Stubies Subie

I got a gift card for Harbor freight, so I'm gonna go get me one of these:

when looking for a tire size that will work on the 14 inch wheel, I look for a tire that will be about the same height and width as what the stock tires would have been, the stock tires are close to 26 inch, and I always revert to this web page when looking at tires : http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html it compares the stock tire size in height and width to what ever tire size you might be looking at.

Hey, that looks just like the dent we got in our Buick, only dent in the whole car and that's all you notice, so I know what your saying take a plunger to it, at least part of it will come out

That car is perfectly capable of towing, good story, thanks for sharing. I hope to be towing this summer, but don't know if I'll have the car ready in time, I'm already looking at a nice little pop top camping trailer, a little light weight job that's designed to be towed behind a motorcycle. it looks something like this: I'm kind of methodically planning and doing the build, it's just slow going for me, but once I get the custom back bumper with 2" receiver, I'll be ready to tow. I got a list a mile long of things I want to do to the car, so it’s going to be a long drawn out process before this ride is ever finished.

I picked up a big bottle of DOT 4 today, I've already got one caliper off, and already drained one side of the master cylinder (it siphoned out when I removed the caliper) I'll start flushing when the new caliper shows up and I can get it installed. that old brake fluid is so nasty looking that I won't be surprised if I end up replacing the master cylinder as well, I got a hunch, as soon as I flush out the system, something else is gonna blow out, but it’s so dirty, that I want to make sure I get a really good flush, I want ALL that old fluid out of there. I'm going to order the caliper and wheel bearings tonight, the wheel bearings I'm going to order are (6207-2RS/C3) I’ll get the stuff off eBay, the rebuilt calipers are something like 45.00 delivered, with no core deposit and the bearings are $8.something each, I don’t mind the wait because it gives me more time to do a thorough job of cleaning the parts and maybe doing some paint work while I wait for the parts to arrive, if the parts were readily available I’d end up being in a hurry and just slapping it back together, and down the road she goes. I'd order the hub seals, but I'm not sure what to order or how many per axle, 1 or 2? I can get them local anyway if needed I really wish I could get some pictures up here but my camera isn't doing well, all the pictures have come out really blurry, and in some sort of brownish gray scale looking format and I have no idea why. As soon as I can get a camera that will take pictures worth posting, I'll have some more to show. Stuart

I've been researching the brake fluid types, IE: DOT 3 verses DOT 4 and DOT 5 and 5.1 and Glycol verses silicone. We always want to use what's best, or at least what's best within our budget, and I found a link that describes the differences in detail. The following link covers all types from DOT 3 to 5.1 and Glycol Verses Silicone, it gives the good and the bad of each, it is very much worth the read: http://www.motorcycleproject.com/motorcycle/text/cows-brakefluid.html

Here’s another update: It seems I was having front end trouble, and it was becoming more and more increasingly obvious that something in the front end was amiss. At first I wanted to blame the axles, but the thumping, grinding, and high pitched squealing I heard every now and then just didn’t match the symptoms of a bad axle, it was way to intermittent for that, sometimes it would show up when I was braking, sometimes when I was accelerating, or coasting, or turning the wheel, it would do it off and on pretty much in any configuration the car happened to be in, it had to be something else other then the axles. I also noticed that sometimes the brakes applied easily with little pressure, and other times, it just about took an act of congress to stop the car, something had to be done. I took a look at the brake pads and thought they looked somewhat thin, so I ordered a new set of pads thinking that maybe that funny symptoms I was hearing every now and then was the pads falling apart or possibly broken and rattling around on the caliper. I pulled both front hub caps and noticed that on the drivers side the axle castle nut was loose, (I bet that’s part of the problem) the passenger side seemed fine. Being on a very tight budget at the moment I figured I would be lucky to afford the pads let alone anything else until after Christmas and after the initial repair was paid off (by the way, I’m dang close to having that paid off now) I decided to start my brake pad replacement on the passenger side, upon pulling the rotor, I noticed that something was seriously amiss, the rotor was all but blown out, the rubber seal over the parking brake mechanism has a hole in it and upon inspection, it was all gummed up in there, the seal around the piston was all but shredded, and when I tried to screw in the piston, that’s when I noticed the jack screw was stripped, that piston wasn’t going anywhere, this caliper is way beyond rebuilding. I don’t like doing things half way and I’ve always been a firm believer that when doing work like this, you do both sides, whether it’s needed or not, but not having the funds at the moment to do both sides, we’ll start with the passenger side for now, we’ll address the drivers side in a few days. There’s something wrong with my camera so I’m not even going to try to upload pictures tonight, but I took a bunch and none of them were worthy of posting, so I’ll try to get some better pictures in a day or two. At this point, (everything will be done in pairs, but I only have funds for the passenger side right now, I suspect that the drivers side is going to be worse. The brake fluid is a nasty dirty black, it has to be completely flushed, I’m ordering a rebuilt caliper, as well as wheel bearings and hub seals, (I believe at this time that the axles are ok, the boots are intact and not torn on either side, at least not that I can tell) if I'm completely flushing out the brake system, I figured this would be a good time to switch to DOT 4 brake fluid. this is just more evidence that the car sat for a very long period of time before I got it, in my opinion, the brake system is badly contaminated. As far as flushing the system, my guess is for now that my best bet is to pick up a big bottle of DOT 4 brake fluid, and just start pouring in through the master cylinder, and letting it drain out through the brake lines into some disposable containers.

