el_freddo

Not necessarily true. The low range lever can still be mounted in the cab with the gearselector and not be connected to the gearbox for gear changing purposes - it is part of the gear selector setup, while this setup is bolted to the back of the gearbox for stability and connected to the gearbox's selector shaft, the 4wd high/4wd low selector lever can be tied off safely from harms way - thus a single range 4wd gearbox can be installed in an originally factory dual range fitted L series with the two levers still present. This is what I was trying to get at... Good to hear you've got a choice SmashedGlass - always a good position to be in Cheers Bennie

G'day Chad. It's winter down here at the moment. I'm working and living in the snow at Mt Hotham - although it's starting to suck as we've not had any proper snow in 3 weeks after an awesome start to the season! It's currently 3 degrees C which is considered shorts and T shirt weather if the wind would drop. As for your question about the engine mounting. It will bolt straight in. You can leave the original intake and carb of the EA81, I only said about the intake swap to get the larger carb and pretty much the same performance that the EA82 had from factory. The EA82 had a bigger carbie from factory that won't bolt on the EA intake unless you do some modifications. The conversion is considered very easy. As I've said you'd just need to have the flywheel machined, do a tiny bit of wiring and it should all fire up without an issue. As for dropping it in the VW it will be a bit more work and will need an adaptor plate and flywheel. Why not drop an even better powerplant in there such as an EJ22?? That would have your bug going off its tits! Cheers Bennie

The other way to make sure the gearbox is actually a dual range under the bonnet is to make sure there's the little lever above the front diff on your passenger's side - it should have a rod attached to it that disappears into the trans tunnel with the rest of the gearbox. This will make certain that the gearbox IS a dual range and not a single range with all the appropriate levers in the cab for the dual range Who knows, the gearbox may have been swapped for a single range just to keep the owner going - stranger things have happened! Cheers Bennie

G'day starkiller! 1. I've found the factory air and oil filters to do an adequate job - replace them regularly as you should and all will be sweet. 2. You could have the radiator looked at - get it rodded. This is where they remove an end tank and push a rod down each cooling channel to clear out any of the crap that could have built up over the life of the radiator. I've heard the L's can keep going (just) on a radiator that's ~50% blocked! 3. Not that I know of. I do know that the fuel gauge acts differently to other makes - you have to get to know it! In your case the sender unit could be dead or bent for some reason... 4. We didn't get the high console centre over here but I have seen them over in the US. 6. Those places are ALWAYS your friend - until they get greedy and try to rip you off! All the best! Cheers Bennie

This is an L series GL DL etc yeah? If so the heater core will still be getting fluid regardless of the heater control setting, it is not like the MYs with a tap in the heater hose lines. Swirling under the dash - any warm air coming from anywhere under the dash? Got a funky smell in the cab or wet carpet that you can't explain? My guess is that your heater core has a crack in one of the plastic end tanks and this is opening up when it gets hot then closes again when you let it cool. I had a noise that I thought was static in my speakers that had me wondering what was going on with my stereo system - about 50km later at speed on the freeway (110km/h) there was a little pop and my legs were getting very hot and I couldn't see out the windscreen as the steam of my coolant hit cool windscreen. Not fun, they are time bombs. And they can leak a little bit that's enough to notice at the radiator end but not enough sometimes to pick up in the cab until they've either developed a larger leak or go pop. All the best with it. Cheers Bennie

Yeah I did the same with a set of drive shafts - they didn't have the proper CV grease in them for starters, so I replaced that after contacting the joint I got them from, mainly for their heads up about the product they were selling (a good friend/business that I don't want to see go under). ~1000km later and the outer joints started to click I've got a new set on the way as replacements, hopefully they'll last longer than the first set! All that said I've heard from several mates now that the problem with the chinese product is that they don't harden the steel properly, instead they cover the required surfaces with the hardened material that can sometimes be picked off with a screwdriver! As for a diff blowing - I've seen one destroyed in a '98 outback while street driving as a daily. Don't know why it went but it completely let go very quickly! Cheers Bennie

I've replied to your other thread that I presume you started after this post. Best way to find out about things is to do a search first then ask if you don't find what you're looking for. There are some interesting bits of info you'll find as you search for your answer Cheers Bennie

