Snowman

So here's my story from last weekend: A friend calls me at work, saying that her daughter was driving their 88 sedan into town (they live 39 miles out the highway), and it died at 15 mile. I talked to her daughter, who is ridiculously hot by the way, and ascertained that it was probably a toasted clutch, since it was close to time for one anyway. Armed with all the tools needed to tear the car apart on the spot, as well as a tow strap, another friend and I drove out to where the car was stranded. I stuck it in 4 low to get back on the road and it drove fine. After putting it back in 2wd, I took off down the highway, feeling a tiny bit of slippage at times. I made it to town before the slippage suddenly made it impossible to drive. We then towed the car to my house. I replaced the clutch with a good used one that had lots of miles left in it, which took just a few hours via the engine-pull method. The old one was okay, but it looked like the pressure plate might be quite weak. After that, I started it up and backed out of the driveway, or tried to, that is. SAME THING!!! The exact same metallic sort of noise and no motion of the car. I then remembered that it went fine in 4 lo, so I put it in, trying to rule out any weird tranny issues. It did indeed go just fine, so I tried 4wd, and it went great in 4wd. Then I put it back in 2wd and no go. I then jacked up the front and turned the wheels to check for any strangeness there. Well, I thought it was pretty strange that the driver's side wheel spun but the castle nut stayed put. It turns out that the splines in that hub were completely gone! It took me half and hour to replace the hub and boogie down the road again. I would attribute the failure to improper torque on the nut after a CV axle change, which occurred about six months prior, just enough time for that loose hub to wobble about and destroy itself. Anybody ever hear of this? I thought it was rather odd.

That's quite impressive. My piston had more damage, as it was broken away past where the oil ring resides, but your block damage extened a lot farther forward into the water passage area.

Sweeet! Now I'll have time to go scrounge some RX tail lights! And maybe even get some sleep! (Yeah right:lol: .) Some of you guys are worried about not knowing anybody? I'm flying down from AK, where I have personally met TWO board members. Then I'm getting picked up by Andrew (Hondasucks), who I will be meeting for the first time at the airport, thank you SOOOOOOO MUCH DUDE!!!! Then I hope to meet everyone else in person for the first time at the show. I CAN'T WAIT!

Haven't tried them myself, and here's why: 1. Look at Fram's other products. Everybody I've talked to about oil filters says that Fram is crap. 2. Just changing your air filter won't make much difference. 3. If I was going to just change my air filter, I would not use a K&N or similar product because they allow larger particles through. For example, a K&N will allow particles through that are 30 microns in size. My Unifilter pod filter that is sitting on my custom intake passes particles smaller than 1 or 2 microns. You may think that as long as the big stuff gets taken out it's okay, but that's not the case. Caterpillar diesel fuel pumps failed in droves when they ran on 3rd world diesel with 15 micron filters. After switching to 2 micron filters, the pumps lasted exponentially longer.

OUCH!!!! From a rod-throwing veteran, I give my condolences to you and your car. Sounds like it'll work out OK though, so I guess I'll see you at the show.

Thanks for all the advice guys! It sounds like the way to go is remove both heads and have the better set done up at a machine shop. No milkshake motor that I know of, since they blew in one castastrophic overheat where most of the water was lost. That probably takes care of water sitting in the cylinders as well. Swapping heads or a complete rebuild is NO PROBLEM for me. In the last six months, I've rebuilt two ea82s, pulled several of them, did a head gasket and valve lap on a 39 Packard Straight Eight, a head gasket on a 50 DeSoto, head gaskets on a 7.5L Ford in a van, and head gaskets on a 427 in a tour bus. I guess the real deciding factor is if I'm going to keep the car or sell it as soon as it's in good running order. If I want to keep it as my road car (No, I'm NOT trying to copy SubaruTex:lol: ), then a rebuild is probably the way to go. If it's getting sold, then probably just HG's and some machine work to make sure they last. I think this will be decided during my next three 750-mile trips in Roxanne, my now-lifted wagon (I just did the first, and it was OK but not superb). If she's okay with that, I'll drop in an EJ22 next summer, but if not, I'll make the RX my highway car.