hahaha ....

you know, I got mad at GD once, I never aired it on here, sure glad I didn't, once I got over my little temper tantrum and realized that GD was right and I was wrong, I was embarrassed enough about it that I had to go to his house to apologize, what a humbling moment, I'm glad I got him as a friend and he's close by, he's saved my neck more than once.

60 is but a dream .........

We went out hunting today. I was able to bag a 7 foot Noble Fir with my trusty old mcculloch chain saw. We hauled it home on the roof of Ol’ KC That's what I did with my Soobie today.

they say the tranny is shot because they can't get it in gear, but no one ever looked at it see what's causing it too not go into gear. it was running fine up to that point, no wornings or anything, one minute the cars running perfect and the next it pops out of gear, and gets towed home. it seems to me that if a tranny was going to go out, you would get some sort of warning, or it would be making some sort of suspect noise or something.

nope, brake lights still not working, I need to look into that, but am kinda trying to nurse it past Christmas before I throw any more money into it.

I'm not an expert on the cams but I can tell you that I really like them, they were re-ground by Delta cams in Tacoma Washington, and from what I understand they have a couple of different grinding options for the EA82, Torque cams (which is what I have) or horse power cams, and I couldn't even tell you what the difference is other then the torque cams offer greater low end torque over stock cams. My dog really likes riding in the car, and I honestly thought she was as excited about it as I was, so the other night, I tried to explain the engine mods to her and I really thought she was listening, but it turned out that I was sitting on her ball and she just wanted me to get off it. The grumble rumble in my opinion sounds really cool to me, and when I’m pulling into traffic on the freeway trying to get up to speed, it hums along quite nicely, to me it’s not as slow and gutless as I would think an EA82 would be, but then again, I don’t really have anything to compare it to, someone that knows what a stock EA82 with a 5 speed feels like for torque and acceleration would have to drive it and see if they notice any difference between it and a stocker, I wouldn’t think that it has much more torque over stock. On another note: I did the PCV hose re-route thing and have driven it well over 100 miles in the last couple of days and can now tell you that the oil consumption has all but stopped, the oil level hasn’t budged at all since I did the hose mod. Every now and then it seems like I might get just a whiff of a burnt oil smell when I open the hood, but it’s so slight that it may not be that at all, I can’t say for certain that’s what the smell is, but to be on the safe side, and simply because I think it would be better for the engine in the long run anyway, I am going to install an oil catch can. I don’t want to restrict the PCV system in anyway, so I will be running 5/8” hose to and from the catch can.

at this point, I'm not even sure the tranny is out, all I know is that it popped out of gear when they were driving it home, couldn't get it back into gear, hooked a rope to the front end, and towed it the rest of the way home with their pickup and just parked it, never looked at it to see what was wrong or anything ....so, maybe I might get lucky? who knows? either way, it's a great deal, even if I have to put another tranny in it.

Thanks, and yup, I'm excited, it's a lot nicer then i was thinking it was, and the price was right. I thnik it will make a very nice daily driver

I just got some better pictures of the car, it’s is extremely clean, just needs a tranny yup, I'm happy!

