el_freddo

Yes. Pull the main harness from the vehicle. Leave the engine harness on the engine. Trim down the main harness, lay it out over the engine with the wires you need to start it setup either on a switch panel or labelled so you can connect them to a battery for start up. Use the wiring on the vehicle for the fuel pump, might need to extend some wires for this. When it starts, runs, doesn’t throw a CEL (unless it did beforehand and you know what the code is) you know you’re good to wrap the wiring and go ahead with pulling the engine etc. This allows you to troubleshoot any harness/engine related issues without extra downtime on your EA daily. You could even lay the EJ harness into the L in prep for the engine to be put in, again, saves on downtime. The donor vehicle is the way to go unless you know exactly what you’re doing and what you need - or you like learning “along the way” when you find bits missing or bits needed that you’ve over looked. The FSM wiring diagrams of the ECU are the ones you want. Basically any wire from the ECU plugs are kept. I unwrapped the harness then traced all wires from the ECU, taping them together as I went. Anything that was woven in an untaped got cut out. Here’s my testing of the harness. As you’ll see I put all the bits together rather than find a donor: Cheers Bennie

There’s some awesome work in there Giles! Ive has trouble working out what some of the pics represent, like the square cut section, the new semi dome looking piece (I have no idea where that’s from), and what are the rail pieces with the galvanised bolts/plates/rear suspension frame? Keep up the good work! Cheers Bennie

Flex is the wrong term commonly used by “low educated” 4wders, they actually need to use “articulation”... What you need to do is jack up a wheel with the others chocked well to stop the car moving off the jack. The lifted wheel will spin at some point. You should be able to release 4wd. Or go for a drive on a dirt road/with one set of wheels on the dirt, while moving apply some pressure on the 4wd lever, it’ll slip out. Lastly, while your brat might be a ‘91 model, you need to post in the EA platform section Cheers Bennie

Considering the EA81 doesn’t have timing belts it’s always going to be a pain in the arse to change them out... or not. Sorry, do my eyes deceive me or am I reading this correctly? After a few other posts in recent months I’m surprised to see you write this GD! When you say to use at his discretion, what sort of uses could it see? If this is a learning project it could be worth your time to do a full tear down and re-assembly using only the items that need replacing for a successful start up (such as head gaskets). Cheers Bennie

No, light flywheels are for high revving race applications. For off-roading you want a nice heavy flywheel to keep engine momentum. A doubled up flywheel would be awesome - but that’ll seriously cost onroad drivability of the engine if it were possible to do this. Cheers Bennie

I do what @FerGloyale does too and it works well so long as you don’t throw too much grease in the space between the bearings. It’s also necessary to prime the outer seals with rubber grease to prevent them from destroying themselves due to friction. I’ve learnt that the hard way! Cheers Bennie

Where did that pop up from and when does the resto begin? Cheers Bennie

If this is the case you’re applying too much “goop”! Less is more in most applications of RTV ^ especially in high torque applications such as engine and gearbox cases! Cheers Bennie

Short answer: it won’t work. Long answer: the rear stub axle is a smaller diametre than the front axle of the driveshaft. So the front hub will not fit the rear stub axle for a start, that’s basically the blocker for this mod - and the reason why not one does it, ever! Mandy EA82 front drive shaft outer shafts/axles are different to the EA81 drive shaft outer shafts/axles. You have to swap tocthe EA82 hub for EA82 shafts, plus some other stuff I don’t care about so can’t tell you anything in that department as I’m not going to do that to my brumby. The 28s look good on those rims and your Brat. What’s the bearing like with that rubber?? Woeful at best I bet You’ll need a gearbox build with 4.111:1 diff ratio minimum! Cheers Bennie

I’ll have to check that out for the time if/when I need to replace the heater core in the brumby. It could possibly be different for RHD and LHD vehicle’s too... I’ll have a look! Cheers Bennie

“Two out of three ain’t bad...” That RS (or turbo converted liberty going by the stock NA front bar) looks schmick!! Puts mine to shame (that I’m yet to actually drive!) from what I can see there. Cheers Bennie

If you haven’t already, it’s necessary to loosen the tension on the bolts of these bushes, then put the car back on the ground to let the bushes sit at the changed ride height, then nip up all the nuts/bolts at the new height. This allows the bushes to sit naturally without excessive tension on them all the time. If not done, the bushes will flog our very quickly! Cheers Bennie

