GeneralDisorder

If you want to bring it by sometime I could take a look at it. It's very hard to diagnose EA carb issues like that over the internet. Give me an hour (my rate is $35 an hour) and I can probably tell you what's wrong, how to fix it, and maybe even fix it for you if it's a relatively simple issue. The best vacuum diagram is going to be the one under the hood - there are so many variations in years/models/etc and it sounds like you may have some wiring issues as you are burning up wires. Wireing (properly ) is one of my specialties. PM me if you are interested in dropping over. Today would be good actually - I'm in the shop all day. GD

I agree - I'm not saying it's outside the realm of possibility if the fuel pump were running (as in the check connectors were connected and the ignition was on causing the pump to cycle - that would be one way) but here is not enough fuel in the lines and rails to do this and gasoline can't travel through the pump unless it's running. I'm just looking for an explanation - obviously if you shot fuel out of the plug holes then we are talking about a LOT of gasoline. It got there somehow but I would really like a solid explanation of how this occurs. It's been discussed before on here and I still don't see how this happens. Gasoline doesn't flow if you break the supply and return lines loose from the injector rail..... maybe some kind of siphon effect from the return line side? Doesn't sound pluasible but..... I don't know the structure of the lines inside the tank, etc. In any case the tank is lower than the rails so I wouldn't think a siphon would be possible either unless the car was at a nose-down angle?? That I could definitely see - if the car were nosed downhill then the siphon could easily occur and cause the leaking injector to pull gas out of the tank and drip it into the engine...... I just don't get it. Never seen it either. GD

The charge indicator lamp should be on anytime the engine is not running as the voltage difference between the battery and the alternator is 12v - that causes the charge indicator to be on. It should be off while running. Intermittant gauges could be the ignition switch - I have seen that. Usually none of the lighting systems will work either when that happens. Jiggleing the switch or turning on/off will often keep it at bay for a while but eventually you will need a new switch. GD

I haven't personaly run across that one. In fact I hadn't heard of it before actually. Probably because it affects specifically '99's and those only represent a small percentage of what I work on. Many have probably already been fixed. Don't use Lucas oil additives - in fact I shy aways from all additives except in extreem circumstances. The trans-x stuff gary mentioned can sometimes stop torque bind and apparently helps with this issue as well. GD

There simply is not enough pressure in the lines after the engine is shut down to fill a cylinder with gasoline. Go ahead and break one of the hoses loose right after running the engine - you'll see what I mean. Pressureized liquid does not compress so while it is under pressure, it does not appreciably expand in volume once the pressure is released. At most there might be a few Oz of gasoline that would be availible to leak out of an injector. Not enough to hydrolock an engine. That said - it does sound like you may have an injector issue if you are smelling gas in the oil and it's higher than normal. I have seen a little higher incidence of failure with the 90/91 automatic injectors (they are still very reliable). You might just buy a full set of reman injectors from www.rockauto.com - they are around $40 to $50 each. Much cheaper than the dealer. I would not even consider replacing less than all of them at once unless it was a single injector with a failed driver coil. GD

Sanding and priming should occur before painting. And you need to remove the valve stem to do a proper job. Due to the creases in the metal on steel rims I find that it is most effective to just sand blast them to bare metal and start over. The rust that forms in the folds of the metal tends to pop the paint in those areas. Prepping by blasting to bare metal and then washing with Lacquor Thinner before paint seems to work alright. Since you have time on your hands - why don't you post on craigslist and see if anyone can blast them for you cheap - then try one of those DIY powder coating kits at harbor frieght and bake them in your oven. You might actually make a few bucks on them that way. Cost to blast and powder coat a set is about $100 locally. If you do that you ought to be able to sell them for about that much plus the value of the rims. They aren't worth much unless they are properly finished. Maybe $10 a rim. Not really worth the time to paint them unless they are properly finished as above. GD

Screw a mechanical guage into the port and see if you have pressure while cranking. GD

It will bolt in - the biggest concern is the steering shaft which I beleive interfere's with the bell-housing slightly. You may have to grind the bell housing or modifiy the shaft to work. GD

