eponodyne

Yeah, I'm gonna hold off on the EJ swap for now. I feel much less panicky now; I just spent a couple hours looking through some archived material, this is gonna be a piece of cake. And, of course, no one wants to see me fail at saving a nice old wagon from the crusher and turning it into a trail-stomper!! You guys rule!

Because I haven't fixed it yet. Waiiiiit... Okay, look now. It's different. Does Raven show up here often anymore? I did the GM 100a conversion, it was like the best thing I ever did to that poor car.

Guys, nothing would make me happier than to get together at Pizza Luce in D'loot for a few Summits. Sadly (ha!) I live in Florida and can't make the drive home after a night like that. But I'm curious to know what you have to say about the various lift kits available, like what I can expect for CV life expectancy/ease of maintenance/accvessability/buildability et cetera. just thumbnail comparos if ya wanna post 'em, or if toes are gonna get stepped on, PMs work just fine. I'm pretty mechanically inclined, and have all the tools I need except a welder (but I have friends who do have 'em), therefore this is a doable, quick-build proposition. For what its worth, I was just out measuring the 8-lug wheels on my van, and they are 7X15, with the bolt holes looking pretty damn close to matching up; every other hole is damn near 140mm. 15" truck steelies can be got cheap as dirt, but waddabout the offset? I am going to get to the bottom of this with teh qu1ckn3ss!!

I should build a set of tube-frame halfdoors for the GL, and hang them on gull hinges!

That is EXZACTLY the idea. But I guess what I was asking is, how much work is involved in each of those steps? How should I prioritize them, and how long would each take? The 87 is gonna get turned into the rig--it's got the dual-range trans already, and by far the better body. If stiffer springs are in order, what are the good donor vehicles? I assume that the lift kits out there are all roughly similar in quality, but which one gives me longer CV life? And is there anything I should do to set the car up specifically for mud and dirt (I live in Florida), not big rocks and crawlin'? Basically, what would YOU do to set up YOUR dream GL? Links to previous tech articles/threads? I remember reading a lot of them like a year ago, but I can not find them now to save my soul.

I've got two EA82 wagons; a '90 Loyale turbo (blown head gasket, auto trans, okay body), and an '87 GL NA (Runs rough,5-speed/LSD, great body). I reckon that between the two I can make one decent daily driver, and one ***************in' rig. But I am desperately in need of advice. I don't visit this forum as often as I should, and for a n00b there is so much information here that wading through all of it to find the nuggets I need is quite frankly a little daunting. You guys really know your $h1t!!! So here it is, guys (and ladies, oops): Assuming I can take care of the daily driver on my own (it's all pretty basic)Could you, in one thread, describe the mods a fella like me needs to get started on the off-road rig? Answer dumb questions like "EJ swap and 5-lug conversion--yea or nea?" I've got a decent budget for this, BTW. Any advice or help you could offer would be greatly, greatly appreciated. Pics will be posted. Jollity and merriment will ensue.

Think how handy those would be for 'wheeling in tight areas, though. Maybe a lkittle less chance of getting your door all bunged up while you're trying to get a look at your tire.

I had those Kumhos on my old '66 Beetle, I thought they worked just fine. Very quiet, good treadwear, lots of grip for what they actually are, which is a passenger-car radial. So, similar vehicle weight/horsepower, I see no reason they wouldn't do just fine on a 'Roo.

And by the way, is it true I can put the heads&turbo off my '90 onto this '87's block and have a reliable, streetable, more-powerful engine? 'Cause that would be too cool for skool.

You know, Tyler, just because you haven't yet heard what you want to hear doesn't mean we won't come around to your way of thinking in about 282373465 more pages of this. C'mon, what are you--a 16-year-old blond girl with her dad's credit card? Or a young man with a sweet ride and the intelligence to make something absolutely unique and purposeful? Moderate lift, Pug wheels, EA82T and you will remember that car until the day you die. Fond memories, too, not the kind you'll have if you try to drop it and add 385 pounds of Fiberglas body-kit stupidity.

