Jump to content
Ultimate Subaru Message Board

idosubaru

Members
  • Posts

    26969
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    338

Everything posted by idosubaru

  1. i'm out of town and dont' have any info except what he tells me over the phone. his buddy said he thinks it's the CV. they're getting into it this weekend.
  2. is there any way to tell if the hubs are stripped? he says both sides are like that. one turns about 1/4 of the way around and the other about 1/2? that sounds crazy to me, i'm not sure what to tell him over the phone.
  3. RAM engines (http://www.ramperformance.com) sells high compression pistons for EA81, EA82 and ER27 engines. someone at xt6.net has them in his ER27. he has pictures of them and details of his engine rebuild at http://www.xt6.net if you'd like to see it.
  4. it would help if you could detail which side and where you saw the rubbing. it was the inner covers for sure, behind the belts? the most likely cause is just a broken timing belt. one that breaks or starts to shread can easily damage belt covers. no big deal and can't cause any major engine damage. it wouldn't be cause for alarm unless something highly unlikey or obvious was the issue: the timing belt is nearly set in place in terms of the crank sprockets. they are nearly immovable. i would wonder if perhaps the crank sprockets were removed (to replace crank seal) and installed incorrectly. like the wrong one was installed first. highly doubtful as there's plenty on there to let you know it's not the right order, but i've seen some weird things before. this may cause the belt to ride too close to the passengers side inner cover. i'm getting the different motors mixed up in my head but i think the EA82 has one cam that has a ridge on the back of the cam (i know the xt6 is like this), so that will prevent the timing belt from hitting the rear belt cover. i believe it's the drivers side. a front end collision can bend pulleys and cause belts to run out of alignment but that should be obvious.
  5. i saw a list on the internet showing a 1988 Subaru GL FWD having the same halfshaft of a bunch of subaru EA82 and EA82T vehicles. are they that common across models? i'm seeing all EA81 and EA82 the same except GL-10's? what? i thought there were spline count issues on turbo models?
  6. 1988 GL FWD friend of mine owns this car. he called and said that when he pulled the wheel off he noticed that he can rotate the hub about 1/4 to 1/2 a turn before the axle starts to spin or engage. i've never heard of that happening and asked him if he knew for certain that he could turn the hub that far without the axle moving at all. he's going to check again. is that possible, i've never seen it before? a guy working on the car for him told him ne needs new CV axles on both sides because they both do it. car only has about 80,000 miles on it.
  7. the only seal you can't get to without pulling the motor is the rear main seal. the thing with that seal is that they almost never leak. i don't know why, but they just don't. i know of TWO instances where a Subaru rear main seal leaked and both leaked shortly after being replaced (like almost immediately). by what i've seen, the chances are higher of having a rear main seal leak if you replace than if you don't! i've pulled some 200,000+ mile motors that i assume have the original rear main and i've yet to see one even seaping any oil. i know others (svxpert for one) that have done alot of engine work and have noticed the same thing, rear mains rarely need attention on EA and ER series engines. all that to say, i still don't think pulling the engine gains you much of anything, but it certainly allows you to replace that seal, the oil pan gasket and the separator gasket. on a manul trans you're looking at clutch work. if it is manual i'd just wait until the clutch needs replaced to do the rear main and oil pan if you'd like. if it's an auto then you can replace the torque converter seal as well. be very careful with an auto and read about seating the last 1/4", it's an often missed point that ends up ruinning the trans oil pump (very bad) if you don't know about it. subaru's typically have cracks between the valve seats, very common. most EA and ER series subarus driving around today probably have those cracks, they aren't all that big of a deal. (i'd be much more concerned with turbo's than non-turbo's) but i (almost) always have them repaired when the head is off. i take them to a shop and have a valve job done, cracks repaired and have them resurfaced. you could probably get away with slapping heads on there though, but it's risky of course. you can straight edge the heads and get a rough idea. there's information on this board on how to resurface the heads yourself using a flat machinist block and blah blah blah, you'll have to look it up if you'd like to do that yourself. i