to? The rear sort of looks like an Alfa 164--but on the whole there has been and probably will be nothing comparable on the market. The new ones look...like plain vanilla Hertz Rent-A-Cars.

Subafreak, they only inspect cars for safety here if you own a car previously titled in a different state. So if you buy a car with a Conn. title you can register it without going through Safety at all. Emissions only (and that's only when they clear the backlog). The fee is 20 bucks for 2 years, with an additional 20 dollar late fee if you miss the test date.

The old ones were "ugly" in the eyes of the general public, and auto reviewers. The new ones are just mainstream. I like driving something that looks like nothing else on the road, not a Bimmer that looks like a Benz that looks like an Audi that looks like....you get the idea. And that's the market Subaru is targeting.

If you want to hear piston slap from a Subaru, find a Stage II EJ25 with 50+K on it... I second the lifters. Don't worry about it, most older Soobs make a tcking noise like a diesel. It adds to their character.

We're complaining because it looks like an ugly encounter between an Aston and a Porsche. Perhaps Subaru customers buy cars because they care about function over form? I, for one, like the "ugliness" of my Subarus. They're frumpy little boxes on wheels and I want them to stay that way.

Get the Forester, your dogs will have more head room:)

Thank God for that. Who styled the latest Imprezas and Legacies? Weren't they on the drawing board before Zapatinas showed up? Anyone out there know?

YUCK! If they wanted Subarus to look distinctive they never would've cancelled the XT... or the RX.... or the EA81 body style...or all the other cars they ever HAD that didn't look like anything else on the road. Instead they bring in "upmarket" designers from Alfa... If they put that in production I'm going over to VW. The AWD+boxer engine isn't everything. Edit: Isn't this why Saab is in the toilet? Because GM alienated the owner base over function AND FORM? (The TrailBlazer sure doesn't look like a Saab to me, even with the griffin on the hood. Same goes for the Impreza. Er, I mean 9-7 and 9-2X.)

That's not as bad as it looked when you posted the pics with the tree still on top of it... A JY hatch might be cheaper than fixing it. Especially if you can find someplace that'll take yours as a trade.

Of course:D My '99 Forester (Phase II 2.5) is around 3200 @ 75. But it's a 5-speed. (For some reason the 5-speeds are geared shorter than the 4EATs.) My mom's '82 GLF turns 4000 at 70--but that's with a 3-speed auto slushbox. So by comparison Subaru is getting better.

Paul, if you need tires I have a brand-new set of 185s, mounted on steelies, that I'll trade for a crappy set. They only have about 200 miles on them, but I don't want to see them dry rot. (They're on my project turbo wagon.) Scott, we've met through email. I missed the Vermont JY run a couple months ago that you and Paul went on...hopefully I'll make the next one. And I'm not quite as bad as he says I am...at least one other person was planning on coming to his Xmas party after I said I'd go.

The 4sp auto tranny came on '88 XTs and XT6es. It was the only auto tranny for that and subsequent years. It was a step up from the 3AT in '88 and '89, so it was somewhat rarer (and only available on GL10 models). I don't think it ever made it into a 3-door from the factory. As for the console, it's exactly the same as the 3AT: 3AT = P-R-N-D-2-1 4EAT=P-R-N-D-3-2 and has a button just aft of the console marked 1HOLD. This is the first-gear lock in. It would be the same as 1st gear on the console, only since (1) Subaru already had the tooling for the consoles and (2) the tranny was electrically controlled, they decided to put a knockout on the console and add the button for the few 4EATs that were sold. I have no idea what/where/how these transmissions were available on Loyales after 1990, but I know they were used in the XT until 1991 and adapted for use in the Legacy and SVX later on.