Battery light is related to alternator output - basically if the alt is producing less voltage than the battery then the light comes on. The light is a measure of voltage potential across the excitation circuit from the battery to the alt - there should not be a higher voltage at one than the other. Could be a weak battery or a weak alternator - do a load test on the battery and a DC/AC output test on the alternator and make sure all your connections are clean and tight. GD

Basically - my method (since I'm an amature) is to paint everything to a seam so I won't have to blend it. After my last endevour using single stage - I think I would go with a base/clear solution next time. The issues with single stage aren't apparent at first glance but I can tell you that the reason they use a base/clear at most auto body shops is because the clear coat covers a MULTITUDE of sins . Especially when you get into metallics and semi-metallics like Subaru used on just about everything. . It's near impossible to get a single stage metallic to both lay-out flat AND not flake up like hammerite. It's all about temperature, gun settings, and all sorts of minutia that I couldn't freakin handle - not at $65 a quart anyway. . Base/clear is the way to go - shoot the base on and blend it a little as Hatchsub sugests - then cover up the sin with the clear coat and buff it out so shiny that no one notices how bad the paint under it looks GD

The non-aluminium tank (which you can build or buy) is a heated tank of Sodium Hydroxide (often refered to as "Caustic") and water. It's basically Lye. It eats the hell out of paint, grease, oil, fat and other protiens. It also etches Aluminium - if you put aluminium into the tank it will foam up - it damages the Caustic solution and dissolves the Aluminium so you can't use it for that. Anything that comes out of this tank must be immediately pressure washed and dried or it will rust something fierce - I have had wet stuff out of the caustic tank start rusting on me in minutes - it strips all the oil's off. It will not really do much to rust. Being basically a hot salt bath it's pretty safe - gloves and safety glasses - doesn't burn or anything if you get some on you but the tank is heated so gloves are warranted for the temperature (well below boiling). Aluminium is much more rediculous in it's cleaning requirements. Typically dipping tanks for it require nasty acid based cleaners and produce copius amounts of noxious fumes. I beleive the stuff we used was a Zep product and it was basically paint stripper in dip form. Ugly stuff - burns the skin, etc. You might consider just sending your aluminium out to be dipped since you are dealing with high school age kids and this process is nasty. They may not even allow it on the property because of zoneing. I don't really have any links for you - Zep is just a matter of calling and getting the name and number of your local feild rep. Lye you can get about anywhere I would imagine - any chem supply in your area. As for buying the tank - I have no idea. Ours was probably 50 years old and I think someone at the shop built it. GD

Weld the pipes closed that run under the heads. GD

Hehe - yeah there's a big difference between theory and practice if you aren't familar with how the "industry" likes to build things. It's one thing to understand electrons and current and resistance, etc. It's quite another to troubleshoot something that's broken - be it electrical or mechanical - I have found that very often the engineers that design this stuff are made to scratch their head and look like a deer in the headlights when it doesn't work - and they know little about actually taking readings with a DMM or where to start looking for a problem. Some do - but others are made to look like fools if they have to do anything that doesn't involve drawing lines and selecting icons with their index finger. And even when they do understand - it still takes people like myself who are "down in the trenches" to bring them the faulty part and tell them how badly they designed it and why . And sometimes it's followed closely by an "and I fixed it for you - add this to the design" GD

You fail to understand how the thermoswitch works - it is mechanical and does not depend on voltage - it will switch based on temperature irregardless of even having any voltage present. Thus adding the light inline with the switch would not change the value at which it closes. If I were doing it - I would have the light in series with the fan so that the light was on if the fan was running. If I didn't see the fan light periodically comming on or it didn't come on when I threw the switch - then I know something is amiss. But really it's a bit academic - you can hear the fan at any speed slow enough to need it and above that it shouldn't be on anyway. The temp guage is a better indicator of something going wrong with the cooling system. Sure - but I don't understand the need for an overide.... the only overide you need is to turn the fan OFF for river crossings, etc. Otherwise the whole point of the thermo-switch is so you don't have to bother with manual fan controls. If something goes wrong with the thermo switch then just jumper across it till you get home If you are doing all this wireing yourself then you should be able to know it's good enough to not short out - soldering and heat shrinking, etc. Any crappy wireing on the car will not be protected by the new fuses. One fuse is all you need for a relay and a fan. I just think you are making this WAY too complicated and in doing so you are going to cause problems down the line. You'll have a billion relays and fuses in your car for all your accesories with wireing design's like that and if something goes pop - you'll be tracing wireing for hours trying to figure out what went wrong. . For a wheeler - keep it simple. You have a better chance of getting home. GD

