diluded000

I already swapped the carrier for a diff and am running it, but I have a D/R tranny sitting on the floor of my garage to swap for the push-button one in my 85 DL wagon. I need to fab up an engine puller after work this week, and will hopefully get down to nuts and bolts by this weekend. This is my first time pulling a motor, or trying anything like this. Can you give me any tips on avoiding things that you spent a lot of time or effort on? It seems like it takes for ever the first time I do something, then once I have done it - it goes really quick the next time. Like when I spent 4 hours pulling my first CV half-shaft, then got the other one out in 20 minutes. thanks James B

I just read through this thread, and it looks like an interesting idea. For propulsion, could a belt or chain be fixtured between the driveshaft and a prop shaft? It would only be engaged when 4wd was on, and only have a load in excess of friction when it was in the water. - James B

Glenn, Have you used that winch on the trail, and will they hold you in place if you cut power? HF has them on sale this week for $49 (USD) and I was thinking of getting one. When I wired a charge circuit for my travel trailer onto my truck, I used an automotive circuit breaker instead of a fuse and would prolly use the same thing to wire this into a subie. I haven't tripped one, but they are supposed to reset after they cool down so you don't have to hunt for a new fuse at a bad time. - James B

Big-O Snow King P235 75-R15 studded snow tires on drilled 6-lug 139.5 mm rims from a Nissan Hardbody style truck. Bashed first, then fabricated a 3"-front 2"-rear lift from a block of 3"x2" aluminum stock and some steel. Might not have needed to bash with the lift, just tried to do it with a sledge first. All new brake pads, turned rear rotors, new China front rotors, shocks, struts, tie-rod ends, ball joints, and about half of the bushings. Limited slip diff conversion, braided stainless flex brake lines all around with an as yet untested rear disk brake conversion (tonite). Rides smooth and tracks well, but the carb with 5-speed pushbutton 4wd really lacks power over 6K feet and on hills. Tires provide excellent traction on ice and snowpack, do OK in deep snow, and do OK offroad, but really need thicker tread for protection from rocks. - James B

I'm in the process of doing a drum to disk brake swap on my 85 GL wagon and need some advice on tools. I got the flare nuts at NAPA and I believe they are 9.5 mm, so which flare wrench should I get? They had a set that had a 9 and 10 mm wrench, but the nut wouldn't fit into the 9 mm, and was loose in the 10 mm. Does anyone make a 9.5 mm, or should I get a 9 mm and file it a little bigger, or get a 10 and try not to round off the bolt. Are these 3/16" brake lines with a double flare? I think the flare making tool I got only does a single flare. It looks like Harbor Freight has a double flare making tool, but is this what I really need? Something tells me that my single flared vice-grip tightened lines are gonna squirt brake fluid in a bad way. Any advice would be a huge help. - James B

I got the plastic chrome skull cupholder from AutoZone and screwed it to the flat part of the dash. The car behind can see my design taste, if they get close enough. - James B

Down at the local u-pull I found a couple of nice seats for the 85 DL wagon, now featuring a converted limited slip rear diff. The old ones had holes in the seat covers that were covering more holes in the seat iteslf, and they made my back hurt. I found a couple of crushed velvet replacements with adjustable lumbar, adjustable seat height, head rest that goes up and down and in and out, and no holes! It musta been owned by somebody clean and skinny, cuz the car had 200K miles on it, but the seats were only a little worn and completely intact. And I thought only VWs had the adjustable height seats. - James B

I've heard of people busting out a window so they can come back later and take your stuff more quietly. You might consider locking the stuff in your car up. Hopefully somebody closer to you can fix you up with new glass. Getting your car messed up, especially for no apparent reason, is a bad thing. - James B

Not at all. I get such good info off this board, I'm glad I can provide a little. - James B

I finally finished writing up how I built a lift for my 82 DL wagon, and posted it over on the Repair & Mod section http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/article.php?c=4 The updated write-up now shows how I did the shock and strut extensions. - James B

E How much of that Dynamat product did it take to cover the floor, and how much of a PITA was it to get the trim re-installed with the increased thickness? I might try that stuff. -James B

Well I'm the proud new owner of an LSD. But the axles are still attached. Everything unbolted pretty easily, I just had problems getting the axles out of the cup. When you guys talk about this circlip, is that the strap that holds the rubber boot on, or is there something under the boot that has to come loose to get the axle out of the bearing cup. The only way I could get the thing apart was to completely take a hub off of the shock and suspension, then bang the cup loose on the end closest to the tires, then bang the diff to get the other end loose. If this is normal I will do it again when I pull the open diff from my car tomorrow, but it seems like I missed something. Anyway, thanks for all the advice. It made this go pretty well. - James B

Dang, y'all are fast. So when you say don't remove the 4 bolts, I should be taking off the bolt thru the bushing in callout number 13 below? And thanks for the tips on the axle cups getting stuck. If it is hard to break those cups loose I have a new (to me) Victor OA welding setup in the garage at home. Making the whole thing glow a pretty red would be fun. Appreciate the tip about bringing something to stake the driveline as well, I would have forgot about that. - James B (picture from the AutoZone free repair info website)

I'm going down to my local u-pull to get an LSD and need a little prep advice. This is my first experience at me-pull, so a little support would be helpful. Having read that swapping diffs is a quick job, I still am not quite sure where to pull what loose. How and where do I get the driveshaft off, how and where do I get the axle shafts off; is it like the front CVs where I knock out a pin and yank it loose, or does something else have to happen? I am also a pretty clean sort of fella. Is 20 year old (hopefully more well maintained than that) gear oil going to come gushing out somewhere when I take something other than the drain plugs off? The plan is to use the fine USMB write-up on doing the gear swap to get this to 3.9:1 after I get it home. I may try to take pictures to go with the write-up when I do this. Also got my high dollar stainless brake hoses all ready for the disk brake retrofit on the back, so I might snap a few of that process as well. Need to get the pictures of my home fabricated lift posted before I do any of that though. Wish me luck. Any advice on the whole u-pull thing would be helpful. - James B