I am now the owner of an 89 RX, oh yeah!!!!!!!!! I'm not sure if I'll keep it for my road car or sell it for some $$$. Now the bad part: The reason I got the car is that it has had ongoing cooling issues and I'm pretty sure it eventually blew both head gaskets. It cranks fine but doesn't even try to fire, and I tested #1 and #4 and got compression readings of less than 50 psi. There are several options that I'm considering. At a bare minimum, I could do the head gaskets and have the heads resurfaced. However, the heads are likely cracked if it got that hot. I could get the heads off of the spare engine that comes with the car, which should be rebuildable by a machine shop. I don't know their exact condition, but I think that engine had a burned valve or something. New heads are also an option, but rather pricey. By this point, I would be considering a total rebuild, since it wouldn't take much more time. That would be in the $1000-$1200 range though. What I'm wondering is if it's likely that there is any damage inside the short block from getting that hot, or at worst, could the block be toast as well? Finally, we come to the option of just replacing the mofo. A CCR engine would be close to $2000 by the time I was all done, and I will be lucky to get $2600 for the car (we've got a pretty high-priced market here). What about junkyard engines? I've never tried that, but it seems like kind of a hit or miss thing, and it's not easy to come by good turbo soobs in AK yards. I might be able to get a cheap engine in WA and ship it here, which would make total cost under $800 or so. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I've got plenty of time to come up with a course of action, since I won't be able to even start taking stuff apart until Christmas break. I mainly want the car to get a good engine that will be trouble free for some time, while still being able to profit a little bit if I sell the car. Thanks.

Hey Mick, sorry I didn't get you a check yet, I totally spaced it. Are you going to WCSS6? If so, I could just pay you in cash then, as it would take nearly that long to get a check to you from AK.

Man, I'm sorry to hear about that. Some people.....

Hmmmm.... I'd better go test out my top-end performance since I just swapped out the standard weber air cleaner for a custom-made snorkel a lot like the one you had on there. Mine uses a larger chamber above the carb though, so turbulence may not be an issue. I'll report my findings.

I bought my plane ticket yesterday (got a great deal), and I'm getting a ride from PDX to Hood River with Andrew (Hondasucks). Alas, it just won't work out to drive down for this one, so I'll try to take a bunch of pics of my soobs and bring them with me.

I just have to complain about how lame it is to change spark plugs in my mom's 97 OBW with the 2.5!!!!! It must have taken me almost an hour to change the plugs and wires today. I can see why it had what were probably the same plugs that were in it when she bought the thing with 30,000 miles on it. I'm gonna chuckle the next time I take the plugs out of my ea82:lol: . Don't kill me for saying it in this forum, but ya' gotta love the old school 'roos.

Snowman Kelly Huff PO 347 Haines, AK 99827 Two white USMB logo decals please, normal. I'll send a check.

As for which wax: One of my jobs is detailing five classic cars 1939-1950 that are owned by a tour company, so I've got a little experience here. If you're looking for pure, unadulterated, good-looking shiny paint, you can't beat Mother's California Gold Carnuba Cleaner Wax. That stuff just plain rocks. The only reason I don't use it on my car is that it doesn't stay shiny for long periods of time. This is where a product called Nu-Finish comes in. It doesn't have quite the same show-car shine as Mother's, but it's still darn close, and more importantly, I can apply it in the spring, dirty and wash my car without re-waxing all summer, and it still looks great in the fall. I usually apply the stuff once or twice a year, and I use it on some other cars that I detail for friends with great success.

There's got to be somebody who works at a soob dealer in this crowd. Please PM me if you do. I need a little help with something. Mods: You can move this thread wherever you want if you don't think this is where it should go. I can't really decide, so I'll leave it up to you. Thanks!

Hey, I need to get a key for an 89 GL wagon. I took the rear gate lock out of my parts car and put it in one that I sold, and I don't have any keys to the parts car. I tried the subaru dealer in Juneau, but they said they can only release key codes for cars that they have sold. What can I do?

