GeneralDisorder

If it were me, I would probably get some 1/2" all-thread (or grade 2 bolt), cut a peice slightly longer than the hole is deep with a slot for a screwdriver in it, loctite that sucker in place, grind it flat and drill/retap it to the correct size. Either that or if you have access to a TIG welder and know someone's that good with overhead aluminium you could have them fill the hole.... but that's probably a tall order. How is it that you keep screwing up the threads? Are you trying to run the tap with a crescent wrench or something? Get a proper tap handle and have a little care man! GD

Jet's and passages can easily be clogged by the air and/or fuel comming into the carb. Regardless of the outside appearance of the unit it can be clogged from particulates that get through the filters. This can happen to a brand new carb if you have contamintated gas or a bad filter. Perhaps one of the reasons the car was in the junk yard. Before you go all-out and rebuild it, just pop the top off, soak up the fuel from the float bowl, and blow out all the jets and passages with compressed air. Remember to hold your finger over the accelerator pump spring to keep the spring and check-ball from flying across the room never to be found. I've fixed more than one crusty, old, misbehaving Hitachi that way. They ARE a pain in the rump roast, but they are also very reliable and well built carbs. The problem with them ultimately is their overly complex design that rely's on external systems to optimize the air delivered to the air correctors. Weber's are just so much more simple. GD

Lubricating the failing cable is asking for a disaster on some on-ramp down the line. The cables are about $18 from the dealer and take a whopping 15 minutes to swap out. If your clutch is really tight, or crunchy, or otherwise weird - swap the cable FIRST. It's usually the problem and it's cheap and easy compared to everything else. The inside of the cable sheath is lubricated by a dry-film lithium base lubricant over a nylon sleeve. When the sleeve wears out the stainless braided cable rubs on the metal sheath that's the next layer in the assembly. Eventually the cable will frey and wear through enough strands that it will just snap when you push in the clutch. Power shifting and starting the engine in 1st gear is not my idea of a good time and a really crappy way to save $18. GD

Don't touch it. They never fail. It will easily outlast the body of the car. I can't rightly remember what's in there but there's no grease. It's a completely dry assembly. There really isn't much movement there - only when the suspension articulates. GD

Bearings are easy and cheap. ALWAYS have at least one set + seals on hand when doing axles anyway as occasionally the inner bearing will come out still attached to the old axle. The bearings are simple - drift them out with a brass punch, and drive the new one's in with an appropriate driver or brass punch. I made a driver tool using a 2" pipe nipple + cap and an older outer bearing race that I cut in half and welded to the nipple. There is no press required for EA series bearings. GD

Yep - advancing the timing isn't going to do squat for you. And you should be using the LOWEST octane fuel that the engine will handle without pinging. You are wasting money and losing performance by buying high octane fuel that your engine doesn't need. 92+ is for Subaru's with Turbo's. GD

Invest in a 110v MIG welder, angle grinder, air saw, die grinders, etc and fix that rust. If you live in the rust belt and you like older Subarus/cars, it's a neccesity. Besides - it's kind of fun in a sick and twisted way. GD

You are installing them too tight. Remove the seal from the filter, coat it completely in oil (or better yet - Dow Corning valve sealant), and install hand tight but don't monkey fist it. You don't need a lot of crush on the gasket to seal properly - it's soft rubber and will be replaced long before it begins to shrink. Some of the guys I worked with wouldn't listen and we would need a chain wrench and a 4 foot cheater to get them off. The reality is they are being put on too tight. GD

Fixed! GD

An '87 hatch is worth a hell of a lot more than a Weber carb. That's the most desireable body style next to the Brat. Shorter wheelbase makes them better for off-road. GD

Yeah - it's going to be easier to just do two aftermarket adjustable valves near each wheel. That's what I'm going to do with my Brat. Installing the stock valve assembly is a chore and creates a plumbing nightmare unless you want to spend the money on new hardline, a tubing bender, flaring tool, ferules, etc. And if you have never bent hard steel tubing before - best you don't make this your first project. Makeing it pretty and getting the bends right and the lengths correct.... there's a learning curve to it. GD

You shouldn't have to really clear them - they will go away on their own once you fix the problem. The old SPFI computers are pretty simple. Hell - even my '91 Legacy Turbo does the same thing. Once I fixed the knock sensor and wireing to it the code just stopped all by itself. GD

Typically I just thread the castle nut on upside down and give it a sharp blow with a copper/brass hammer. Sometimes I hurt them doing this, but 90% of the time they just pop loose. The other 10% they probably are so stuck that few methods short of an O/A torch would get them loose without damage. Plus I have thread files and can fix them if I screw up a thread or two. As noted though there's no need to disconnect them for a simple axle swap. I do it for the wheel bearings because then I can just turn the whole knuckle around backward to install the inner bearing. Don't use the "pickle fork" style ball joint seperators - they will mangle the grease boot 100% of the time. Use an actual puller/pusher with a threaded driver in it. You can often "rent" these at many of the bigger auto parts chains. Basically you pay for the tool and you have a gauranteed refund on it or just keep it if you figure you will use it again. GD

All EA series cars have common ground speaker systems. The common ground splits off at the driver's side and passenger's side kick-panels because that's where the connector is for the door speakers and/or dash speakers. You fish out that connector (usually pink), disconnect it, and run a new speaker wire to the door/dash speakers and use the existing car wireing for the rear's. It's actually quite simple. GD