always take mine in to an aluminum head specialist they do excellent work. if you pulled a set of heads off a known good motor they would likely perform fine. the valve stem seals are old and there will likely be cracks but cracks don't usually leak unless they get really deep. i forget what you have but if you're after performance, racing, turbo's...then going cheap on the heads is a terrible idea. if you want to stay non-turbo you'd likely be okay. the more i knew for certain they were never overheated the better i'd feel about doing it which brings the next point.... i've gasket-slapped two engines, pulled the heads and replaced the gaskets without any head work at all except cleaning the heads, head bolts, engine block and head bolt threads. both of those vehicles are still running great after a number of years. both had very minor external leaks and never overheated, so i assumed the heads were probably okay. i don't normally do that, but for various reasons sometimes i do if i'm confident the heads are likely okay. so far it hasn't come back to bite me yet. one of the most important things about doing a headgasket on a motor this old is cleaning the mating surface between the head and engine. and cleaning the head bolts and head bolt holes. this is where air tools save a TON of time and make it much easier. you can zap a bolt and a bolt hole three times in a minute cleaning the threads up. by hand is a much more tedious process. ] i've said enough.......good luck!
  8. i'd take it for a test drive with them and point out exactly what you're talking about. "settling" after a headgasket job doesn't take that long, a few miles at most so that's a BS comment on their part unless you haven't driven it much. i'm assuming you've put some miles on it. wires should be Subaru OEM only, don't use any aftermarket ones on this engine, (except magnecor, but most people don't use those). it's not very forgiving. same with plugs, use NGK plugs (that's what subaru uses). an ignition problem like that would typically give a check engine light though as a "Cylinder # ? Misfire". so you might be doing all that for nothing. i like the idea of driving yours and then driving one on their lot...and seeing firsthand what the difference is. this isn't your fault. how long was the headgasket bad? what happened? how long did you drive it while it was overheating? there's the possibility of internal engine issues depending how much it overheated or if there was any significant amount of coolant and oil mixing. it's not likley but if you drove it while overheating for any length of time it is certainly possible.
  9. do not pull the motor just to change the head gaskets. if you have air tools headgaskets in these little 4 cylinders are a cake walk (as far as head gaskets go). even without air tools i'd still do it in the car. i bust out headgaskets in no time on both EA82's and 6 cylinder XT6's. the bottom line is that there is nothing hard about doing a headgasket in the car. pulling the engine only makes it take longer. the only trick to doing it in the car (no jokes please!!!) is removing the valve cover bolt, mostly on the drivers side. just have a wratcheting 10mm wrench on hand and it's easy. then you'll need grease (who doesn't have that?) to hang the rocker arms on when you reassemble. i would look into those perma-torque fel-pro gaskets that don't require retorquing the head bolts. also - plan on it taking awhile and having the car down. large jobs like this typically run into a quirk here or there that may take longer than you expected. cost being an issue you probably won't want to do this, but i like to have a set of heads ready to go so i can swap right away and not worry about taking the set off the car in and waiting on the shop.
  10. on the XT's they are way off. don't know about others, but i'd be suspicious of other similar era vehicles like EA82.... someone posted a write up over at http://www.xt6.net on how to disassembled and clean up the insides of a TPS. not for someone who hates tedious tiny parts, but he had great results cleaning his out and his engine performance was much smoother. legacy and loyale definitely won't swap like GD said. i'd get a used one from the yard, they rarely fail in my experience. post on here in the parts wanted section, someone probably has one.
  11. like nipper said you'd hate to go through an engine swap and find out it's still doing it. (been there done that on much smaller projects, and even then it's annoying and you're still scratching your head later). of course if you get to the point with hands up in the air and nowhere else to look you might be ready to do it. been there too!
  12. and hey....on a couple of those occassions i actually have removed some of that rotating mass - half of the rear driveshaft, even the rear diff and rear axles too. still no change in gas mileage. the internals of the trans must be the culprit.
