bratman2

It would have been an awesome video!

Nobody sells a Brat strut with springs except the salvage yard. That is a good price on the Gabriels. That what I had for the last 15 years are so on my Brat. I installed Sachs a few weeks ago. That picture looks like the right one also.

My daughter's Garmin displays mph. It matches my wife's 2011 Forester XT exactly.

Running rich, float stuck! My first guess as that is about all you can do without the car in front of you. Check timing as stated, that is simple enough. Make sure you have decent wires and cap connected properly. My brother just installed new plugs and wires on his truck. He had a time, two plugs out of 6 were bad out of the box. Plus he messed up one wire pulling it off so many times. Do you still have the cat in place? Could be plugged, most likely is at this age. My 87 Brat with Weber gets 29.5 mpg or so on average, calculated for larger tires size. I have broke 30 on quite a few tanks over the 17 years I have owned it. These are not computer controlled engines so it is pretty basic stuff.

Had not thought of the GPS. My daughter next door has one I can borrow for an accurate reading. With mu old set of 185/80-13 tires which were around 1/2" shorter height than the 14" tires I have now a radar trailer showed my speedometer to be 10% off. I feel pretty comfortable with my estimate because people fly on these back country roads to the mine I work at. Typically they run just over 60 with some getting close to 65. I maintain traffic speeds at 52-53mph and maybe get passed once or twice every now and then on my commute. I would not be surprised to see differences in these old Subarus with the same size tires on them! So I don't think the tire calculator would be the way to go. Years ago with 195/75-14 tires my speedometer was over 15% off checked against my wife's Mustang with new tires and later here 03 Legacy when it was fairly new, 51 mph indicated came up to 60 on both of her cars locked in cruise. Just food for thought.

A 5 speed isn't going to help him. Sloppy shifter, that's an easy fix. Did mine years ago and still tight as a drum. Tweety gave the best answer to achieve what the OP wants. Dawned on me today but I have been busy so have not replied until now. I run 185/75-14 Uniroyal tires on Peugeot 14" steel wheels. Fit great, speedometer is off by 14% roughly. Had it checked by a coworker behind me, 52-53mph was 59-60 mph indicated in his late model Eclipse. So if 88SubaruGL's Subaru speedometer is the same as mine he could obtain 70 mph at roughly 61 mph indicated. All he needs to do is check all the salvage yards around him until he finds a Peugeot 504/505 sedan. Buy the wheels and get some tires. Simplest of all.

The EA81 is a very reliable engine. I don't think there is an issue with running one 3000-3200k. Experimental airplane crowd runs them higher than that with no premature failures. I would be willing to bet that city driving and short trips would cause more wear than what you are doing.

Could be. Grossary already stated what would have to be done. There is almost no way to tell from pictures once the oil has coated parts as such. It is one or more of the items he mentioned. For $100.00 and some of your time you can eliminate all possible sources.

Many years ago trying to teach a daughter how to drive a manual my clutch pedal fell in the floor. Is this what you are referring to? She had managed to break all the spot welds holding the pedal bracket in place. I drilled and bolted it in. Hope that helps.

I used the Rustoleum two part epoxy in the bed of my Brat. Don't have a clue as to how good it sticks to plastic but I will say it has held up great for several years now in my Brat bed.

Problems during damp weather would seem to be electrical. Maybe you have more than one problem. Backing off the gas and vehicle picking up speed would seem to indicate a carb problem, like flooding or too rich maybe. What is your mpg averaging? I agree with a good fuel treatment, cheap enough. What I like to do is get down to a 1/4 tank or so and heavy dose with Seafoam. Shoot for 4-6 ozs. a gallon. Run until near empty.

I am calling the spring perch the big round piece that the bottom of your coil springs sits in. Don't know if that is the proper name. I am not seeing in the picture what holds that in place.

This was the front and they only have three left. AMERICAN REMANUFACTURERS INC. Part # 8718000 Rear was UNITED Part # 38137 As you can see I was a little wrong on the price. Which is good for you! . The front ones are not remanufactured, that just their name and they were USA made which for their price was great too me. The rear ones are very short and a pain to change due to their location. As a matter of fact the ones I got were about 1/4" shorter than the factory which did not help the rear installation at all. The fronts were a piece of cake, lol!!! I had bleed my brakes 5 years or so ago so I didn't expect to use the whole pint of fluid I had. But the fluid was fairly dark so I went from wheel to wheel pumping 10 each twice and used the whole pint. If you find that cheap one man bleeder you will love it. Soak all clips, fittings and bleeders good hours before starting will surely help!!

