Dennis

Here are some pictures of what I did to remove my A/C (while using the original belt): img_0773.jpg img_0774.jpg I removed the upper and lower brackets from the A/C compressor, then installed them on the car like normal, minus the compressor. The upper bracket only had one bolt that mounts to the intake manifold, so to take some stress off of it I cut a pipe to the exact height of the compressor, then placed it between the upper and lower bracket, and ran a bolt through it. It seems to work ok, but I haven't driven the car much since I did it.

Thanks for the replies so far. =) The plugs are brand-new, but the wires are questionable. I just realized that I can try the plug wires off my dead '88 SPFI, which I know to be good. I'll try checking out the distributor, but I know very little about its operation and I'm not sure I'll be able to figure anything out.

I'd need a timing light to check the timing, right? I didn't remove the distributor when I pulled the camshaft carrier out--just left it on and realigned the timing marks on the cam sprockets when I installed the new timing belts. If I rotated the distributor either direction a little bit to see if it improves, would that be a good indication that it's the timing? Considering that it ran just like this before I took anything apart, I don't think it was anything I introduced while replacing the timing belts and head gaskets. I forgot to mention that the car idles perfectly, and seems ok until I really get into the gas. Even if I gently press the gas pedal and slowly increase it, it still maxes out at around 4,000 RPM. At lower RPMs, it *seems* normal, but at higher RPMs OR under any load at all, it fizzles out, but never dies.

I've got an '87 GL Wagon (EA82 carbed, 5-speed D/R swap) that, when I bought it, I thought it had a blown head gasket--it barely had power to move the car at any speed. I replaced the head gaskets, and did new timing belts and all other gaskets while I was at it, but the severe lack of power still persists after all that. When at a standstill, in neutral, I stomp on the gas pedal, the RPMs will go up to about 4,000 and just hang there. When in first gear on level ground and I stomp on the gas, the car will barely get up to 10 MPH before leveling out--won't go any faster. My question is, where do I start troubleshooting the problem? My first guesses were either something wrong with the carb, or bad coil/distributor/plug wires/etc. I can't afford to just start replacing things trying to find the problem, so what's a good starting point? I know next-to-nothing about what to test and how to do it.

There's a junkyard near Spanish Fork, Utah, that has more than a dozen EA82s, and about half of those are turbo. I've gone there quite a few times to grab parts for my '88 wagon. Of course, both of my Subarus are dead and soon-to-be parted out, so I'll have no shortage of parts for when I replace them with yet another one.

My guess would be just a worn spring. I don't think the strut can get stuck in the compressed position, so it'd have to be the spring.

3AT also comes in 3.90. I've got an '87 GL wagon that used to have a bad auto trans, but I just got done swapping a 5-speed D/R into it, but luckily it had the 3.90 rear end so that was one fewer thing I had to swap.

This page has pretty much everything you'd want to know about the PCV system.

My '88 wagon (maroon, no less ) did the same thing--in fact, driving uphill would result in the dash vents blowing, and downhill the defrost vents would blow. I never bothered tearing into the dash to figure out what the problem was, though at least I made sure the vacuum hose was connected underhood. Let us know if you find anything out, I might be able to fix mine too. =)

I did some more work on my 5-speed D/R swap today, and it's damned near complete. It took me more than six hours over the course of three days to remove the pedal assembly from my '88 Subaru (the donor for the manual trans), but after getting the hang of how it's removed, it only took me 20 minutes to remove the same assembly from the '87 Subaru (it really helped removing the seat and dropping the steering column). After getting them both out, I realized that I'd have to reuse the assembly from the '87 anyway. The '88 is fuel injected, while the '87 is carbureted, so the '87 has an extra bracket welded to the pedal assembly that holds some sort of switch for when the throttle is wide-open. The problem with reusing that assembly is that the one from the '88 also has an extra bracket welded on that acts as a stop for clutch pedal. To remedy that, I drilled a hole where the bracket should have been and simply put a bolt through it, which now acts as a clutch pedal stop. The only unknowns left now are which wires to jump in order to trick the ignition into thinking the car is in park, and how in the heck to wire up some reverse lights? I'm not too great at electrical stuff, so hopefully one of you will be able to explain it to me--either that, or maybe my Chilton's manual can help, but I doubt that.

The pitching stopper is a rod that mounts at the rear of the engine on one end and just under the spare tire holder on the other end. There's a bushing on either end that could be worn, and it should be easy to check visually. If yours is bad, you should be able to pick one up dirt cheap from a junkyard. North Ursalia is right, the pitching stopper isn't really adjustable. There's a little bit of play where it connects to the bracket on the rear of the engine, but that probably won't do you any good.

