WoodsWagon

On an old car, making sure nothing is dragging like breaks, mufflers, bits of undercarriage can make a big difference. The brakes dragged hardcore on my beater legacy (you couldn't push it downhill) but it still kicked butt. SO if you make sure that everything spins easily, you're one step better. Take the intake snorkel off. There is a legacy 2towns over that has a mini hood scoop and a cone filter hooked up where the airbox used to be. Not sure how long the maf will last though, go with a paper element if you do something like that. exhaust. the headers aren't too bad, it's just the rest is too small. my exhaust fell off behind the cat, and it ran tits and sounded like a v8 at idle, then ripped your head off at 4+ grand. It was great. pulled hard enough to slip the clutch too. Ditch weight. If you ditch the ac condenser, hoses, compressor, reciever/dryer, insulation and carpets, and spare tires you can drop like 100lbs. Switch to tube doors and you saved yourself another 120lbs. Ditch the hatch and save more, though you will have to custom 3rd brake light and liscence plate. Alloy rims. If you save 10lbs a rim, that's weight that counts double or more because the engine doesn't have to immediately accelerate it. I'm looking for rims that Honda put on the civic HX because they weigh 8lbs less each than the stock steelies on the Civic si.

1992 loyale. Had pushbutton 4wd 5spd. 25mpg holding 80mph for 180 miles on 30" mud tires. Now getting around 12mpg with bent connecting rod and other issues.

Gl's to DL's = dual headlights. Other than that, mechanically identical. My vote? Legacy. You won't miss adding 50% more horsepower over the EA82's. More refined interior, less road noise. auto's aren't bad, though I snapped the shift cable on one of them doing lots of reverse-rev in neutral, drop in drive, back to nuetral revving and drop in reverse rocking of one stuck in a mudhole with only 3 cyls, so I don't trust the shift linkages as much. I have heard external oil coolars can help. Electrics wise, legacy's are more complicated. It seems just as reliable though. And the radio is nicer, as well as being a standard size and wiring if you want to replace it with aftermarket. Once you go offroad, you will find that in a legacy momentum/power and body damage make up for gears and clearance. The capability is impressive if you really don't care. I'm stripping the wiring harness apart on mine for my EJ22 swap and sand is packed in in mysterious places.

Take the pipe off, sandblast it down, and see how big the holes are. If they are just lots of pinholes, pour epoxy into the pipe so that it coats from the inside. move it around slowly to coat everything. Let it cure and paint it lots of times. Then reinstall and wait for the rest of the car to rust out.

They look like the 3 spokes that come on saab 9000 turbos from the early to mid 90's Do you think they were custom drilled from a blank?

I'm in the process of doing just what you questioned, stripping a usable legacy to put it's engine into a EA82 wagon. The legacy is a great car, and I will argue anyone into the floor who says they are not capable offroad. The interior is nicer and more modern, the radio bay is the right size for afermarket ones. They are queiter on the highway. Lots of nice things about legacys, but they just don't suit me. I don't like the way they look. Lift kits are new and expensive, and the tranny doesn't have low range. About handleing: I feel more in controll in my lifted loyale than in my dad's 95 legacy. I can't pinpoint what it is, but I feel better. The suspension is built stronger in the legacy's I belive, no strut rod, just a solid A arm. The seating position is perfect in the EA82 wagons. Nice and upright, like a pickup truck seat. I can't stand low and leaning back, I always end up sitting with my back off the back of the seat.

Well, I know the feeling of the engine hydrolocking in the middle of a pond and the silence, then running water as the car fills up. It sucks. So I'm making my own intake to replace the spfi one.

Which EA82 weel are we talking about here? There were different styles, some stonger than others, some more comforatle. Do you have a pic? Or a description of the style?

How many stickers are alloted for each car? I mean, can I put one on each quarter panel as well as the back?

I believe it was corky that had an rx with the bumper all sagged down on that side from the heat.

It's really easy to swap half the wiring on the tranny over. The pushbutton wireing should plug into the switches on the dual range tranny, except for the neutral switch if the d/r came out of a carb car. Only the 4wd will light up, the switch for the lo range is right at the 4wd lever and there is no hookups.