I used to use a lot of Threebond where I worked (we manufactured/serviced Kobelco oil-free rotory screw compressors) and I know we had some sitting around the shop for a lot of years (rarely needed it actually since most air-end failures went back to Japan for core value) and we never had an issue with it. My experience was always that if the tube were sealed well and the stuff wasn't partially or completely cured - it worked fine. We never paid any attention to "shelf life" and I doubt my shop foreman even knows it has one (though I'll ask him about him when I see him which is every few days typically). From what I have seen, the Threebond has a different consistency and different dry texture than ultra grey. We were specifically warned AGAINST using RTV as it can clog oil passages in the machines we were using it on - Threebond did not. GD

Threebond is different - it's designed not to clog oil passages and as such I beleive it hardens much slower. It's not really like RTV at all though many people do use RTV in it's place. RTV stands for "room temperature vulcanizing" - the only way it goes bad is to harden in the tube..... same with the Threebond stuff - if it's not hard when it comes out of the tube then it's still good. My preference for the case halves is Loctite 518 - it's a flange sealant and is very good stuff. GD

That's normal - draw from the starter lowers the coil voltage. Being that you have voltage and no burnt fuses (and no car on fire!) then you can safely assume that the thing attached to the positive side of the coil that you called a ground was not, in fact, a ground. If you don't have spark then put a test light on the coil - if it pulses when you are cranking then the distributor is good. If it does not then the module is bad in the disty or something else is hokey in there - if it pulses check the coil resistance. Wouldn't be the first time someone didn't have spark because of a bad coil. GD

A ground wire on the positive side of the coil would be bad. That would instantly blow the igntion fuse - when you key-on you should have power to the positve side of the coil - black with white stripe. You sure this "ground" isn't a noise reduction capacitor? Negative side of the coil is the tach signal/trigger side - it's always yellow. Being you don't have a tach you should have a yellow wire from the distributor going to the negative side of the coil as well as a red or black w/white going to the positive side of the coil. GD

Correct - no D/R on automatic's. But you can swap an auto for one just as easily - just need a few extra parts like the pedal assembly, clutch, and front driveline section. GD

Why the second 5 way relay? I don't get the point of shunting the fan leads to ground with the 5-way's like that. The factory relay's are simple 4 pin relay's. Are you thinking that you need to shunt the fan motor to ground so it doesn't create transients from wind rotation and damage itself? I don't think that's really an issue with these but I could see it on something larger.... The relay for the thermo-switch really isn't needed either - just move the indicator lamp over to the relay coil lead from the switch. Make it an LED and you don't need any extra fusing either. The relay coil's can run off the same fuse as the fan. You should only need a single fuse for this circuit. The coil's and the lamp draw insignificant amperage compared to the fan. 1 fuse, 1 relay is all this should take. You work for NASA or something? GD

85 to 89 GL's had the D/R. '88 and '89 are the best as they are also fuel injected. Loyale's (90 to 94) never got them but it's a very simple swap if you get a Loyale with a push-button 5 speed. GD