  13. if you're replacing the ATF yourself plan on doing it a few times as one drain doesn't get nearly all of the fluid out. i do three drain and refills over a couple days myself. as for the overheat - how long ago was any part of the cooling system opened? you may have some pockets of air in the cooling system. others have had issues with getting all of the air out. replace all of your radiator caps. i think yours only has one.
  14. i think this depends on your driving habits. i've done it on more than one occassion for extended periods of time as well (in both manual and auto's). mileage didn't change. i do more highway type driving than stop and go.
  15. i'd chase the threads with a tap and try another drain plug first. if that didn't work i'd install an oversized plug. check them out at any autoparts stores. they are slightly oversized and self tapping just for these situations.
  16. to get this EJ22 out of the car i have one motor mount nut to go on the drivers side. the head is rounded off and chiseled all to crap from me pounding on it. it's a parts car so anything goes to get this motor out. i can reach one of the bolts that attach the motor mount to the engine block. the other is buried, does anyone know if i can access it by removing the steering rack? it's really close to the hole where the rack pokes through. if i can get to it i can leave the motor mount on the cross member when i pull the motor. everything else is unbolted....trans mounts, exhaust, everything but one bolt. and i don't feel like taking the entire cross member off. one of those many bolts will likely give me the same problem. older EA82's are nice, the leak enough oil that there's usually little rust underneath!
  17. there are many variables here. size of gas tank, EJ22 or EJ25, gearing, transmission, highway or city mileage.....mileage varies from 18 - 35 depending on vehicle and driving style.
  18. i see those early 90's legacy's all the time around here with 200k - 250k on them. crazy rump roast motors for sure. guy i work with sold his this year, still ran great and had well over 200 but can't recall the exact number.
  19. i dont' know jack about justy's but i've driven some late 80's subaru's that had second gear grinding when shifting and they were like that for 100,000 miles (admittedly mostly highway driving, but that's still alot of miles) with no other issues. so while annoying it may not cause any alarm in terms of needing to replace the trans. hopefully that treatment helps.
  20. ATF - Automatic Transmission Fluid. having fresh fluid does good things to your transmission, does well in preventing issues with the transfer clutches in the transmission (large job & $$$ to fix if you can't do it yourself). that and the timing belt and you should be golden.
  21. check the battery terminals as well. corroded or loose connections at the battery can cause intermittent issues as well. easy to check. the terminals and connectors should be spotless and tight, you should not be able to turn the connectors by hand. then i'd look into the sensors they mentioned above. i'd be very surprised if one of those didn't solve your problem, but if they didn't i'd start suspecting the starter itself. tapping it with a hammer may temporarily help it along and prove it's causing issues. places like autozone and advance can test your starter, if it's bad it'll show on their tester.
  22. if it's an automatic, change the ATF. it's an interference motor, so make sure the timing belt is on the newer side. if you don't know, then replace it. if it breaks for any reason, old, bad pulley bearing, water pump, etc it can cause major engine damage. great car, i've been thinking about getting a late 90's legacy GT sedan recently, i dig the looks of some of them. look up 2.5 head gaskets issues. small chance of issues, but nice to know what to look for and what your options are ahead of time. search the forum here, lots of info on that and no need to start another thread about it.
  23. i'd check the fluid level and end up changing the ATF right away. make sure the ATF lines look good and the ATF pan isn't dented. what do you mean by boost issues? engine driveability could affect the transmission indirectly depending what it is. i know nothing about turbo's so i can't help you specifically except to say get the engine running right first before assuming the trans has issues. not to jump the gun, i think this is completely premature but it does sounds like the beginning signs of typical 4EAT problems that i've seen in the past. is the POWER light blinking and can you pull the codes? the ones i've seen go bad typically if you turn the car off and back on it randomly may go away sometimes. but eventually the trans will die. again...just past experience, i'd check all the minor issues first.
×
×
  • Create New...