Awesome pics! I can't wait to get a good DSLR... Just saving now! You guys missed out on the EA81 sedan, the US the EA81 touring wagon (in areas from what I understand) - In Australia we missed out on the EA81 hatch and the EA82 coupe - I would love to do up one of those EA82 coupes! And we missed the Baja completely, I don't even think there's a country we can legally import them from! Again, love the pics, starting to get the travel bug but would like to bring my subi with me... too many $$$$$ to do all of that though Keep the pics coming! Cheers Bennie

I would also say that the factory gauges aren't the greatest for giving an accurate reading - but they're good to look at and give you an idea of what's happening under the bonnet. An aftermarket set of gauges would be much more accurate than what the factory instrument cluster displays and will give you a clearer understanding of what's happening with your engine. Cheers Bennie

Found it again: From this thread Cheers Bennie

Yeah... umm... it's an EA82. They will tick when THEY want to! I had all lifters tick for two weeks after I picked up an EJ for a conversion that ended up being the catalyst for the EJ22 that's now in Ruby Scoo. Drove me nuts! The other issue with these lifters that I think everyone tends to over look is the spring inside them - if this spring fatigues or breaks you won't have the correct pre-load before the lobe tries to eject the oil from the HVLA (hydraulic valve lash adjuster) as it operates the valve... Also if the HVLA is old or had crappy and dirty oil used in it there could be excessive wear that's occurred and thus the oil escapes easier resulting in the dreaded lifter tick. Another issue could be the oil you're using. Wear and tear plus a thinner oil will help increase lifter tick and oil leaks all round. The best solution I've found to the lifter tick so far is the EJ22 - no ************! Cheers Bennie

Mate, your 87 engine is an EA82, the one you're looking at is an EA81. The EA81 is a great little engine that is much more robust than an EA82. The EA81 doesn't have timing chains, it has timing gears. To put it bluntly, the EA81 is a VW rip off that's water cooled and made in Japan. It will work - but things like the PS pump and AC compressor will need to be nutted out as I've not done this conversion. You might want to look into putting the intake manifold from the EA82 on the EA81 so that the wiring is plug and play and that the engine should still meet any emissions requirements that are needed for your model of subi. So long as you keep the oil in it, coolant topped up this little engine is easy to maintain and will service you for a long time. There are some good power upgrades that are similar to that of the EA82 - such as the Weber carb. The flywheel will need to be machined down to fit the EA82 clutch - I just read about it and it's 0.8xx inches - GD knows it! This allows you to keep the EA81 flywheel and thus the timing marks on the flywheel that match the timing reference point on the EA81 engine part of the bellhousing. If you use an EA82 flywheel I don't think you will have any timing marks to line up when it comes to the timing of the engine. This is probably the only hardest part of this conversion Cheers Bennie

Hehehe... the differences between a LHD and RHD vehicles. In Oz, being RHD, the power steering lines bolt right in without any bending required AC - I've not got around to having custom pipes made up but it is on my to do list! Cmiller: how have you not fitted the fans behind the radiator? I've got a 3 core radiator in my L with three fans strategically placed in the room I have between that and the front of the EJ. Just a little imagination! Cheers Bennie

I think you've just answered your own question right there in that first line... Adding larger tyres is always going to stress the drive train more than the stock units - thus the weakest link is going to die first if it can't keep up, in this case it sounds like your EA81 won't turn those wheels the way you hope it will. Either look into freshening up the engine (rebuild) with a sweet cam grind to match with a weber OR go the EJ route. I know the EJ and 27's goes alright over the stock 23's, but I think 32s would be an ask as well without playing around with gearbox diff ratios etc. An EJ AWD 3.7 ratio gearbox with 4.44 diffs swapped in would probably be the best way to go IMO. The question is: How much time and effort do you really want to put into this? Cheers Bennie

Why not try out a toyota SC12 for true supercharging? You will need to work out how to mount it, plumb it in and make it all work with the carbie. The other issue is the health of your bottom end... Cheers Bennie

It's probably not the engine or anything you've done. I would be looking at the fuel system - if the fuel pump isn't holding pressure that will produce some interesting issues. Also make sure the filter is new! I'd also check all your vacuum lines and your fuses including those pesky fusible links. Cheers Bennie

