All_talk

I lost 3ed gear in my AT3 ’87 GL wagon, just revs like its in neutral and it wont shift to 2ed by its self, I have to put it in 2ed. 1st and reverse seem fine, as does second once I shift it, 4WD seems fine. Is this the infamous governor problem or something else? Bad vacuum modulator (I doubt this, it would explain the no shift but not the slip). Also, does the governor valve problem always come with the “apple cored� gears or are they separate issues? I guess I’ll tear into it, hope I can get it fixed for work tomorrow, but it doesn’t look good. Gary

I found the problem , the right side horn had failed and corroded to the point that it was creating a partial ground, a check with the ohm meter confirmed it. BTW, I removed the park light to get to the plugs and the lower valance to get to the horns themselves, though removing the headlights as skip suggested might have been easier. Thanks for all the input. Gary

Hey Guys I was working in the shop Friday night and horn in my ’87 GL wagon went off, I found the fuse and pulled it. I poked around a bit and found nothing amiss so I started the car and put the fuse back, no horn blowing and all seemed fine. About an hour later the horn came back on, same as before, start the car and it goes off, turn car off, 15 min later the horns back on. So I left the fuse out the rest of the weekend (didn’t drive the car), I put it back this morning before my drive to work (about 1.5 hours), horn came back on about 2 hours after I got to work. The sound is a lower tone than when you honk the horn, like its just one of the two horns (I assume they are the Hi/Low type) or its receiving reduced voltage. It really seems like a ground issue, the Chilton’s manual electrical drawings aren’t very good but they do show a diode in parallel with the horns, maybe its failing in a way that’s grounding, or maybe its a bad horn, but its very strange that it only does it with the car off and after some period of time. Any clues would be greatly appreciated. Gary

Sweet82, I think you’re on to something here, the forward edge of the tire would hit the hood first so a properly place hood bubble or scoop could be all you need. Then again if the tire is MUCH larger you’re gonna run into clearance problems at the firewall pocket and the air cleaner. Still, I like the idea of an open hood scoop (impreza maybe) with the edge of a meaty off road tire showing. Gary

I fixed my blower resistors (1 & 2 were out) by removing the ceramic like glue stuff that suppose to stabilize them and twisting the broken wires back together, a temporary fix at best but seems to be working for now. If you do it try to preserve as much wire length as possible so the resistance doesn’t change to much and make sure none of the coils are touching each other when your done. A better solution would be to measure the resistance of a good set and replace the coils with the proper value wire wound power resistors, measuring the current draw would also be a good idea so you could select resistors with the proper wattage capacity. Subarubrat, the motor controller is a good idea but the 5 amp max rating of the one you found seem a bit low. I’d check the current draw of the blower at full voltage first, or just use the fuse rating for the blower circuit as a guide (I don’t recall it right now). I’d guess the blower is going to draw around 15 to 20 amps and you may find that motor controllers in the power range are a bit more expensive. Gary

True a LSD isn’t as good in the loose stuff as a locked diff or spool, but it’s better than an open diff and, it’s a hell of a lot easier to drive home on the highway than a spool. For a multi purpose rig the LSD is a good compromise. Gary

Hey XSNRG, Thorp is just west of Ellensburg on I-90 (where the big fruit stand is), but I work in Preston (just east of Bellevue/Issaquah) so i'm pretty close. And I have another question… Could the 1.592 low range gears and 3.90 final drive gear set be transplanted into a D/R full time locking center 4WD tranny (RX)? I come from the air-cooled VW world where mixin-n-matchin is a way of life, I also have a Datsun Z car which has many mix-n-match options with the later Z and ZX cars. Just wondering about the possibilities with the Subarus. Gary

Good question, if so it might open up some other options. The Quaife is a high quality unit and would cost you about $1100.00 if they made one to fit the ’80 Subie, which they don’t. And I read up on the Phantom Grip, its just like I described earlier… a friction loaded open diff, they do make one for the R160 for $300 (we can get a factory LSD for much less), but nothing for the front. If the friction loading idea really does work, you should be able to make something to fit the front diff. I have access to a full machine shop including CNCs and heat treating, if someone could loan me a spare front diff, I’d see if I could design something to fit it (I’m a ME, It’s the kinda thing I do for a living). And I’d still like to see the guts of the factory LSD and center locking diff assembly. Anybody here in WA state got a pile of old drive parts? Gary

From what I’ve read the Phantom Grip is not a true LSD, its more of a tightly wedged open diff, it behaves much like a LSD due to the heavy friction load on the gears. Some claim it works quite well, others said it puts extreme load on the diff and could cause breakage or extreme wear (most of this comes form the Datsun guys, I have a 260Z). I’m not to discouraged buy the differences between the front and rear final drive gear sets, if the spider and side gears are of similar size there might be a way to modify the carrier to hold the LSD internals. I’d also like to see how the center locking diff clutch pack works (I assume it’s a clutch), and if the components could be adapted to the other diffs. And yes a locked diff would certainly create major turning problems on high traction surfaces, but in offroading they are indispensable. Crazy, most likely… highly optimistic, definitely. Just because it hasn’t been done doesn’t mean it cant be done… with enough know-how, time and money nearly anything is possible (money is the one of the three that always seem to slow me down). And remember… if it were easy, everyone would do it. If anybody could post some pics of the tranny internals that might suggest if its even worth considering, or maybe I just need to start collecting tranny parts. A mans gotta have a dream. Gary

Hey Substers Does any one have a comprehensive list of the trans gear and final drive ratios for all the available trannys? It would be nice if we could compile all the info and post it somewhere. Now on to the crazy ideas… Has anyone looked into using the parts from an LSD in the front diff? What about the components from the locking center diff in the rear or front? Maybe with some machine and fab work? 4-wheel LSD or Front/Rear lockers would be really cool. I don’t have the parts or I would look into it myself, maybe we could tear into some broken/worn out trannys and rearends and find out? Or maybe I’m just crazy. Gary

Yeah that’s part of my problem too, the wipers just don’t seem to stick to the windshield at speed, maybe I need to find some of the florescent pink double wipers with the little wings on them, could be tough to find though, I think they all got used up by mullet wearing guys on there camaro’s in 1988. Gary P.S. looks like the ride home will be a bit smoother, but then there is always tomorrow.