Welcome from one Aussie to another sleepr! Got any pics of your rides? Cheers Bennie

@sparkyboy yeah all of our wagons are the “high roof” model, we don’t have any flat roof models! The Oz delivered RS turbo is an EJ20G with a water to air intercooler. The bonnet scoop is purely for air flow over the turbo, which really isn’t entirely necessary. We didn’t get the EJ22t. The EJ20G is the first of the EJ turbo engines with the DOHC heads, although the RS heads are a different design to the wrx heads... And the RS wagon ONLY came out in a 1993 model which makes it a series 2. The grille you’ve offered looks like our series 1 style which won’t fit without changing the bonnet and possibly the headlights (is need to double check this). Thanks for the offer but keep it on the wall as a good memory of your old ride! It’s good to hear the EJ was “re-homed”. @Giles - you been stuck in the shed mate? We haven’t seen any updates recently, is it finished yet?? Cheers Bennie

I’m not 100% sure. All I know is avoid the dual mass flywheel as they tend to develop an annoying squeak. Cheers Bennie

Talking to yourself again Jono?? Must be something I have to look forward to with the difference front to rear, maybe your front bumper isn’t mounted properly - or you’ve got a twisted body, but I’d expect to see that show up in the rear end too. Cheers Bennie

While you’ve got the trans out, shove a new rear main seal on the back of the engine And replace the oil/air separator plate if it’s plastic. Cheers Bennie

Over worked coil pack?? It’s be an odd scenario though if that were the case. If your engine doesn’t do that sort of hard pull or those sorts of revs it’ll have issues doingnit out of the blue. I’d have a go at holding the gear and revving the engine out to this point then manually changing the gear into 3rd or drive. No need for WOT to do this. ^ This practise comes from a member on another forum who reckons if it’s a grandma driven car, you need to “train” it to be more lively by doing things gently as you would if you were training from slob to athelete. Yes things won’t magically repair overnight, but going gently harder over time will allow suspension bushes to free up and become more elastic - go like the clappers straight up and you could split a bush or three. It could be the same for an engine and box too, although I’ve never experienced that before. I’d definitely check your timing belt to make sure it’s stull aligned properly - and check for any stored codes too. Cheers Bennie

Not really. Drop the rear diff and moustache bar, drop the tank. Still got a rolling body on your hands. Easy! Cheers Bennie

Unless it’s an EA platform Cheers Bennie

Welcome to the forum! Sounds like you’re having fun in the L. And that’s a good find on the hatch, we have very few (as in maybe 5 in the whole country) over here in Australia. As for the L providing parts to the hatch, there’s not a great deal that’s interchangeable. The dual range five speed box is probably the best part, but then you need the 4wd rear end to match the Hatch. This is the difference in the EA82 (L series) and EA81 (MY/MV) chassis/platform. Really to convert the hatch to 4wd, you’re going to need a factory 4wd EA81 unit for the 4wd rear end... Even the engine in the L series won’t fit (and is a backwards step in my opinion) without modifying the chassis rails to make way for the extra width of the EA82. Cheers Bennie

No need to convert to a hydraulic clutch. Just use the cable clutch fork and move the pivot to match the clutch fork. Then mount the clutch cable mount bracket to the gearbox. Sounds like the trip will be some good fun! And your issue with the auto swap is that you need the TCU, associated wiring - then work out how to mate the TCU in with the ECU so that they talk to each other. Best bet is to rewrite the vehicle with an auto loom from a vehicle of the same model. It’s a lot of work for little gain for most. Cheers Bennie

Well I didn’t know that. All XTs sold in Oz came standard with a back seat. Cheers Bennie

I’ve used partouq.com a few times and they’ve been very good. My only issue is the fluctuation in the currency exchange but other than that they’ve been awesome. They say shipped in two days or less, but they manage to get the parts into Oz in five to seven days from the time I place the order. This is significant since our postal service could take a week to send a letter from the east coast to the west coast. Even via express it could be four days for it to get there! Cheers Bennie

Coolant crossover pipe. Driver’s side for the RHDrive vehicles, Passenger’s side for the WHDrive vehicles. There will be two sensors there. The single wire is the temp gauge on the instrument cluster, the other one that typically has a brown plug and is two wires is for the ECU. That’s the one you want. I need a new one for my EJ22 as well. Cheers Bennie