Back Story Almost a year ago, I blew the head gasket on my '90 Loyale Turbo (automatic AWD). Wisconsin car, kinda rusty but overall, a comfortable old crock, and so I parked it in the yard (My neighbors just LOOOOOVe me) And it has sat and sat and sat, pining away for want of use; weeds grow around it whilst I pondered what to do; I know, I'm a bad Soobie daddy, get off my case. Besides, I had another vehicle ('84 Ford E-350) that worked just fine. Please note the past tense there. Because I just had to replace both front rotors on the van. Plus one caliper. Pretty straightforward but HOLY UNSPRUNG WEIGHT, BATMAN! Each rotor for the Ford weighs (I kid you not) 42 lbs, and everything else is commensurately beefy. So I swap 'em out,and.... what's this? My old lug nuts won't fit? OF course they won't fit! That might mean my Karma is good right now,and we can't have that! So I went down to the local boneyard in search of the appropriate nuts, and I found them on an old short bus. Appropriate, no? Then I turned around, and my girlfriend grabbed my arm and started jumping up and down, because.... THE PLOT THICKENS .... Sitting on the paved part of the junkyard was an old Soobie, lust like mine. Well, not exactly. It's an '87 carbureted 1800 GL wagon. SO, same body style, even has a better body, and the maroonish/burgundy paint looked buffable. I pushed and heaved the crap blocking the doors shut out of the way, and crawled on in. Not too shabby on the interior (grey, like mine), no broken glass, no dashboard cracks (I live in Floridia). Hurst knob on the shift lever... three pedals, so a manual trans... Dual range transmission... Dang. Gonna have to hope it's still there when I can come and get the trans and t-case next week. But the title was in the glovebox, so I took it out and up to the office with my hands full of nuts (heh.) we go. I paid for the nuts and then asked the guy behind the counter if "That old Subaru was available." He said sure it was, but parts only. I said, "Okay. Well, here's the title, can you make sure it doesn't get sent to the crusher in the next 8 days?" He looked at the title, flipped it over, put on his half-glasses and peered at it some more. "This isn't a salvage title," he said. "I can sell you this car as is." THE MONEY SHOT I perked up my ears, licked my whiskers, and leaned on in. "How much?" "$500." BOOYA!!! I rock, I rule, I am the bomb. I now have two Subarus, one that doesn't run with a ragged body, one that might or might not run with a straight body and clean interior. I am now officially a resident of these boards. You may send the Welcome Wagon out any time; just make sure it's got the parts washer in it! Any thoughts/questions/concerns, pray let me know. I'mma need all the help I can get on this project! -epo

If i had five bucks for every vehicle I have with my own eyes seen ruined from Bars_Leaks, I would never have to spin another wrench ever again.

I had good luck with Foreign Auto Repair in the Riverside area, by where Riverside dumps toward I-35. The guy's more of a BMW mechanic, but he's got the touch. Which to me is worth a lot.

If you're doing a lot of driving around town--especially if it's a hilly town like San Francisco or Salt Lake City--you can expect to wear the hell out of your brakes in very short order. Think of it--if all you ever did was long-haul freeway driving, how often would you use your brakes on the Interstate?

I've been thinking about building an ekranoplan using my spare EA82t engine; an ekranoplan is essentially a very low-flying seaplane. It takes advantage of a phenomenon called ground effect, where the air is actually compressed under the wing; typically flies at an altitude of under a foot to around three feet or so. But it doesn't fly at all out of ground effect, so it's really not an airplane. What I'm thinking of has been used in the former Soviet Union for years, so it's a pretty well-tested technology. Google "ekranoplan" or "wing-in-ground-effect" for lots and lots more info. The advantage to this is that you move at light-airplane speeds, and it can carry quite a bit of weight, but it's licensed as a boat. I figure it'd be perfeet for South Florida along the Indian River, because it's a protected body of water, and I wouldn't have to worry about running down a manatee. They're pretty cool critters, but they don't fly:). Also, about ten years ago, a publication called WoodenBoat ran a contest for boats designed using the EA81/2 series of engines. They have a website that might have a link to the designs.

Yeah, if you absolutely have got to have a Gen 1 Z-car (and you should, I've owned five), get the '72 240. Still had the Hitachi-licensed non-smog SU carbs, and they'd moved the rear diff forward some 2" to counteract allthe issues. For what it's worth: The BMW differential that came in the e30 body cars-- the late-seventies-through-'91 325 series cars was, at least on the -iX AWD, the -iS, and the -eS cars, about a 30% lockup LSD. I don't know how the track numbers stack up, but with (say) 1985 325eS cars going for well under a thousand bucks and God's own amount of the cars in Northeast junkyards, it might be worth a look.

DAMMIT MAN!!!! I thought this thread was about shoehorning a MOPAR 360 into a '91 Loyale.... DO NOT tease me like this again. That is all, unless you have figured out how to get eight sweet cylinders of Chryslerly goodness into the cars we all love.

No, that ain't gonna buff right out. But for the insurance money you're gonna get, you should be looking at a NEW WRX Sti within the year. If your lawyer's any good, that is. "My neck! My back! My neck and my back!"

