NorthWet

Ahhh... The Loyale automatics use a clutch-pack as a transfer gear, and it does not totally disengage. It can be towed for short distances at low speed without significant damage, but you would be better off disconnecting the rear section of the driveshaft or towing with all four wheels off of the ground.

H311 yes I still have a VCR. I still have the first computer I bought back in 1980... ...somewheres... $69 would buy an awful lot of hardened threaded rod (backwoods stud-stock), but i really didn't want to start by stud attempts yet.

*bump* C'mon, locals! SOMEBODY must have taken the plunge in better times! Don't really want to spend $69 for a stinkin' helicoil. If I do get it, I will feel obligated to start helicoiling EVERYTHING...

You do not have a wiring diagram? I am not sure if one would help... and I am pretty sure that the 2 in my 88 FSM wouldn't help: They seem to contradict each other. A "simplified" whole-car diagram implies that the fan is connected to power through fuse#15, and the motor has 2 parallel ground paths, one being through the thermoswitch and the other through the A/C relay. The A/C section gives a "more detailed" diagram that shows the fan motor being unswitched to ground and the thermoswitch activating a relay to supply power to the fan motor, and what looks like a separate relay used for a secondary, A/C fan motor. Even with a brand new thermoswitch, my Xt-4's fan didn't seem to work right if at all, so I would just run a jumper like GD suggested.

EDIT - Gary is correct. They can be stacked. The tang that i mention below is designed to be removed. Thanks, GG!!! - endedit From what I could tell, they have a cross-tang on them that the install tool engages, so that a second, stacked insert would have the tang sticking across the hole part way down. Maybe I am misperceiving this (I hope so!) but that is the way they looked. (Its been forever since I actually used one.)

Well, it looks like I am SOL (Sorry, Out of Luck) on the Helicoil front anyway. I am unable to find any listing for an insert other than 16.5mm in length in our favorite threadsize... hardly adequate for a headbolt. Helicoil does sell 30mm inserts in 11x1.5 for other headbolt apps. Sigh... Unless a different thread repair system, such as TimeSert, has longer inserts in 11x1.25, I will have to set aside this block and go to plan C or D. (I am running out of plans.) Plan C would be to disassemble my original bottom-end-knocking block and hope to identify and correct all issues quickly and on a shoestring budget. Might be possible. Plan D would be to yank the pistons out of one of the 2 currently-accessible NA MPFI blocks and put them into an available turbo block. I haven't pulled pistons on Subarus before, so some trepidation. The only thing worse than doing either is to continue driving my wife's Mazda sedan... 1.5L with automatic. I will never call a Subaru underpowered again.

Using a fastener with a different tensioning force than all other fasteners securing a head to an engine that is known for having head gasket issues. Headbolts are not hardware store fasteners. They are proprietary, and thus nearly impossible to match by arbitrary selection by size. If there were a lot of tolerance built into the EA82 design this might not be an issue, but frankly the head joint is a piece of crap. I just want to make my piece of crap work a little while longer.

Is that a general purpose tap set, or some weird helicoil tap set?

7/16-14 isn't particularly close to the right thread (-20 is closer) so I couldn't use my headbolt. Using some other bolt opens up a HUGE can of worms.

I am looking to borrow an M11x1.25 Helicoil kit from a local. I was just about to reassemble my XT's EA82 when I discovered a stripped headbolt hole. There will be one M11x1.25 Helicoil kit shipped into the county tomorrow morning, but it will set me back $69. As this is intended to be my last ever foray into headbolted EA82s, I am loathe to spend $69 to fix one hole so that I can save a little gas by driving my more fuel-efficient XT. I am already plenty peeved at the misadventures this emergency short-block swap has caused me... I don't want to spend another couple weeks deciding between a stop-gap helicoil kit, the ultimate-goal of an EJ conversion, or the ego-expression of my EA82T SSE (Super Sow's Ear) project. Somebody save me from myself, please!

2 sets of connectors are involved, both on the "right"/US-passenger-side of the radiator. One connector is for the thermoswitch, and the other is for the fan itself. Both should be hanging around near the black evap-emissions ("charcoal") canister that is sitting in the fenderwell behind the right headlight. The connectors will probably be near the gap between the framefails and the radiator/electric fan.

GD, thanks for this information, specifically.

Thanks for the responses, guys. Sorry. should have mentioned that the corrosion was from the shortblock having been poorly stored for a couple years. Not really pitted, but the corrosion is a little more than purely surface, scrub-off-with-a-scotchbrite-pad. Charlie (sp?), which shop and when? (The meds the witchdocs have me on really screw with my memory...)