Well maybe not super subie, but I’m still very impressed. On my daily commute this morning (over Snoqualmie pass), I ran through the worst road/weather conditions me and the Subaru have been through yet (it wasn’t the worst I’ve seen but pretty messy). I’ve made this commute for 8 years and have driven in snow county all my life in many different vehicles and I think the subie is the best snow car yet. Just push the button, drop it into second, hang it out in the fast lane where all others fear to tread and cruse up to the top. It was a little trickier on the down side, moving in slow traffic (about 30mph), there was enough camber to the road in places that the back end wanted to slide down hill a little bit, but a touch of the throttle would bring it right back in line (I’m thinking that some weight in the rear might help). My speed was really limited by visibility and traffic not the road conditions, I wasn’t passed by anyone the whole way over (except one crazy trucker :brolleye: ). I was driving through slush so deep in places that it was splashing up over the hood, just stay on the power and it tracks straight through, its not quite as stable off the throttle but its as good as any other car I’ve driven. All in all it’s a very good snow car, the weather is sure to get worse so there is more fun to come, now if I could just get a set of wiper blades to last more that 3 weeks. Just thought I’d share. Gary

Hey Demmer For the best info on VW engine swaps check out this site and the Conversion Perversions forum: http://www.shoptalkforums.com/ Also great VW guys over at: http://volksrods.com/forums/ Gary P.S I’ve been a VW guy for years

If your going in to do the T-belts and dont want to go back there any time soon (although its not that hard), here's a few other things I'd think about doing: cam seals front main seal oil pump seal water pump (like calebz said) None of this stuff is very expensive or to hard to do... have fun. Gary

Just a dusting of snow at the top of Snoqualmie pass this morning (I go over and back every day).... now it starts. I say bring it on, my finger is ready on the 4WD button and my snowmobiles are all tuned up too. Gary P.S. I'd send it all down to you guys in SoCal if I could, I feel for ya, make sure you insurance is payed up and stay safe.

I just fixed a thunk yesterday, it only did it while turning under braking, I thought I had a bad axel for sure, grabbed the tire and yanked the wheel back and forth and noticed some movement… loose axel nut. Gary

Is modifying the upper strut mount point not an option? Seems to me you could fab up a pretty simple base plate/sliding plate assembly, but it would require some cutting and welding. Just a thought. Gary

I just ran a little math, if the strut length is 24" from seat to ball joint (that's a guess, but should be fairly close) then it will take 0.419" (10.6mm) for one degree camber change, that true of either top or bottom of the strut. Note: this is only true for small changes in angle (3 deg or so), after that the ratio changes quickly. Hope that helps. Gary

Electric motor cleaner (Lectramotive) or good old WD-40 should do the trick, blowing it out with air will help too, but I would also recommend disassembly or at least partial disassembly because you will want to re-grease the mechanical advance mechanism and re-oil the vacuum advance plate bearing (the cleaner will wash out all the lube). Gary

If it were the window seal it should leak when the car sits in the rain and when I wash it (admittedly not often) but I’ve never noticed water there before, should be easy enough to test with the hose though. And that wouldn’t explain how my blower duct got full of water… hmm… the search goes on. :-\ Gary

The water is coming out of the low point in the ducting between the blower and heater box (where the blower resistors mount). The air path is wet from the Intake (under the cowl) to the heater core, not after, and no water running out of the heater box or floor heat outlets. The way the heater core mounts I don’t think water could get back into the ducting, especially with the blower on high. Like I said, sure seems to be coming down the intake, but only in very severely wet conditions. Gary

Well the rainy season is upon us and my Sube ('87 GL) is showing a new problem, sucking water through heater blower. I thought I might have a leaking heater core but I tore into it last night and it sure looks like its coming from outside through the blower. It only seems to happen when driving in very heavy rain and freeway traffic with a lot of spray. I pulled the cowl grill and checked the blower intake thinking maybe the drain was plugged or there was a dam of leaves and crap causing water to overflow into the intake, but all looked clear. Anybody have the same problem? Has anyone found a working solution? I was thinking of building an extra shield for the intake or blocking off the right side cowl grill to force all the air to come from the far side in hopes that more water would drop out. Gary

Hey Matt It could be a sticky vacuum advance mechanism that’s not retarding properly at low vac (high throttle). The advance plate rides on a large diameter ball bearing that can get loaded up with crap. I had a pretty severe interment detonation problem pulling hills with my ’87 GL, I tore the distributor down, cleaned and relubed it (also replaced a bad bushing on one of the mechanical advance weights) and that solved the problem. Worth a try. Gary P.S. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving.

Hey Mark I can’t be sure, as I haven’t done a side by side comparison, but the alternator on my ’74 Datsun 260Z looks a lot like the one in my ’87 GL wagon, even the same connectors I believe. I could take a closer look if you like. Gary

Most likely the sender (at the oil pump), mine whent crazy a few weeks ago, scared the crap out of me when it droped to 0 on the freeway. I put in a temporary mechanical one to check things out… pressure is fine, sender is junk (I can see oil seeping out of the electric screw). Gary