I think the idea with the older EA series cars is not so much that the 2WD's would have less load, but that the 4WD's would be driven like a 4WD. I can scan FSM pages showing the actual size differences but it's really not that big of a deal. The 2WD axles will work fine if you aren't abusing them too badly. Also - many aftermarket manufacturers only make the 4WD axles. Why even bother making 2WD axles if the 4WD's are stronger and fit both applications? That's what I've found anyway. There is no such garuantee with the rebuilder's though. You get what you get. GD

If it were me, I would look around online, buy the carb jetted the way I want from whoever has the best price/service, then buy the adaptor plate seperate and the shorter air filter. Wouldn't be a bad idea to get an EA82 manifold at the same time and get the adaptor plate for that instead. I do not reccomed the Redline "kit" as it contains the wrong filter and nothing more than the carb with baseline 4 cylinder jetting and the adaptor plate. Personally I prefer to assemble my own kit with the right filter and adaptor and such. After that it's just PCV hoses, block the ASV's if you have them and you're ready to rock. GD

It's junk. The Hitachi's don't have bushings. To repair it the throttle base would have to be reamed and custom bushings installed. Tear it down and have a look though - the shafts are brass and the throttle base is cast iron. You will probably find that it needs new shafts rather than bushings. Either way it's junk as you can't buy just the shafts. Replace it with a Weber. There's just no point in bothering with the Hitachi's. GD

I think you are confusing the Legacy/Impreza axles with the EA series. The FSM shows the shaft/joint diameter to be larger on the 4WD EA series cars than the FWD axles. That's been my expience with them as well. I know what you are talking about with the Legacy axles though. GD

They all crack. Overheated or not. Doesn't matter. That goes for EA81's, EA82's, and EA82 Turbo's - doesn't matter. Subaru put out a TSB years ago saying they don't matter, don't affect operation, and should be ignored unless the cracks extend down into the exhaust port water jacket - which does occasionally happen to turbo heads. You can repair them all you want - it's wasted money as they will just crack again. Ignore them - we all do. As for why they crack - that's anyone's guess. I would assume that if the FHI engineer's could have figured out an easy solution they wouldn't have made three sucessive generations of turbo heads to try and solve the problems with the cracking and the head gaskets. In the end they were only mildly sucessfull and it's a mute point as the engine is a dead design. The EJ's are much better. If I were to guess as to the cause, I would say it's poor coolant flow through the head/block interface. Being a closed-deck, sand cast block, the coolant ports are small and there's not a lot of cooling area around the valve's. GD

As far as rebuilding axles goes - I've done a fair number of dissasemble, clean, regrease/reboot jobs and I've never had an issue with that either. Typically the "problems" people exprience are from bad/no grease or from improper installation. I've rebooted axles after cleaning and applying new grease that were very loose on the tollerances - never had an issue yet. I often just buy the EMPI's because it's like $120 for both front axles vs. $75 for grease and boots plus the time and mess of replacing the boots, and the possibility of buggering up the threads on the axle shaft if they don't want to release from the bearings easily. I just did one where the inner bearing came out of the knuckle still attached to the axle. With a new set of axles sitting next to the car I don't have to worry about stuff like that. I'm sure MWE does a fine job, but I haven't had the misfortune of a repeat axle failure except on my lifted wagon - and even then it's only been 1 or 2 times that I've replaced the front's. The EMPI suff isn't remaned - it's an entirely new axle - made in China of course, but new none-the-less. EMPI is known for their parts quality in the VW aftermarket and these are definately not made by the same supplier that made the GCK stuff. My only complaint is that they come with the roll-pin and the axle nut, but no cotter pin?!? I mean - I can almost always reuse the roll-pin but I prefer a new cotter pin every time. GD

2WD (FWD) and 4WD axles have different joint and shaft diameter's. They are 100% interchangable but the 4WD shafts are stronger. The EMPI brand axles have been good to me. I've used quite a few of them and haven't have a problem yet. GD

It likely wouldn't do much good even if you put the intake right under it. The stock air-box for the SPFI draws air from right behind the passenger headlight and then has a silencer that is located under the passenger side fender - further cooling the air. If you ever decided to go with a Turbo setup though, the scoop would be a good idea for a top mount IC. That's typically where they sit. GD

Yeah - now I'm thinking I better take pictures and write down serial numbers of at least a few big items. Tex - just go buy the stuff, take pictures of it sitting in your garage (perhaps making it look like you are taking pictures of some project you are working on), then return it all. Set the date on your camera to something before the burglery and don't forget to change the file creation date on your PC when you upload them. It's worth a try and all they can do is say no. Oh - and it might be worthwhile to retain a lawyer. That will get their attention quick. If your parents have had the policy for a long time and are good customers they will take notice if you drop $500 to retain a good lawyer. They might be more willing to at least give you *something*. GD

I was only aware of two piston diameters although I hadn't considered the XT6, but yes that is true. I used the calipers from an '89 FT4WD GL-10 turbo sedan. At any rate I still had a severe mis-proportion to my braking and had to install the valve. Unfortunately, for a lot of folks, getting the rear disc assemblies is hard enough - shopping around for different piston size calipers isn't really feasible. When you find a good set you take it, and if that means you need valves to make them work then so be it. GD

I buy the new EMPI axles - about $60 each. Don't know where you are shopping for axles but $200 sounds like a dealership price. If you go used, then regrease/reboot them. Subaru's are *symetrical* AWD/4WD machines. Axles are 100% indentical left/right - 7 days a week and twice on Sunday. GD