The 4EAT is more reliable than the 5 speed MT's. Sad but true. I still won't drive one personally . That's a ton of coin for that car. 87k is low, but for that car it wouldn't matter too much if it had 150k. At that price make them throw in the timing belt since it's due at 105k. And have it's butt powdered by the dealer. And with these 105k belt cars - you WANT them to do the water pump, tensioiner, and idlers plus all the front seals. The deal is that this stuff is not lilkely to make it another 105k (210k total) before failure - especially being over a decade old at this point. Age is a consideration just as mileage is. Quite frankly you could find a better deal. I sell cars that I've gone completely through and done all the maintenance on for less than that. Granted they have more miles generally but mine have brand new timing belts, water pumps, etc and WILL be good for 60k at least. You are looking at a major maintenance item in just 17k miles. Lot of money to spend for something that's going to need work that soon..... If you can wait a week or two - I have a SWEET '99 OBW 5 speed that's going to be for sale. All the stuff that one you are looking at has, plus heated seats, 6 disc changer, fogs, etc. Engine (2.5 DOHC) has 130k (with the updated HG's) and tranny has 110k. Plus it will have a brand new 105k service done and all the fluids etc. Checked out by me top to bottom. I'm going to be asking $5500. And yes - it's immaculant. Might have like one door ding on the passenger side. It's got a stack of reccords too. Send me a PM if you are interested. GD

The meter is going to give you a measure of voltage "potential" - that is you are not looking for voltage that is flowing, but rather that there exists a higher voltage on one side of the meter than the other. This is important. If you test using both legs of the fuse then you will get a 0 reading if the fuse is good. That means either that there is no voltage on either side, that there is 12v on either side, or that there is 10,000v on either side because a power line fell on the car . It doesn't tell you much in other words. Doesn't even tell you if the fuse is good because there might not be any voltage present - might as well be sticking the meter probes into your toes at that point. You need to check for 12v between either side of the fuse and ground - generally the Subaru fuse box lids will have an arrow indicating which side is "batt" and which side is "load". That tells you which side of the fuse is supposed to have power. You can check that side (through the top of the fuse - the leads are exposed on the top of blade-style fuses so you don't have to remove them) with the meter's red probe and the black probe on a good body ground point. If you have voltage potential you will get a 12v reading. That tells you the supply TO the fuse is good. Move the red probe to the "load" side of the fuse and if you still have the same reading that tells you the fuse itself is good. Then you need to see if there is problem with the lead running from the fuse to the fan. Check from each leg of the fan connector and the battery ground. You should get 12v on one of the these pins. That indicates that you have power at the fan. Do those tests and tell us what you find. I doubt you have power at the fan if jumping the temp switch didn't kick it on so no need to get into further detail till you actually perform these tests. GD

My sugestion is based on working in an industrial setting - rebuilding machines of all types. I would not just get one setup. There are times when you want chemical and times when you want a hot detergent type wash..... For an actual parts washer, I would get one of these: http://www.roto-jetoa.com/ We had one where I worked and for a lot of cleaning jobs it worked great. Now that said, it's not going to clean places that it can't "see". Line of sight is important with parts washers and so things that have large cavities in them or blind passages, etc are difficult to clean. For that you need a chemical dip. An alkali hot-tank for non-aluminium parts and another seperate tank for aluminium are what I would reccomend. You can't get aluminium clean enough with the roto-jet to really sparkle and in any case the detergent discolors it. If I could have nothing else, I would have just the chemical hot tanks. They are the most versatile by far and the cheapest to get into (it's a metal dumpster full of chems). Cleaning them out and dealing with the waste isn't fun but they do things that no parts washer could ever do. Of course a steam cleaner (pressure washer with a heater) and a blast cabinet or two are also neccesities IMO. So much so that I have both in my garage - I upgraded my house with an on-demand hot-water system that makes endless 140 degree water. I installed a hose bib for it so I could run the hot water to my pressure washer . Works amazingly well on engine bay's, etc. Plus my shower never runs out of hot water either Here at home I get by without a parts washer - just a solvent tank (with Zep Dyna 170), blast cabinet, and steam cleaner. I may rig up an old dish-washer to clean parts after they have been washed in my solvent tank. Future upgrade . Why not make the parts washer a project for the class? I guess it's not automotive though..... GD

If it didn't tick before and you didn't touch the lifters or remove the cam towers in any way - I would suspect that the oil pump seal didn't get installed quite right. Did you check the pump condition? It's a good idea when it's off the car to measure the components and check for wear. GD