GeneralDisorder

Yep - the cost of a used TD04 is low - doesn't really warrant the labor and parts cost to rebuild one. If you are going to rebuild one - pickup a dead TD05-16G or something and rebuild that. GD

Those folks that have a mechanic as their best friend are very lucky indeed. My best friend (who is currently in Iraq ) is one lucky SOB I can tell you that . Not only do I fix all his cars, but also his computers, plumbing, electrical..... and just about anything else that breaks.... usually for free or for a couple beers. No complaints though - not a single hour of it has ever been work . GD

No hard feelings - none at all. I can see how anyone that's not in the mechanic type of industries could feel the way you do. But if you take a subjective look at the industry - it's much more marketing driven than health-care is. It's all about who has the best price and treats the customer the best. Much like selling matresses..... can you really point out a matress store that *isn't* haveing a sale or going out of business . It's all about the marketing and if you don't offer the services at the prices you claim..... you won't be in business for long. It sucks that some folks have to get the short end of that with prices that don't reflect what their personal situation called for - but you *do* have the option of doing it yourself and here I am on the internet helping all those people that choose to do so - with profesional advice on the subject. I try my very best to charge a reasonable amount. Sometimes I charge for fewer hours than I actually have into a job because in order to do it right I spent more time than a book would call for. I don't like the surprise folks with gigantic bills - I want everyone to feel good about what was done and why and how much they have to pay. GD

First - just a sugestion - but you should probably start a new thread for your problem vs. bumping this old thing - you'll get better response. Second - you should also check the relief valve spring in the banjo-bolts for the oil supply to the rocker spray-bar. This regulates pressure to the lifters by only opening at a specific pressure to allow the excess oil to spray out onto the rocker's and cam lobes. You might be losing pressure to the lifters through this valve. MMO is not my first choice - try replacing 1 of the 4 quarts of oil in your engine with Rislone. Replace a quart of oil with it at every oil change - it is the most effective thing I've ever found for noisy lifters and you can use it for the rest of the life of the engine. Other than that - one thing that's always a problem with EA82's is putting the lifters back into the engine in the wrong order. If they don't match up to the buckets they came out of then you can have issues with ticking. On every engine I've done I always keep track of where the lifters go - if put back in the same order they typically don't have a problem - at least not one that Rislone hasn't solved for me. GD

It simply can't work that way for our industry. Here's why: 1. When I give a price quote, I'm expected to meet that quote or very near to it with only a cursory examination of the vehicle. A customer will absolutely LOSE THEIR $HIT if you come in at double your quote without a very good explanation. Unlike the medical feild where no one has any idea what something will cost or how long it will take - that's expected and not only that but you have access to tens of millions of dollars of sophisticated diagnostic equipment that you don't even have to pay for - you just send the job out to a lab and it's up to the customer to walk it there and walk it back...... and at the end of the day - if you fail you still get payed. I can't tell a customer "sorry - them's the breaks pal" when the part I just replaced falls out on the freeway. 2. The price you pay to a mechanic for a specific job has to be basically the same for every similar car. The average citizen doesn't understand why his Honda Accord's clutch job took longer because of seized bolts, rust, etc than his neighbor's Accord of the same year. Regardless of what you tell them "happened" you will almost surely lose them as a customer if they pay double what some other guy paid. Consequently - everyone pays the same high price and if your car is a mechanic's dream to work on - well maybe you should have done the job yourself because it's not going to matter when it comes times to charge you. There HAS to be built in buffer's for labor estimates and people HAVE to pay similar amounts for similar jobs - that is all part "stroking the customer's image" of the business. You have to make them like you because in our industry nearly every customer walks through the door not trusting you. Unlike the medical feild where differences of cost between similar ailments are never discussed, and never questioned outside of the insurance industry. People simply don't discuss what it cost to have their personal medical requirements fulfilled - they know it wouldn't be comparable because it's common sense that every person is different - it is not at all common sense to the layman that every car is not the same. To them - they came off the same assembly line and thus should be little clones of each other. GD

"book" time is a guideline. It protects the consumer from fraudelent repair pricing and protects them against mechanic's doing a shoddy job - since they WILL get at least the hours listed in the book to complete the job. Usually they are slightly more than the job *could* take if everything goes well. Rusty bolts, unexpected broken parts..... these can add hours to a job - sometimes even going over the book rate. By using the book rate there aren't as many "unknowns" for the consumer - they know the price before they ever surrender the keys. And if anything comes up that will change said price then it should be discussed. Note that they don't charge you when the car is sitting there without anything being done to it - mechanics are charging you only for the hours they actually work on the car - not while they are standing around waiting for a part, waiting for the go-ahead from you to proceed on something, or just waiting for management to decide how to handle something. Every time a mechanic has to "switch jobs" because he's waiting on parts or clarification there's is about an hour to clean up, and setup for a different job. Then there's the half-hour before lunch cleanup, and the hour before closing shop cleanup - none of which can be charged to a job. Some of the fudge factor in the book time is eaten up with these tasks - because management doesn't want to see unbillable time on your time card. GD

Yep - absolutely serious. I charge $30 to $35 per hour from my garage. Cost of living and running a business is higher here. Only reason I can charge so little is because I haven't much overhead and no employees. I know dealerships that charge $160+ an hour. The industrial machinery company I worked for until a few months ago ran $95 an hour for shop work and feild work was considerably more. There are shops that charge less - some are good and some are not. GD