Here’s the only picture I got of it so far: I know it's bad, but better than noth'en: I still need to get it home, and do some fixing on it, but here’s the story so far. The car has 280,000 miles on it, all highway miles, second owner, and well maintained until the tranny went out. It’s a 92' AWD, and has a 5 speed manual, and the way the story goes, is that my co-worker was driving it home from work, it popped out of gear, and they weren’t able to get it back into gear, so they rope towed it home about 5 miles with their pick up and it’s been sitting ever since. the engine runs like a top I'm told, so hopfully it's got a lot more life left in it over and above the 280,000 miles it's already got. It’s been sitting about 2 years, but gets started up every couple of months or so, and it’s pretty nice inside and out, no dents or accidents, no rips or tares on the interior ect. I got it for $300, I still need to get it home and then figure out what happened to the tranny, but I’m going to guess that it’s going to need a new one. If I can get this one running, I’ll be able to park my Loyale and save it for my weekend warrior trips out of town, and use this Legacy as my transportation to and from work …..yup, I’m excited!!

I got the PCV kit from Walker Subaru in Renton Washington (mail order) The part number is 11813AA010. I installed the kit yesterday, and only driven about 60 miles since, but have already seen a huge improvement.

I want that front bumper, that looks really nice

It could be that you got a bad PCV valve, it has been known to happen .. The bottom line is, something is causing your car to suck oil, and you don’t know what’s causing it, until you have been able to verify without question that a certain component is or is not working in your PCV system, then you can't rule anything out, including the possibility of a bad PCV valve. I pulled my hoses tonight when I installed the PCV reroute kit, the hoses were full of oil. I’d at least check yours, if their dry, then you can rule out the PVC system and look for another cause, but if their oil soaked, then we need to figure out why.

Just a quick comment on the cooling system filters: After 3,000 miles driving, and cleaning the filters out about 5 times total (or thereabouts) I can tell you, I don’t regret running those filters one bit, the cooling system is incredibly clean, the engine operating temperature stays down around the ¼ to 1/3 mark on the gauge, and the heater blows so hot that on a nice cold night like tonight, it will literally drive you out of the car,, I have never driven anything that had such a nice hot heater in it, and I attribute that to the heater core filter keeping the debris out of the heater core. At some point I’ll probably change out the Gano radiator filter for a Tefba brand only because the Tefba brand is a little easier to service then the Gano. I would highly recommend running a cooling system filter, it’s really made a difference on my car.

from what GD was saying, anything works except a starter from an EJ with a manual transmission

I got the PCV retrofit parts in the mail today, and installed them tonight, when I took the old hoses and fittings off, they were full of oil, literally saturated. We’ll see how the oil burning does now, next step would be the PCV valve but I'm not going to change that unless it's still sucking oil even after the hose retrofit. And if it's really bad, (even after a new PCV valve) then I can always go to an oil catch can if it's needed. the car is running really well now, I really like the torque cam grumble it's got, at some point I want to upgrade the exhaust on it to help bring the sound out a little better and maybe allow for a little bit more power I noticed tonight that I'm getting what sounds like some squeaking or maybe almost a grinding sound coming from the front end, it's real bad when it's cold and goes away completely after the car has been driven a few miles (I noticed it when I got off work tonight) maybe axles? Or brake pads? I know it needs new brakes on the front, that's my next step, I hope it's not a bad axel or axles, but if it is, I'll address that problem as well. At any rate, you can manipulate the grinding squeaking sound by turning the steering wheel, so it’s got to be axles or brakes or something, I’ll try to get into it this weekend and take a look. I'm pretty sure this car sat for a number of years so I'm finding that I have a few bugs that need to be worked out of it, but so far, it's doing pretty good. I’m pretty sure at some point this nickel and dime stuff is going to quit. I'm thinking sometime in February I'll start upgrading the car and getting ready for traveling, I'm just not sure what I want to do first, tint the windows, maybe get a custom back bumper with a 2" receiver in it? or do the lift kit? Or the exhaust? get the body work done, Or any one of a bunch of other things I'd like to do to the car. this is going to be a work in progress for a number of years I'm guessing, I got a huge list of "I wants" for the car. I've put close to 3,000 miles on it since the engine was put in it, and the more I drive it, the better it seems to get.

I''ll try the PCV hose mod on mine and see is that helps, but for your car, I'd probably spend the 10 bucks and go the dealer for the PCV valve, you can't judge a book by the cover if your refering to the PCV valves looking the same on the outside. if the hose mod don't work on mine, I'll do the PCv valve next.