Here is the old thread on the issue.

The wiper motor is located under the hood on the very top of the firewall, driver's side. As for manual gear oil, 80-90W oil should do the trick.

Not all autos have 3.7 gears (at least on EA82s, and I'm pretty sure it applies to EA81s too). I'm in the middle of a 5-speed D/R swap, since my '87 GL wagon had a bad automatic trans, but it also has 3.9 gears. So I didn't have to swap out rear-ends, but the front-end was pretty much shot on the '87, so I'm in the process of removing the strut/steering knuckle/axle/tie rod assemblies and replacing them with good parts from my '88 GL wagon (manual trans, blown engine).

I believe the part you are referring to is called the "lower control arm." I'm not certain about which years/models you can get it from, but my guess would be pretty much any EA82.

I'd have to agree with Glenn, mostly Outbacks in Utah. In my neighborhood though, there are three EA82 wagons (two of which are mine), and one Outback. I saw an '80 wagon 4x4 4-speed for sale in Peoa, Utah, this weekend, so now I'm considering adding an EA81 to my lineup. =)

Ok, I've finally gotten back to swapping out the bad automatic trans on my '87 GL Wagon for the 5-Speed D/R from my '88, but I can't figure out the pedal assembly. I've removed the 4 nuts that secure the assembly to the firewall and one other that was further up under the dash, and I can't see any other mounting points that are holding the assembly in the car, but the thing won't budge. The clutch pedal and cable are already out, and I've removed the pin that holds the brake pedal to the pushrod coming out of the booster. Of course, my Chilton's manual doesn't mention anything about the pedal assembly, nor does it have an exploded diagram of it. Anyone out there who can shed some light?

I'm curious, just what exactly does the hill holder do? I'd imagine from the name that it actuates the brakes when starting out on a hill, but mine has never seemed to do anything. I'm in the middle of swapping a 5-speed D/R transmission into an '87 wagon that had a bad automatic trans, and if the hill holder in my '88 is broken, there's no point in swapping that as well.

Hah...that happened to me with my '88 GL Wagon too. I had just finished replacing the clutch, which was the biggest job I'd ever performed on a vehicle up to that point, and while driving it for the first time with the new clutch, I realized that I had a blown head gasket. It ran just fine before the clutch job, but right afterwards, it ran really rough--I'm not sure how it blew just sitting in the driveway. Just my luck, though. BTW Steve, there is a relay under the dash somewhere, but I'm not sure where--I've never had to mess with mine. Wait, here it is in a thread from a few days ago.

In that case, Subaru makes a tool called a "driveplate stopper" that stops the driveplate from moving when turning the crank pulley bolt, but I'm sure you can use something else without having to shell out the money. The automatic transmission from my '87 wagon is sitting in my driveway right now--if it was still in the car, I'd be able to take a look at it and give you an idea of what you might need to stop the driveplate from turning, but I'm sure you can look at yours and figure something out. A flat bladed screwdriver might to the trick, but without the torque converter sitting snug against my driveplate, I really can't say for sure.

Besides the usual array of screwdrivers and metric sockets/wrenches, etc., you'll need a large (I think 22mm) socket for the bolt on the crank pulley, and also something to stop the flywheel (on a manual trans, anyway) from turning when loosening the crank pulley (like an old screwdriver that you don't mind bending up a bit). A torque wrench helps when putting everything back together, but you could probably get by without one. I'm sure I'm missing something here, but those are the main things I remember from when I did all that work on my EA82 earlier this year.

Nope, mine's got alloy wheels. I can't help but wonder what happened to the transmission in mine--it was already shot when I bought the car. After looking at it today, I realized that there's a big crack in the bottom where the cooling fins are, but the crack bulges outward, as if something inside pushed it outwards and cracked the housing. Ah well, it'll be nice to have a Subaru to drive when I'm done with this--I'm having withdrawals, and it's only been a week since the engine blew up in my good car.

I've got an '87 GL Wagon with a bad automatic transmission (push button 4WD), and I started tearing it apart this morning in order to swap it for the 5-speed D/R from my '88 GL Wagon with a blown engine. The problem is that I thought all automatics had a 3.70 gear ratio, but the rear differential says it has 3.90 gears. Did automatics really come in 3.90? If so, I guess I won't have to swap out rear-ends like I thought I needed to.