I need to remove some corrosion from the head-mating surfaces of an ea82 block. Don't really want (able) to spring for a redeck, so what is the second best way to clean up the surface? A redeck leaves a certain amount of machining "tooth", so I assume I also need to do so. Suggestions from the mavins, please.

Thanks for the response, Gary. Funniest thing is that this noise has been occurring for 4-5 months, and right after I post about it things go really sour really quickly. Ancient memories from autoshop say that tapping/knocking noises under no/low load means piston-pin issues, but never heard of those issues on the Subarus. The other thought of the Flywheel coming loose scared the excrement out of me when the sound suddenly started getting louder and more easily right before I shut it down... even with with flywheel a foot or two if front of my feet, it would not have been pretty. Won't be able to dig in to the engine until after they MRI my head, and no clue when they will bother to get around to that.

Well, Monday morning the noise got worse very rapidly, and I shut the engine down with perhaps 30 seconds left before something hand-grenaded. When I have the time, I will pull the engine out and do a tech-cropsy on it. I don't know if I will just slap together another straight MPFI engine or start my high-compression turbo build. Money and time points to the former :-( Until then, I'll have to drive my SVX instead...

1988 XT w/EA82 MPFI, led a tough life. In addition to the TOD from one of its HLAs that comes and goes, I have a knocking/rapping sound that seems to occur during light throttle cruise (maybe 10-20% power) and seems louder around 3krpm (maybe higher). Reducing throttle to engine overrun causes the sound to go away (or at least become inaudible) as does increasing power above 30% or so. My first thought was piston pin knock, but I hadn't heard any talk about that before on the EA82s. Another thought was a vibrating engine whacking itself in to things on partial throttle (eg - loose engine mounts slamming home), but I haven't found any sign of stuff like that. Another wild thought was a loose flywheel, knocking on its mount bolts. I am having auditory issues, so it is currently impractical for me to try to track down the location of the sound with stick/tube/stethoscope. Oh, Intelligent Ones! (and you know who you are), is my engine about to ventilate its engine case due to "boredom of the con-rod"?

I have a 12v portable compressor, a high-volume/medium pressure (100-120 psi) that attaches to the battery with "alligator" clamps (like a battery charger). Compared to typical battery-powered inflators, it quickly pumps up my tires, and only cost me about $35USD (on sale) at Harbor Freight Tools. And it comes in its own case.

Yeah, I would rather have just changed the bearing, but spouse said money was tight and my time was cheap. However, since her car was down for over 3 weeks, maybe she will have a different opinion next time. I still have no idea why a grade-10 (metric) 10mm bolt with no detectable corrosion should be such a PITA to break loose. I had to literally destroy both bolt and nut to get them to let loose of each other, and then they just screwed apart as pretty as you please. :-\ Next time hub tamer (and the resultant "doghouse") FTW!!!

Pretty much the definition of transfer clutch/Duty "C" solenoid issues.

Well, I tired of being totally frustrated, so I took my 3.5" cutoff tool to the nut... and could only get partway through it due to interference from the brake backing plate and the control arm itself. So, I then took my 4.5" angle grinder to it, and quickly ran into the same difficulty. I was about to switch to the bolt head when I decided to try again turning the bolt. It turned a little (until the bolt cooled down a bit; it was pretty hot from 20 minutes of cutting at the nut), so I attacked the nut again. Turned bolt, repeated. Stuck a pair of vise grips on what remained of the nut and gave a fearful tug on the bolt head, and the nut FINALLY broke loose. What a @#$% pain!!! 20 minutes later I had the knuckle detached (parking drum brake is a pain), and an hour later knuckle was replaced and the car was ready for a test drive.

WOW!!! Nice restores! (my cars are lucky if they get washed. )

The zip-tie method sounds interesting, but I haven't tried it...yet. What I have done in the past is cheat. I got longer bolts (all thread, no shoulder), nylock nuts and flat washers (all SS, IIRC). I threaded the bolts (with some locktite) through the rear of the back covers so that they stuck forwards. You can then slide the front covers over them and secure the covers with the flat washers and locknuts. Strain can be taken off the cover nut-inserts by using a wrench on the bolthead. Maybe complicated and overkill, but looks fairly neat and practically guarantees that the covers can be easily removed.

Looks like if you had snagged the Maxima's connector plug you could have swapped over the plastic to your spade connectors and had an even cleaner install. (Hindsight/armchair-mechanic'ing is wonderful! ) Does anyone know if the multi-groove pulley on the Maxima's alt would work on an XT without changing? (Hmmm... my kinda-memory is telling me the Maxima uses 5-ribs while the XT uses 4-ribs.... is that right?)

Maybe its because you are not supposed to use 4wd on dry pavement???