Hmmm.... my family has always used Fram filters with no ill effects to date. I have personally switched to Purolator on my soob just because they are apparently better and with the beatings my car takes, that's a good thing. If for some reason you want Fram filters, I know they exist for these cars. I've seen and used their air filters, and the oil filter is PH3682 if I remember correctly.

Hmmm, I guess I'd start out with sending the cam to Delta for a regrind. After that, you might try running either EA71 or EA82 SPFI pistons to bump up your compression a bit. I've got the cam/piston combo in my ea82 and it seems to work quite nicely. You might shave the heads, but with that on top of higher-comp pistons, you might not get away with running pump gas. Most people will have their engines balanced a blueprinted when doing this sort of thing, but that isn't really necessary with a subaru engine since they are built pretty precisely to begin with.

Actually, I think this guy might not be off his rocker. It does sound too good to be true, but it looks like, at least without knowing precisely what the thing does, this thing may net the fuel savings that it claims. Now, what I think they are doing is placing manifold vacuum, albeit dramatically reduced manifold vacuum that is controlled by some device, on the float bowl. So, what would this do? It regulates the air/fuel mixture according to some parameter. Crazy you say? Black magic? If that's the case, then why are similar products manufactured and sold for use on snowmobiles that allow the rider to change the fuel/air ratio in accordance with altitude and temperature changes? I'm just guessing here, but I think that's what this thingamabob does, and I think there's a possibility that they are on to something here.

Thanks! I'll try (very gently) to get that out and see what happens.

Hey all, I finally got my lift done tonight, well basically done since Roxanne is drivable. I've got a bit of a problem though. Okay, so the rear struts are now mounted by horseshoe-shaped bits of steel. I'm not positive I've done this right. Right now, the strut is bolted to the BACK of the horseshoe thing, which is bolted to the stock strut mount holed. Previously, I had the strut bolted to the FRONT. My problem is that the struts are angled out if they hang freely, thought they can be forced into the bottom mount. This was worse with the struts bolted to the front of the mounts, but it's still quite apparent now. The problem that arises is that I think the struts are binding. They are REALLY stiff, and there is a bit of an unpleasant noise over bumps on occasion. So, did I do this right? The directions were not all that clear. Any help would be excellent.

I would just throw out my idea of what a "subaru person is", both to help you out and to see if I've got it right. When I think of subaru peoplem, no matter if they've got a '79 wagon or an '04 WRX, aside from people that own them solely for reasons of AWD, decent fuel economy, needing a family car, etc., the "subaru person" is the car enthusiast who is practical. He/she loves to drive hard and fast on a regular basis, but needs that same car to haul the kids around, make weekend runs to Home Depot, and in so many cases, blast through several feet of snow during the winter. This person isn't a watered-down car nut, but one that realizes that there is a car that is both a blast to drive while being able to do everything else, while still not giving you a heart attack at the gas pump. Basically, soccer mom by day, Petter Solberg by night.

Hey all! I'm driving my mom's 97 legacy outback wagon while lifting my 86 wagon, and all of a sudden the stereo went wonkey. It won't do anything to speak of. I can turn it on and hear some noise from the speakers indicating that it turned on, you know that little sound when you turn on the power. The display works fine, displaying the time as normal, and I can get the TPS and Dolby indicators to come on. Aside from that, nothing. It won't even eject my CD adapter! Does anybody have a clue what the heck is going on here? This just happened all of a sudden when I tried to turn it on. I would like to fix this before my mom gets back in two days, so any help would be awesome. Thanks.

I love it! Seriously, that's sort of what I'm turning into, but not as fast as you are going about it. I really hope that works out for you, and I'm sure you'll provide a great business model that I can hopefully follow.

Sweet, it all bolted together nicely in the end. The struts are kind of a pain to get onto the ball joints now, but that's a small price to pay for the awesomeness to come. WOOHOOO! I can hardly contain myself! It should be done late tomorrow or early thursday, just in time to drive to Whitehorse for 27" BFG A/T's and alignment. I think I'm gonna go to bed now, since I have to get up to go to work in four and a half hours.