kyle234

at my local salvation army car lot i ran across a 1986 subaru gl hatch turbo hi/lo. the were asking 800 i ended up paying 600 for it. it ran good except for the headgasket being completely gone. its got 77,000 miles and not a speck or rust. dent on the front fender otherwise very clean. i got it apart and it was pretty clear the passenger side head was a no good. but i found a good one at the junk yard out of an 86 xt turbo. anyways its running great lots of fun but i do have some issues ive got a lifter tick, kinda annoying so im in need of some good lifters so it will shut up. and there is a lot of sun damage to the vinyl around the seats so i need a black interior. i would like to swap black wrx seats to the front but i still need rear seats. Oh, also what is the solution for putting an aftermarket stereo in. mine is to deep and sticks out to far. Thanks

there is no doubt in my mind GD is very informative. i know i dont have all the answers and i know i could learn plenty from GD but there is some doubt he is as nice as you say he is now maybe gd misunderstood myself or the symptoms i was trying to describe but with my experience and your testimonial it seems as if my diagnosis was for the most part correct. its great stuff maybe there is some long term side-affects but i know i'll sell the car long before i see them. ive noticed that! when i told my buddy i used seafoam he told me my car was going to implode turns out he has never used it. ha correction: i worked as a subaru mechanic at an established and trusted shop as well as a general maintenance shop and spent some time as a mine mechanic. not just some redneck who works on their friends cars haha

being a "wongleflute" is never necessary. there is better ways to get your point across and very few people respond well to rudeness as im sure you have dealt with the issue. i am a professional. i get paid to work on cars. as for my tools i know there proper usage and procedure. i am aware of the gauges low reading. i continued with the test because i knew the car ran to well to have any serious compression problems but i was curious to see how much variation there was between cylinders. carbon build up can cause poor idle. ive seen it before on the identical engine with similar mileage. and yes there is other causes but seafoam in the fuel and oil would lead me to believe it was carbon and/or variation or compression. (seafoam did not pass thru the carb eliminating that as a variable) i could be wrong. but if one cylinder has low compression you wouldnt get as much power from that cylinder cause more of a studder. when under a load it wouldnt be noticeable. im sure you agree leading cause of low compression is rings. that and valve guides. but if the rings became gummed up probably due to poor maintenance throughout its life and just being over 25 years old. seafoam breaks down sludge and sticky oil deposits. wouldnt it be reasonable to assume the rings were gummed up and the seafoam loosened them up. well over all im sure you have experienced similar symptoms with different diagnosis but in MY case they do not apply. all ive said is correct now maybe my logic behind it is wrong but if you look at the facts. my car ran poorly with blow by and a variation in compression after seafoam was used symptoms where greatly reduced or eliminated completely. im sorry but there is no arguing with that. with 19,000 post im sure you have learned a lot and know most your stuff but i would appreciate it if you did not respond to mine. not because you're unintelligent or ill informed but because your rude and i would like to distance myself from you. thanks from your "help" and good luck with your cars. stubies subie: GD seems well informed and it wouldnt surprise me he is usually correct but nobody appreciated being demeaned. im glad we could bring you some entertainment tonight

well mr Generaldisorder first i would like to say you come across as quite the wongleflute. and for somebody of your stature you are setting a bad example for the nice people trying to learn a bit about there super subies. but i do thank you for your response. now on to my car. well it was running poorly. rough idle due to carbon build up around the valves and also a slight mis at operating RPM's probably attributed to the unbalance in the compression. and i know there is other issues that could cause these symptoms but seeing as the symptoms improved i think i was right. now if you put on your spectacles and read my post you'll notice i say its bad they very that much. also my tools are not harbor freight specials they are probably 40 years which as i am sure you know are usually the best. except in my case... ha l75eya: i love the stuff today was a great example of what it would do. i havent used it in fuel much but ive had good success in oil. its made piston slap in my ej25 go away made valve tick quit from the hydraulic 25

so got bored and thought i would do a compression check on my ea82 carb'ed. it wasnt good. first off i suspect my gauge is low but it should be constant. anyways i got 75 on #1, 95 on #3, 70 on #2, and 90 on #4..... so say the gauge reads 20 or 30 lbs low thats still very bad having them vary that much. so i fired her up pulled the oil cap to dump some seafoam in and sure enough gale force winds came out of there. so bad i killed it to put the seafoam in. anyways drove it maybe 5 miles noticed the dead spot and minor mis i was having fade away and when i got home i pulled the oil cap again and it felt like an asmatic mouse coughing in my crank case.. i love seafoam... going to run some in the carb see if i can clean up the carbon on the valves and see what that does.

to test your thermo you can drop in a pot of water on the stove and see what temp it opens up at.

the positive leg is fused. check if you have ground. if you dont have it give it ground.

i haven't heard much about 2.2 phase 2 head gasket either but if you crawl under the car and you got oil coming from between the head and block its going to be your head gasket. Im in corvallis if you decide to sell your car let me know. also if you decide to do it yourself i can lend a hand.

i now have had 2 impreza wagons with no dash lights. i replaced the switch with a used working one (checked continuity through it) and they still didn't work. i believe there is a control module behind the stereo which apparently fails and cuts ground to the lights. if you bypass the module and just ground it out it should work. check if you have ground to the lights first.

so i need some help sorting out vacuum lines on my 1987 gl 4wd hi-lo 5spd. so im wondering if anybody out there has an 87 and could take some pictures of the dizzy and its vacuum. it would be hugely appreciated thanks!!