Drain your gearbox oil and see what comes out with it. I'm thinking that there's a circlip that has been dislodged on the 4wd hi/lo and 2wd selector. The one lever operates the 2wd, 4wd high and 4wd low positions with a series of spring and dedent balls in the back of the gearbox under the flat plate. If a circlip has been dislodged (would be difficult but if the box has been abused or apart before it is possible) it will render some of the functions of the mechanism useless. Below is an EA82 DR gearbox, you can see the flat plate on top of the rear housing on the gearbox with the lever that selected 2wd/4wd hi/4wd lo and the rod out to the front of the gearbox for the high/lo range selection. The mechanism is in the rear housing, this is where the problem will be: Here is the complicated mechanism that does all the work for us - it engages the drive to the rear end in the rear of the gearbox and then selects high and low range at the other end of the gearbox: I remember that there's probably about 3 or 4 sets of dedent balls and springs in here! My bet would be that the circlip you can see on the shaft on the right hand side just below the upper part that crosses over the two shafts has come loose or is now floating around in the bottom of your gearbox. From memory the second pic is in 4wd low range. If you are or have been violent with the 4wd engaging, over time it would most likely flog out this circlip as it is the one that moves up to engage low range and back to disengage 4wd. Hope these pics and descriptions help you out. After thinking about it some more I've got some questions for you: Does it actually select low range and high range?? Can you feel the 4wd system binding when you turn a tight corner? - test this on a loose surface only. Are you sure you don't have a dicky 4wd switch that has the 4wd light remain on? What is it that makes you think you cannot select 2wd mode? Cheers Bennie

When you look at the plugs on the EA alternator there are only two wires, the EJ alternator has three. Each letter corresponds to one of the wires as depicted on the plug sticker listing that each alternator has on them. It works a treat for me! And as Numbchux has said, I too have not got a wire from the ECU to the alternator and have no issues running the EJ22 or the alternator. Cheers Bennie

Yeah true. I've been there with this - but it won't go well with my AWD gearbox... This is the main reason why I want a selectable locker - and as for breaking the same things that's why you carry spares Plus you wouldn't be wheeling with the selectable locker locked all the time, I'd be using it only when I need to! Cheers Bennie

Best of luck with that. They'd probably want a down payment from everyone that sends in the mass email to get the thing into production. This way when no one puts in the money for the unit ARB are not out of pocket due to an organised mass email to pressure them. I've emailed them on several occasions and eventually got the reply that the r160 carrier is simply too small to make a locker with. Personally I think this is BS and that was their way of politely saying go get f'd... It can be done, there's a mob over here (McNamara diffs) that will do it - if there is an order of 500 units for $AU1000 each! There is also a little something in the pipe line from one of the ausubi members... it might be 6 months to a year off though as the first unit needs to be fabricated, fitted and tested before production begins for the rest of us. Cheers Bennie

^ Which generally means that they're not coming at all That said the new Nissan Navara apparently has a factory locker in the rear as an option. The rear diff is based on the R180.... Cheers Bennie

It's not hard to wire in the EJ alternator to the L series wiring. This is how I did mine when I did the conversion, no ECU reference wire either: This is for the series 1 and 2 alternators of the Gen 1 Liberty/Legacy. Hope this helps. Cheers Bennie

Only when you tried to use the clutch, otherwise it was rather easy! Yeah after it let go it made some pretty bad noises when you tried to take off again (starting in 1st), we got it going but changing to second gear resulted in some really nasty noises and vibrations! Good times... but couldn't have happened at a worse time other than 4wd'n my way out of a sticky situation Cheers Bennie

I've just read this whole thread but can't remember the reason for you using the auto other than the fact that your foz is already an auto... I say this as over here I've had the pleasure of knowing two subi's that have the H6 conversion, both are manual. I've heard many say go the EJ20G over the H6 as the H6 is gutless. What they don't realise is that they're running around in a factory auto H6 outback... These manual H6's are the duck's nuts! They have ample power on tap at any time you need it. I was blown away! Anyway, here's a write up of one of the fellas who did the conversion. Both vehicles ironically came from the same work shop at different times and have ended up in Victoria from interstate. Lucky me I reckon you'll get a pot load more from this engine if you mate it with a manual... My 2c that I thought I'd share with you, it is a conversion after all! *edit* also with the rack from the donor vehicle that has the plug that you broke, if it is salvageable this rack is one that gives you slightly heavier steering at speed to reduce floating from the power steering feel becoming very light. If you could shoe horn this into the foz it would another feature that I reckon you'd love. You'd probably have to change the rack and tie rod ends for it to work, simple really! Cheers Bennie

Or a dodgy spark plug/lead that's not holding its own at idle, making the other three plugs do the work... Cheers Bennie