At the end of the day - unless you drive old cars AND work on them yourself - cars in general are expensive to own and operate. Doesn't matter which end you pay on - either you pay a loan off on something with a warantee, or you pay to have something that's inexpensive repaired and maintained. In both cases you are out a considerable amount of money. The trick to owning cars if you are not wealthy is to buy something that is super reliable or know how to repair and maintain anything that could break. GD

Agreed - the Legacy is a much better car. The Loyale is great if you like working on your car.... and sometimes swearing under your breath about how you *just* fixed ____ and now ____ is needing to be fixed again. Such is the way of the EA82 - worst of all Subaru engines. The Legacy is great if you like driving cars and not really having to do much to them. As for how much work the swap is - it's considerable. To do it right - well for example I'm working with a fellow board member that wanted his Brat converted to a 5 speed D/R and EJ22. He's probably about at a similar level to you as far as knowledge. He figures he's about $2,000 into the conversion (not including buying the Brat) - that's buying the engine, tranny, wiring harness, adaptor plate, drilled flywheel, new clutch kit, paying to have the harness stripped, timing belt kit, gaskets, exhuast bits..... the list goes on. Then there's all the time I've donated to the project just because I wanted to learn about the EJ22 swap process. We finished it last weekend and it drove to a rally event and ran through a single race - then complications arose and it wasn't able to finish - nothing we did *wrong* per-se - but parts failed and that's what happens with unknown condition used parts. Had to trailer it back and pull the tranny out for repair work. It's fixed now, but it's a long, expensive process to do things *right*. GD

I agree - that's high but not improbable considering what was done by the sounds of it. All those parts add up if you buy quality stuff - a clutch kit from the dealer is usually north of $200, flywheels have to be sent out for machining and that's delivery, pickup, and machine shop costs. Labor at most shops averages about $100 an hour - 4 hours labor is quite reasonable to pull an engine, replace seals and clutch, replace clutch cable and reinstall. In fact, to do it right I would charge more labor than that. If none of that stuff beyond the clutch was cleared with you first (except the rear main - I would do that anyway since the labor is minimal and it can't be accessed without pulling the engine again - I would have done it without approval to prevent the clutch job being comprimised due to oil contamination) - then you have a greivance IMO. If anything beyond what a customer has asked be done and has been discussed previously is to be done then it should have been cleared with your first - at every step of the process. GD

There is no reason to do it - you won't gain any economy. Blocking the fluid from getting out of the transmission is easily solved but it's still pretty much a no gain situation - you lose the 4WD capability but still have the 4WD gearing so the mileage is the same. GD

Sadly, I'm pretty sure an EJ22 wouldn't easily fit in the engine bay of the sammy. They are REALLY small. And the radiator situation is pretty pathetic on them as well. Not that it couldn't be done - I'm sure with enough mods anything is possible, but it looks like a considerable amount of work. I have a friend with one and I'm pretty familair with the engine bay of it - it's tight in there. Mating an EJ to the sammi's transmission would be interesting too - the transmission is the size of a watermellon and has a clutch that looks like it should be in a go-cart. Everything on them is tiny. GD

That's typical of a cracked head - very uncommon on the non-turbo's though. Bad intake manifold gaskets could be leaking coolant into the cylinders but it doesn't usually leak out the exhaust like that - it generally is burned. Make sure it's not leaking coolant from the spark plug well drains or from the water pump and running down to that area. GD

If your's is a 1.8L EA81 ('81 GL's had the EA81, DL's had the EA71), then the starter contacts are the same as many of the Honda's and Toyota's and also all the starters up to recent Subaru's are the same. Subaru doesn't sell a contact kit that I know of but I'm pretty sure Toyota does. GD

Stock yota and nissan wheels have a different offset than Chevy wheels - they won't stick out as far. In fact toyota wheels have basically the same offset that the stock Subaru wheels have so they run just about the same..... of course the tires are larger so they stick out a bit more, but not like the Chevy wheels. GD

Might just need dissasembled and the contacts cleaned. GD

Lego's are great - much more refined than the GL and frankly easier to work on than the EA82's in a lot of ways. You can usually rent engine hoists from the rental places pretty cheap. I think like $15 a day around here is the going rate. GD

You mean it doesn't turn over by hand? Or that the starter has stopped spinning? GD

No GD

They are good for emissions, and they don't generally cause problems so I leave them in place if possible. If they aren't working or if it's a hassle to make them work I don't bother. Such as if I am using an older Weber without the port for EGR, or if I'm working on an SPFI that has a bad EGR solenoid. etc. Basically if all I have to do is hookup a hose or replace the valve itself - I'll leave them. Any work beyond that and I don't bother. GD

Leave the f.tank and cb open and plug the other two. GD

Sure - post some pics if you like. I'll do my best. GD

Heli-coil is the way to go, yes. Aluminium is soft - I would try running the heli-coil tap in without drilling. GD

Interesting - well if it works for you thats great. I've never noticed a change in how it runs with/without the EGR - there's no drawbacks to it either though so very often I will leave them in place and just make sure they are working. GD

There are three lines comming from the tank - fuel supply, fuel return, and a vapor line. So whichever isn't hooked to the liquid gasoline lines is pretty much the one you want. On the carb there should be an electric solenoid on carb itself that opens/closes the vapor line from the float bowl. Look for that and you should find the rubber line to connects from the carb to the hard-line's under the manifold - being an older 1600 it may not have the solenoid, but look for a line comming off near the bowl. Trace the hard line to the vapor canistor connection point and just don't cap whichever one it turns out to be. Cap the rest of the hard lines (a bit of the old tubing with a bolt threaded in the end works just fine) and you are done. GD