What is shot-peened or what does it involve? Just curious. - James B

For the really really long 12mm bolts (transmission crossmember?) I had to re-tap the hole for a coarse thread 1/2", since that was all I could find at the local farm store. A 1/2" tap is just a little too big for the existing hole, but if you are careful not to break the tap you can do it without drilling. - James B

I drove my 29"s with a carb'd EA82 up to the mountains yesterday and it drove like a gutless POS. Now don't get me wrong, I like my wagon lots, but trying to get up a long grade is painful. I was wide open going about 30 mph getting passed by a steady stream of SUVs going 70 (like I do when I drive my truck up there.) Going up I70 in Colorado towards the ski slopes isn't even all that steep, not like I40 up Old Fort Mt in NC, or any given mountain two-lane. I guess the thin air doesn't help, but I don't think the gears on the 5sp-4WD button tranny are all that bad for hills. Hopefully this summer I can drop a rebuilt turbo motor in there and maybe almost keep up with traffic on dry pavement. But hey, on the plus side - with the studded snows - it is still about the fastest thing on the ice. - James B

Maybe you could call the ACS and ask them about it? I know the local Habitat for Humanity takes donation cars here, then re-sells them out in front of the store. You maybe could get them to sell it from where it sits and save the tow bill. - James B

I think this was a turbo GL 5-spd D/R. It was close to closing time at this place, and I was just wandering around looking at cars to see what they had. Sort of wished I had written down some notes. Do you know which D/R transmissions (for EA82 era) have a 3.7 ratio besides the one in this GL? thanks James B

I'm driving a single range pushbutton on my 85 DL now. I disconnected the vacuum actuator and fabricated a linkage and shifter after it stopped actuating the 4wd. I took it up to 9000 feet and tried to drive up some packed deep snow at about a 30 degree angle. It couldn't drive out of it's own tire tracks, and I smelled clutch. Good thing I had a shovel to dig out. Anyway, I will pull the LSD and get a non-full time 4WD D/R transmission. Winter is about over here, so I can afford to have this strewn about my garage for a month while I work on it and drive my 2wd truck to work. Thanks for the info. - James B

I was at the junkyard today and saw an tranny on a EA82 GL with something like a diff lock. I think this is what I want for off-road, but still don't quite grasp what combinations of transmisions and rear-ends I can put together. I peeked up under the car and it had an LSD rear-end, which I know I want. This looked like a 5-speed transmission with DR, and a button that locks something. Does this lock the rear diff, or lock the front to rear or what exactally? I also saw another car with what looked like a 5-speed DR with some sort of full time 4wd button. What is that, and is that better for off road than the one on the GL? I know this info has been somewhat gone over, but any help with this would be really appreciated. - James b

Look at the social and economic reason the dealers can charge. Socially, people move from place to place more than they used to. So while a dealer likes repeat customers, there are enough people coming and going that they can keep a steady stream of new customers coming in for high priced repairs. If I had ever lived in one place for more than several years, I would eventually know the good local mechanics from the bad ones. But I don't. So rather than risk randomly picking a bad mechanic I wind up where I know I will be charged a premium, but know the problem stands the best chance of being fixed. Economically, it is really expensive to be without a car. In terms of time, nusiance, and possibly having to rent a car, being without one anywhere outside of a major metro area with good public transportation is an awful experience. This is one of the things I love about having an old Subaru as an extra car in the family; if one of the daily drivers is broken, I can take the time to fix it without the nusiance of being without a vehicle. (Both daily drivers are Nissans, so after four and five respective years they haven't needed a repair - but it could still happen.) Anyway, I think the expense of being without a car is the main reason the dealer service business model survives. Now for the Sears story. The Sears in Greeley, CO will diagnose brakes for $15. I was having tires put on my '85 DL, and went ahead an opted to pay the $15 check-out fee. They quoted me around $850 to repair the brakes. I believe this included replacing every component they could think of in the braking system. (hill holder, master cyl, pistons, etc) I guess some people are conditioned to fear for lives when it comes to brakes, and would pay an $850 repair on a $500 vehicle. I laughed loud at them when they gave me that price. High priced repairs completed quickly with factory warrantied parts by factory trained technicains are understandable, but Sears behavior borders on criminal. - James B

I have been thinking about doing this myself. My shop-fabricated 3" lift makes the front tires a bit closer to the car at the bottom than at the top. (toe in?) Shorter or adjustable suspension arms would help things, but I don't know if my little welder would do the job. If you don't mind, I would like to hit you up for some specific questions: What kind of welder did you use? Did you use a shop-press to install the bushings? Is a part available for where the ball joint is attached, or is that cut out of he factory suspension arm? Any shop tips on fabricating one of these would be appreciated. - James B

Got a 3/2 lift and some 27 or 28" studded snow tires with a tube bumper. This is on an 85' DL 5-spd NA wagon. I built the lift myself, and will finish the write up one of these days. - James B

I did something similar where the top U-joint connects to the steering shaft. I couldn't get the U-joint far enough up the shaft to mate the keyway (?) so I drilled through the U-joint and shaft and put a bolt through the hole after I tightened the collar. If I ever have the linkage out of the car again I will likely pin the extension to the cut shaft as well. - James B