I've thought of this myself; Butane blowing on the airfilter to superchill it? Maybe get some dry ice involved? Only run the car in Antarctica? I know that we can look at about a 2% bump in horsepower for every ten degrees F below standard temp and pressure the air charge drops. But for the butt-dyno to feel it, you've got to get down to zero temps (No temperature out here at all, folks!) and dry conditions. I think you might be better advised to look at increasing density of the air charge by wringing all the water vapor out of it. Probably easier in the long run, and probably a better overall noticeable gain.

Just the other day I told a junkyardowner that I'd never do business with him, that i'd urge my friends to never do business with him, and that if he called another customer a liar (looooong story), I hoped he got his behind whupped for it. But if you want to drive an older 'Ru, then I guess junkyards are a necessary evil. By the way, anybody know of any import junkyards on Florida's East Coast? Google's not much help, and since I'm moving there in like a week.....

I think that this is a solvable/maintainable problem; I mean, I'm always unconsciously listening for it now, but it's been two hundred and fitty miles or so, and still no clickin' noise. Looks like my friends won't be calling my car 'ticketty' any more

Interesting. My grid works *kinda*. Only the top three wires do any good, so most of the rear window stays fogged up. Gonna go check for broken wires; I never would have thought of that! I wonder if this might be related to/causing some of my other electrical woes.....

1990 Loyale AWD turbo with ToD coming from the left bank, rear cylinder. 2000 miles ago, it was bad. So I drained out a quart of oil, replaced it with mmo, and drove it around for fifteen miles. During this time, the clickin' noise went from a not unpleasant sewing-machine purr to a sound like the Gates of Doom opening to engulf my wallet. Then, home for the oil change! One filthy garage floor (GOT to use a funnel next time), four quarts of Pennzoil dino oil for high-mileage engines and a Teflon Fram filter later, the TOD was gone. Eliminated. Just like that. Well, hardly able to contain my glee, I drove the snot out of the wee beastie for the next 1800 miles in a ghastly silence (or it would have been if the previous owner's "fixes" to the exhaust system hadn't failed. I mean, I lay a pretty scruffy bead, but I could do better than he did.) until.... {insert appropriate vocabulary here} By the time I got to the parts store, the Gate of Doom noise was back. I was starting to think it was rod knock, except it wasn't. It was just really bad ToD. I checked the oil, and noticed it seemed a touch low. Oil level was about a quarter inch below the 'F' point on the dipstick. Turns out that that means it's a full quart low! So I bought a bottle of Seafoam, added about 3/4 cup and topped it off with aforementioned Pennsylvania fossil product. Thirty miles later? Silent as the tomb. My peace passeth all understanding; you see, I have to drive the Soobie from Wisconsin to Florida to start a new job. I'm doing this in a week, and my budget is tighter than I'd like. My emergency plan was just gonna be to buy a rebuilt head and an oil pump rebuild kit and grit my teeth over a really unpleasant, cold day in the garage. I don't have to do this now, because I read USMB and can stand on the shoulders of giants or at least the shoulders of regular guys who think and use their heads and then post what they find on Mr Al Gore's Interweb. My contribution: Seafoam works great. Track it down and carry some. Pay attention to your oil level. A gallon plus the filter is not a lot of total lubrication for what is, after all, a turbocharged engine. Go ahead and run a heavier oil. Oil level and oil pressure are inextricably linked in these cars; oil pressure issues are what contribute to the ToD most on my car. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and no one has any idea what a safe dosage of my opinions is.

I just painted the lower third--from the side molding down--of my '90 Loyale wagon with generic black truck-bed-liner paint. In addition to covering up my bad 'glassing job on the rust, it also covered up the AWD TURBO decal. So now I can enjoy L'il Hoopty in privacy. Or could, if I'd just fix the damned exhaust.....

heck, the fog is half the fun!! Plus I like the way it smells. I'm still getting used to my Loyale, it's a '90 turbo with auto....still finding out what it likes, what's normal, what's not... But I'm just starting to get THE TICK (everytime I read that, I think of the cartoon character), and I'm frankly a little concerned. I'm thinkin', SeaFoam right before an oil change, then oil change with dead-dinosaur oil and MMO, drive 500 miles on it, then another oil change with MMO and Mobil 1. I show 85lbs at cold idle, 35 or so on hot idle, and maybe 45 on the freeway. Pulls like a demon when the hairdryer's shoving the boost, and I like how the turbo lag and tranny kickdown are pleasantly synchronized. I just wished the G.D. heater fan switch worked in more than LO.