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The horsepower an torque of an EJ22 aren't enough to really cause wear issues. Its just not that much power where you run into issues like pounded out main bearings. The other piece that makes these so reliable is that the redline is low. High rpm operation is anothing item that causes increased wear, but the Subaru's redline is pretty low. Fuel use is another item. Your engine will get notably worse fuel economy if it is accelerated at wide open or near wide open throttle. This is because at part and mid throttle, the engine management computer will work to keep the AF at a 14.7:1 ratio, to run as cleanly as possible. Very light/no throttle will be much leaner. However, the engine management switches to "open loop" mode when it approached full throttle. It ignores the 02 sensor (which is inaccurate unless the AF is close to 14.7) and instead runs of a preprogrammed map at around 12:1 for maximum power. So, at full throttle, not only is your engine injecting the maximum amount of air and fuel, it is also getting proportionally more fuel than it would get at half throttle.

Ok. So I'm getting code 33 for both the ECU and TCU. My tach and fuel gauge also don't work, but the speedo DOES. Looking at posts here, it seemed clear cut that the VSS in the speedometer was bad, because according to some posts, that is ALWAYS the issue if the speedo is getting a signal. So I changed clusters and am having the exact same issue. No tach, VSS code, and no fuel gauge. What is funny is that as I was driving home from buying a new instrument panel, something happened and the tach, fuel gauge, and VSS started working (I know it started working because the CEL went out). Looking at schematics, it shows the tach and fuel gauge sharing the same ground, and I'm sure the VSS does too. BUT WHERE IS THE BODY GROUND? I'm sure this is the issue.

They don't release, its just the torque difference generated by the wheels spinning at 2 speeds on normal pavement is enough to overcome the clutch pressure. This makes a positraction rear end suck somewhat on snow and ice, because the wheel doesn't unlock in turns when both wheels have low traction, which will commonly fishtail the rearend.

I'm sorry, what? There is no rapid disengagement, or really any engage/disengage action in a posi rearend. Clutch packs are given constant spring pressure to keep both axles rotating at the same speed. If the difference in traction is enough to overcome the holding force of the clutch packs, the diff will slip. If there is not enough force, it won't. The spring pressure doesn't change or release. Perhaps you are thinking of a locking rearend? Those would function like you are describing. But locking rearends don't need limited slip additive. Nor do Torsen rearends, which function with a worm gear. The additive is only needed in limited slip rearends that employ clutch packs. The chatter happens because the clutch binds, then gives and then binds again instead of having a smooth action, not unlike what happens with torque bind.

For many years, GM "positraction" rearends used a limited slip differential that engaged via clutch packs, much in the same manner as the differentials work in AWD subarus. However, the diff fluid would cause the clutch to be grabby, leading to shudders and differential chatter when going around corners as the clutch packs wouldn't release. The solution is limited slip additive. This is not a gear oil, it is exactly what it says it is- a friction modifier.

Ok, how to I go about removing the instrument panel?

By looking at other threads on VSS, I should point out that my speedometer works.

Ok, so the legacy I just bought has a CEL on all the time, but seems to drive fine. I also noticed the "power" light flashed at startup. Which I didn't think anything of it (thought it was normal) until I read the boards and saw all the posts about torque bind. Convinced I had just bought a car that would shortly need a new transmission I checked the codes. ECU- 22- Knock sensor 33- Vehicle Speed Sensor Transmission- 33- Speed Sensor. Phew! No solenoid C code! So anyways, can anybody help me with where the knock and VSS are? I'm making the assumption that the VSS is shared by both the TCU and ECU and thus the common code in both.

I strongly doubt it is using a cable for the tach. Certainly you are thinking of the speedometer?

At night, the backlights for the tach and speedometer will intermittently turn on and off- many times triggered by me using the turn signal. I take it this is the rheostat on the signal stalk? Can I bypass the resistor and hotwire it so the illumination is always full bright? Or is there an easier solution? Is the stalk (or rheostat) an easy thing to change? If the hotwire idea is the right one, anybody know what the correct wires are?

Ok, so I just bought a 1990 Subaru Legacy AWD. The car runs great, and i got it for a song ($900). It has a couple of issues I am trying to track down. First and foremost, The tach does not work- it just sits at 0. So, in the interests of tracking this down... Where does the tach signal come from? The engine or the ECU? Is this a common thing? If so, what's the usual culprit?

I have 4 jetskis, and my wagon has been the tow vehicle. Tow vehicle and hauler- If I am using all 4, 3 go on the trailer and my Kawasaki X-2 goes in the hatch. Simply awesome.