When I stripped out my 3-door, all that was left on it was the windshield, quarter windows, and the hated rusty jones sticker. That mofo doomed the car. All that undercoating did was hold the water to the car so it would rust faster.

#1 the engine is installed in the right direction. At least both the heads are equally dificult to work on, not one easy and the other buried under the dash. #2 rugged. Man these cars can take a beating and still go. How many other CARS will drive themselves out of the woods after being destructivly hydrolocked, then go another 50 miles after that without blowing up?

If you're planning to swap the WRX stuff in anyways, the origional engine size won't matter. The EJ18 in that impreza is a good engine, someone would want it for something. EJ25x were not in imprezas of that era, except 2.5RS's Which were not turbo's.

The compressor depends on oil in the R12. If you use it with plain air, it will run out of oil and die a painfull death. You could set up a system on the tank to separate the oil out of the air and drip it back into the intake of the compressor. Oily air is not good for tire rubbber.

The winch runs,and well. I bought an 8'x 2" strap with loops at both ends and a webbing shackle to use as a tree hook. I can loop that round a tree, hitch up the shackle, hook the winch to the shackle, and pull my self out without hurting the cable or the tree.

Check the timing belts. There are 2 rubber plugs on the front of the T belt case in the middle. Pull them out and stick your fingers in the holes and feel if the belts are under tension, then move on to fuel. Checking if it has spark does not mean neccecarily that the belt is broken. My dad's old car still sparked but the rotor didn't turn, and it sent him barking up the fuel pump tree for a while.

Well yes... It is true that having the switch open the circuit forces it into 4wd, and having it closed lets the normal AWD function. When you start the car you want the switch closed so that the self check checks out. So? Whats the warning? I though we went over most of this in the post in the New Gen forum.

Go to an auto parts store and buy a razor blade on a fold up hanlde. They sell them for removing inspections stickers and glue. Spray some of that glass cleaner in a white and blue arosol can on it, go wild with the razor blade, and it should all come off. Should take less than 20mins and is a lot cheaper than replacing the windows. I mean, so you just replace the floors in your house instead of mopping them?

The axel is most likely junk. If it pops out of the outboard joint, the joint is toast. I tried to pop one of those out before and ended up using a sledgehammer to shatter the cage that holds the balls in. The circlip is only on the inner (tranny side) joint. The force it took to break the joint also bunged up the threads on the end of the axel. Get a J/Y axel and swap it in.

When was the last time you changed the diff oil? If it came out mocha colored and soupy, you need to improve the diff breather. might be something to check. You can always use a tarp and cinderblocks to help make working under the car more comfortable. It's noisy, but at least it isn't whipping rain at you.

We lost what snow we had, and it sucks hardcore. I need at least a foot to build snomobile jumps. Whoever stole the snow should stop being stingy and give some back.

I'll see if i can when we get closer to the date. I may show up in the honda though. 1.6L of vtec madness seems a better road warrior than 1.8l of overheating bent and cracked noise.

I live in the bottom of NH. North of fitchburg mass if that helps anyone? Right now, I wouldn't venture more than a mile from my house with my car, can't trust the engine not to blow up with the bent connecting rod and all, but I will be out wheeling come springtime. It's darn hard to drag us northeasterners out of the woodwork. I tried and got stood up by like 3-4 people at the last minute. However, I'm not sure my car would be welcome back in northern vermont because of that trip. Just because I didn't see the police chasing us doesn't mean they weren't A western mass meet might be fun this spring.

No need to provoke hostility in the first place Picture junkies I put the winch on last night, it was a lot more work than I had expected because, unbeknownst to me the piece of scrap steel that I had used as the mount plate was hardened. Well, only on one side really, but the other side was pretty tough too. Luckily it wasn't air hardening steel, so I could temper it with my torch enough that I could just barely drill through it. Had to resharpen my bit twice, for 4 holes! It's just one of the risks of using scrap steel. My centerpoints shifted while I was drilling, because of the amount of force I was putting on it, so the winch is off by a bit. Oh well.