i just looked at a 85 gl the vacuum system was a bit different but i think i found the issue with the oil in the pcv. on this car it was hooked up intake to pcv with just a vent it was NOT hooked up to the valve cover. I was told the 85 ran perfect. so that solves the oil problem but now i still need to sort out the rest of the vacuum leaks and good stuff

IT WORKS!! the noise went away. i think it was piston slap. the block sat for a while and a wrist pin got dry and sticky slamming the piston around. when it warms up there is no noise

blow-by would cause oil in the pcv but i pulled the hose to the crank and there was nothing. if the rings where this bad i don't think it would run. there was nearly a quarter cup in the hose leading to the pcv. there would have been a lot of air coming out of the crank if that where the case. blow by was the first thing i thought of but the car didn't smoke at all before. if the rings where bad you'd see smoke under a load because the rings aren't wiping the walls clean. right? because i found so much oil in the pcv system i think i found my smoking gun haha and other than that i don't know where the oil could be coming from.

no my water is full and my oil isnt milky. the oil i found in the hose was black. the way mine was hooked up was a hose to the valve cover up to a T one leg to the air intake and the other down to the PCV. i have some serious vacuum in the PCV i guess its enough to suck up the oil. the temp creeps up on hills but no hot. i think thats due to the timing still being off since i cant time it correctly because the idle is so high kabarakh: its very possible thats part of the problem. the hoses dont seem to brittle but i could have cracked one. they may already be cracked cause i have a pretty bad vacuum leak i pulled a hose while it was running and there was no change in idle and i couldn't feel any sort of vacuum even when reving it.

i dont know much about these engines and i could be wrong but it doesnt seem like a head gasket could cause it. and mine had the headgasket done 4 years ago which is only about 30,000 miles so it doesnt seem likely. i pulled the hose and i had very little crank case pressure. the guy i bought it from "rebuilt" the carb and he messed up the vacuum lines so maybe thats causing mine. to temporarily fix the problem i just hooked up the PCV right into the intake and just let the crank vent into the engine bay. i just drove 200 miles with it like that... i didnt have a choice i had to get home. What leads you to believe the head gasket?

so i've been having some minor issues with my new 87 gl nothing to serious it was always drivable. but today i messed with the vacuum trying to get it back to how it is suppose to be. i only swapped on hose at a time and ran it after each mod to limit error and so i would know where i went wrong. it was running alright and i got the idle pretty good so i drove a couple mile back home when i parked it i let it idle down make sure it was still good all of a sudden it started spewing smoke like couldnt find my way out of the cloud thick. the hose coming out of the pcv valve was FULL of oil. so at this point i would like to drive it off a cliff please help!!!

thanks for the offer but i went to pull a part and got a decent bosch distributor for $30 after swapping distributors i thought i would fix the high idle and turns out the vacuum lines are not hooked up correctly so now i have to try and figure out were it went wrong. does anybody have any tips on how to make it a bit easier. and could there be any other causes for high idle, a dead spot when you hit the throttle and a mis

so i just got an 87 carbed gl it was running poorly, decent at an idle and good at 4000 and up but the mid range was doggish and with a slight mis. plugs were really really bad so i replaced them figured the wires should be retired as well new rotor and cap. it made and improvement but still has no power. im thinking the distributor may be shot i can turn the rotor by hand 10 or 20 degrees and its very clunky and doesn't spring back. ive never messed with a subi dist. but i know vw dist. are not suppose to be like that. i checked the vac advance by sticking on a section of hose and sucking i could see the arm wiggle but not advance. car quest wants $320 for a dist. whats my best course of action from here?

i haven't messed with the flat 6 before. didnt they change them to internal chain drive to make the engine fit in the engine bay of the flat 4's? speaking of xt's one came up on craigslist. its and 86 turbo with bad head gasket for $500. worth it when the pulley starts wobbling like that does it affect the way it runs. it seems like it might be able to throw of the timing just lightly maybe to cause a misfire?

its not piston slap mainly because the 22's dont get piston slap. they have a longer skirt which prevents it. and its way way to noisy to be piston slap. i doubt its the tensioners i did the timing belt when i had it out and replaces all of them. thats very interesting tho i have never heard of that happening. to me it sounds like whoever did the timing belt last over tightened the pulley. they should be able to shear off. and the rear baffle plate i soaked in ultra grey and resealed. i was tried to find a metal one but i had to settle for resealing those stupid plastic ones.

yes ive done the old ej25 block with new heads that works for sure. ive picked up a couple newer cars with bad lower ends and its way cheaper to use the old block. yeah you need to match the gasket to the block. i think on the phase II engines they used thinner gaskets to accomplish a higher compression ratio. i'm thinking it is a rod because the car it came out of was hit head on and crushed one of the cams. maybe due an abrupt stop it tweaked a bearing. that and there is no noise at an idle and when you punch the throttle it starts going crazy but if you hold it at a steady rpm it becomes fairly consistent.

well thats really good to know. i only paid $100 for the old 22 with low mileage that why i thought it was tapping the valves on the piston. i thought the cams where different and they where open for a longer duration and that would cause them to hit. i guess i have to find a new block and try it again. thanks

in the hopes of finding an alternative to the rare ej22 phase II engines i tried to take an old ej22 block and bolt on the new sohc heads. i have done it successfully with the ej25 and the new heads but i thought it would be fun to try it with a 22 block. i measured all the clearances and it appeared like it was going to work.. the 22 i used had the big square cut out in the top of the piston. at this point it is tough to tell if it worked. i did not hear the engine run before hand so believe it or not im hoping it IS a rod knock. i haven't diagnosed it yet but i will get back to you with the diagnosis.