I got one at my local checker, although they had to go to a catalog to find it. The systems didn't give them a part listing. Still, once they idenitifed it, they had it in stock.

I figured it out. It is under the kick panel immediately under the steering wheel/fuse area. You should take the screws off to lower the entire panel. It is up near the steering area. You will see several cylindrical relays up there, held in with spring clips. It is one of those. I just started swapping relays (they are all the same part)until my heater fan kicked on, and replaced the one that was in there. No more heater issues

This is why you will be hard pressed to find anything more than a class 1 hitch kit for an EA-82, with a maximum toungue weight of 100 lbs, and trailer weight of around ~1000. It isn't so much the drive train that is the limiting factor as the fact that an EA-82 simply does not have any real meat in back to connect a hitch to. There is no real box frame back there. On a typical truck, you have a 3/8" or thicker steel box frame to bolt or weld a hitch to. On a subaru, you have maybe a 1/4" piece of stamped sheet metal, and then typical kits will have you drill mount holes in the bumper, which is about the same thickness. The bumper on pre 1986 EA 82's won't even take a hitch, as it is very, very flimsy- something like 1/16" thick (almost as bad as a disposable turkey tray). All of that said, I typically tow a single jet ski that comes in around 700 lbs all told with the trailer with my 1986 EA 82 wagon. WIth that, it does fine- it is really like it isn't there. But, because there is simply not enough meat back there to take the stress of larger loads, I would not go much over 1000. Losing a trailer on the highway is a bad, bad deal.

Where is the fan relay?

I have the exact same problem. Heater fan works for the first few minutes of operation, then if you turn the car off, no fan. I also happen to have an 86. Mind telling me where exactly the relay is? I would like to limit what I have to take apart to find it. Also, any chance the relay is a autozone/pepboys/checker/etc part?

No kidding. When I first noticed the leak, I was planning on doing what I do with most oil leaks- checking the oil every few days and adding as needed until spring comes around. What I didn't realize is that the oil behind the cam seal is not leaking from the return side, its leaking from a supply side. Plus, once it starts to leak, it is going to make itself worse and worse, as the seal will continue to shred itself. At first, its going to aereate the oil in that head, and as it gets worse the head will get less and less in the way of oil. As a result of the leak, I found... 1. Cam seal housing completely stuck with the cam on the bearing surface. It would not break free of the cam even with a prybar applying enough force to break the housing in 3 pieces. The bearing area of the seal is still stuck fast to that cam. 2. Destroyed camshaft housing. The journals looked like somebody took 40 grit at 30,000 rpm to them for 8 or 9 hours. Heavily, DEEPLY scarred/melted. I don't know why the camshaft hadn't siezed. 3. Camshaft with trashed bearing surfaces, looking like the counterparts to the above. 4. Chewed up rocker arms. Not so bad as the camshaft, but they all showed heavy wear and had rough areas you could feel with your finger. I replaced them with ones I snatched from the junkyard. 5. Lifter tick- Before changing the seals, the lifters on that side would tick on startup for 15-20 seconds. I would also hear a faint tick once the car had got up to operating temp. That is now gone, even though the lifters have not been touched.

The big negatives as I see it are the lack of a dual range and lack of a turbo. Consider that 1 of those 2 is probably the main reason that people on this site bought their vehicles, and you see why the Loyales take back burner. I just wish I could find a D/R with SPFI. I'd really like to find a dual range turbo, but alas..