According to them it is for an 82-87 Brat so you should be good to go. Does look mighty different though. Does it have the one tab down with hole to bolt to the knuckle? How does the perch mount?

The wrong part, seen that a few times myself. I generally check part numbers for my 87 against an 84 to keep from ending up with EA82 parts. Seems common as slice bread for lots of places to screw that up.

Is that the Sachs strut? You don't have the spring perch in the picture. If it is the Sachs it is the right one. Has the height adjustment bolts that mount on the spring perch. The picture made the new one look smaller.

Is the new one actually smaller in diameter or is that just how the picture makes it look? Also the last two sets I bought, Gabriel 15-16 years ago and Sachs a month ago both came with the bottom spring perch. Get the numbers off of the strut body and cross reference them. They look to be wrong to me!

Good for you!!! England doesn't have junk Peugeot 504/505 sedans laying around! Just an after note, for some reason the passenger side Sachs strut fell right in with little effort. The strut rod bushings were easy, the control arm bushings were a major pain in the butt. Took longer to do them than rear wheel bearings. If you decide to change out your control arm bushings let me know and I will share what I learned. I would pull the control arm, that is easy enough, and look at them while you are in there anyways. Then if they look okay leave them!!

Rockauto! I think they were just over $40.00 plus shipping. Also I have this little 2oz. brake bleeding bottle I bought for little of nothing. It has a magnet and a built in one way valve on the screw on lid. Comes with a piece of hose and works great for bleeding brakes by yourself, no help needed. Hook the hose up to the bleeder screw, crack the bleeder screw open and go pump the brakes 8-10 times. Close the bleeder, pull the hose off and dump bottle. Refill master cylinder and start on the next one. One of the best few dollars I have ever spent, according to my wife that use to be my brake bleeding partner!!! I think I got it at Autozone but not sure, I have had it several years. Did you get your broken ball joint out?

Also, don't over think this brake line thing. I just replaced all four on my Brat a week ago. Bleeding brakes is no big deal. You probably need new fluid anyways, heck you probably need new brake lines if you have not replaced them already. Clean up the bleeder screw, couple of drops of you favorite lube to help keep from shearing off the bleeder. Let sit for a couple of hours and bleed them. As far as the knuckle goes if you can get it out in place great. If you have to pull it so what, it is simple also.

Like Uberoo stated, get the brake line free of the strut. On my Brat there is a tiny little plate with two holes on it. Just behind the strut on the fender skirt, wire your calipers to it. Pull your knuckle, remove ball joint bolt (sure you already have), drive something into the slot. Biggest screw driver you have, wood chisel, cold chisel, anything to separate it and open the gap. A bench vise would be extremely helpful to hold the knuckle for you. I would probably drench it in break free, Kroil are any other lubricant I could find. Let it soak for a couple of hours. Then like stated smack the top of it sharply. It will eventually fall out! Give it no other choice, lol! If you have enough of the taper left clamp that in the vise, Put a box with some rags or something to cushion the fall and let the weight of the knuckle help you out! Have you replaced your motor mounts? If you have height adjustable struts are they adjusted all the way down height wise. Bad motor mounts and having the struts jacked up can both put undue stress on axles. The ball joint failing as it did is a little odd though. Maybe it was just old. I also agree with doing both sides! I believe my Brat is on it's second set of replacement ball joints. I replace them as soon as the rubber boot starts to fail. Also agree on checking, repacking, new seals or/and new wheel bearings if needed. Do both sides and save yourself some trouble. Typically they are not that hard to get out and in.

Oops, you got me. For some reason I was thinking mountains. My mother lived in Washington State in the 50's and talked of the mountains.

Tail wind, lol!!! That isn't too bad. Isn't Seattle a decent amount above sea level? Mine is a Redline kit I installed maybe 14-15 years ago. I did go through the "best lean idle" tune instructions 5 times are so, lol! I did notice a decent improvement in low and mid range power. I also have for the last 4 years or so been running 87 non-alcohol gas. I have not checked the mileage lately but need to just out of curiosity.

That is what they look like!

When you part number search on AC Delco's site they come up as "struts front air". Kind of odd. They do look very similar to rear shocks for an EA81.I can't find a list of what they fit.