YES! I just got done with a relative nightmare of changing a cam seal. It started out simple enough, within 15 minutes I had the timing cover and cam gear off. At that point, I could see that the cam seal was in bad, bad shape. it came out in my hand, and basically consisted of a metal ring with little bits of rubber stuck on it. However, I found the housing refused to seperate. Hmmm. After two hours, in desperation I turned to increasingly large prybars, and ended up SHATTERING the housing, with it still refusing to come out. At that point, I went about removing the entire passenger side camshaft housing. I had suspected that oil starvation had ground the housing and cam up so bad that they were now welded. After a trip to the u-pull-it, I got a replacement camshaft and housing, along with a cam seal housing. Since I had procured a replacement, I took a hand sledge and started beating on the back of the cam to force the stuck housing out the front. It took several minutes of beating the piss out of it before it gave. What I saw was absolute carnage of the bearing surfaces. Everything was scored beyond belief. It is obvious that the oil being kicked out of the fron seal was starving that head, and the bearing surfaces had been eating themselves as a result. This is a GOOD reason to not delay in fixing the seals! After getting the new cam and housing in place, getting the timing belt back on was a piece of cake. I hadn't even taken off the alt of power steering belts! I had already mooved the motor to TDC with the passenger cam gear dot up. With that done, all I had to do was pull the cover off the access holes for the tensioner bolts, loosen and retighten them with the tensioner out of the way, stick the belt on, then retension. This was simple. I rotated it 720* to make sure I had it right, and sure enough, it was spot on. The drivers side should be the same way, but I didn't have to go there. Keep in mind that I am not advocating changing seals without changing belts. I had just done timing belts on this car the month before (and the friggin seals were dry at that point, damnit) and so had no reason to change the belts, but had this happened a year (or perhaps as little as 6 months) from now, I would have probably changed the belts. However, you can do it pretty easily by just pulling the cover off, if you really don't need to change belts. At the same time, This goes to show why most people don't mess around, and change water pump, mickey mouse gasket, cam and crank seals EVERY time they do a timing belt. Makes sense. The other stuff costs about 70-100 bucks all told, and that is MUCH less than my time wasted in "not doing it right the first time" today! Learn from my goof! And don't run a motor with a bad cam seal unless you hate your valvetrain!

So after two hours of working it around, I resorted to prybars. The damned thing SHATTERED TWICE before it came off. It is still nicely frozen inside the camshaft housing. So, I removed the camshaft housing, and am off to a junkyard tommorow to get a replacement cam, camshaft housing, and seal housing. Here's what I think happened. I first found my oil leak after I had driven 70 miles on the highway. The gauge hadn't indicated any issues, but when I came off the highway and wind noise quieted down, I heard the lifters banging pretty noisily. I pulled off QUICK, but when I came down to idle while pulling into a parking lot, I hear NASTY metal on metal sounds and the sound of the engine starting to sieze. Luckily, I carry 5 quarts around with me in the back compartment. I dumped 4 quarts in, and turned it over to see what happened. It turned over very slowly and very noisily, then as the oil circulated, it even out, started, and ran just fine. About 1 day later, the cam seal starts leaking horrendously. So I think what happened was that the cam seal started leaking, leaked enough that there was not enough oil to satisfy the valvetrain, and then started running dry on that side. This in turn shredded the cam seal even worse, and the heat involved basically made sure the housing would never come off again. The cam shows scarring on the lobes, and the rocker arms don't look good either. Not horrible, but definitely not good. On the flip side, I am 95% sure I can replace the seal and put everything back together without taking off the center timing cover. I set the engine to TDC before I pulled the timing gear for the passenger side (passenger side dot up), and you can access the bolts for the tensioner from holes in the timing cover. So, considering the belt is already routed through there, it should just be a matter of putting it back together with the dot up, retensioning, and going along my merry way. For those just joining us, I replaced the damned timing belts a month ago, so there is no reason to tear into everything again if I don't absolutely have to.

What do I do here? I simply cannot get this thing to seperate. And yes, it is unbolted. It will spin around, but will not pop out. Is there some trick to this that I am missing?

Ok, so I changed the passenger side gasket. Things are looking good, until I start it up. Crap. This time I see a constant trickle of oil coming out from the passenger side timing cover. CRAP CRAP CRAP. SO it looks like that seal is absolutely toast. I JUST DID timing belts on this thing 1 month ago, and then it looked absolutely fine in there. God I am pissed. Question. What is the chance of doing something like zip-tying the belt to the sprocket and thus not having to tear off the front of the motor? (take the cover off, zip tie the belt to the cog, remove cog, replace seal, replace cog). I know some people do this on some mitsu stuff. I simply do not have time to tear into this damned thing again. CRAP.

Ok, on my EA82 1987 wagon, it has had a moderate oil leak for the last few months, to the tune of about 1 quart every 1000 miles. Originally it appeared to be leaking out of the valvecovers. The bottom of the head area on both sides was wet, which is what lead me to this conclusion. Recently, it has gotten MUCH, MUCH worse, to where it is leaving puddles underneath it and is going through about 3 quarts every hundred miles. It seems to be located in the same area, worse on the passenger side. I recently had the timing belts changed, and the front cover was completely dry. It doesn't look like the oil pan is leaking, but I'm gonna recheck it. I'm wondering if there is anything else in this area that could leak. Once again, it looks to be coming from the head area. Also, how are the valvecovers sealed? Is it an RTV thing, or do they have actual gaskets?

This will be temporary. This vacuum leak will exist for 2 blocks. One block driving in, and one block driving out.