GeneralDisorder

Yeah - it is routed wrong then - it's going "over" the steering shaft. John must have overlooked that. I kind of thought that might be the problem, cause I have seen cables worn through from the shaft rubbing on them and figured that was what let the water inside the cable, and washed away it's lubricant causeing subsequent failure. I'll fix that first thing tomorrow. I'll snag a 4WD flywheel from the JY soon if I can - maybe I'll head to one tomorrow and see what I can find. Don't have a lot of cash right now so maybe I can find a decent flywheel that doesn't need sufacing and a clutch plate that isn't terribly worn. For reference, appoximately how much material is there on a new clutch plate? If I know that I'll be able to judge how much wear there is on a JY one. GD

I would come and play. GD

The 2WD clutch that's in my big lifted 4WD wagon is a little wimpy. I can rev to 3000, and drop the clutch and it will sloooowly take off. That's in 1st gear. I think the 4WD's are bigger right? It just doesn't have enough grab, and I feel that I will burn it out if I try to off-road with it. Tell me what I should do guys.... Another thing - the clutch cable was getting tight, and it snapped on me at an on-ramp a couple months back. Took it apart and fond that it had rubbed through a few strands, and finally snapped. I replaced it with a new one and it felt great for a couple thousand miles, but now it's getting tight again, and I'm afraid it's going to blow on me anytime. What causes this? And why would a brand new one start doing this so quickly? It's not like they are expensive, but it is kindof a pain to replace, so what gives? Does it have anything to do with how it's routed under the hood? GD

Actually - sometimes Subaru's go for a lot MORE out on the east cause they tend to be rare out there in good shape (ie: no rust) GD

Got those tires at Tire Factory. I have a friend who knows the manager, and he gave me a special deal. I got about $30 off of the retail price which was $99 a tire, and $28 a rim. I got em for $93 a tire, and $25 a rim. They ordered them from their warehouse, and had them mounted and balanced waiting for me at 10 AM the next day. Even loaded them into my van for me. Really nice guys, and they did a great job. They balanced them with the wieghts on the indide too, so it doesn't mess up their good looks. GD

Yep - you can correct the camber after a lift by pushing the strut tops in a little: http://usmb.net/gallery/albuo72 My camber is perfectly flat, and I think the car handles better than it did before the lift. Of course this is a custom lift, and I have no idea if this would work on a PK lift - maybe he can answer. Certainly a LOT easier than fabbing longer control arms...... GD

Q. How does one get a perfect taper on the holes? A. One doesn't - I just ground on it with a dremel till I liked the way it looked. Didn't affect the balance any - she drives straight and true at 70 MPH on the freeway..... GD

Sometimes they just slide right in - no tools needed at all. *sometimes*. Other times they are a real bitch. GD

Ok - my tires are ON! http://usmb.net/gallery/albuo72 I did drill the rims, as you can see, but I don't feel that it detracts from the look of them really. Drilling the rims does not weaken them in any way, and Mudrat has been doing it for years. I don't think that drilling the hubs weakens them either, but I also don't think I need any more than 4 lugs. I have never heard a tale told of breaking all 4 and haveing the rim fall off. In fact - I've been running my Brat with three lugs on one wheel since I bought it, and it's just fine. It is a fact that drilling to 6 lug opens you up for more wheels - mostly non-steel tho, so I could really care less about those personally. I can get the US Wheels 70 series white (or black) wagon wheel in any size I could conceivably want for dirt cheap, and unless I were going with a REALLY big lift, and REALLY big tires, I don't see the point of going to the trouble of doing the 6 lug. I admit it's not much more work, but it is more - at least to do it right. You first have to aquire the extra lugs, and drill twice as many holes into thicker material, then you have to beat the lugs in, and unless you convert to rear discs, you have to do this all over again if you need to replace your drums. Also - if I want to take a long road trip, I can swap back on my subaru rims and small tires for that rather than eating my mud tires up. There are pro's and cons to both, and I probably would have done the 6 lug simply because I would have been parranoid about the strength of only 4 lugs if it weren't for the fact that John has and still does many of his rigs this way, and has never had a problem. As for beveling the holes - I did it with a dremel, and a carbide cutting bit - took about 5 minutes per rim to do it. Zap - thanks for putting me down for the tree run - I'll be there. GD

Not BFG's, and not Coopers either. Some brand called "Hankook". similar tread pattern to the BFG and the Cooper, but cheaper than a Cooper. Also - the build of these is slightly more beefy than the Cooper - 6 ply instead of 4 ply, deeper tread, wider tread, etc. I compared both of their specs from the company web sites, and the Hankook's seemed better all around than the Cooper, so I figured I would give em a try. I probably am going to drill the rims. They are only $25 rims, and if I decide to do the 6 lug, I can always get new ones with my next set of tires (probably some interco's, or ???). Also - I understand that if you do the rear disc brake conversion, there's not much meat on the rear disc setup to mount the extra lugs... The tires are 215/75R15, and the wheels are toyota 6x5.5 x 6 I believe. I got the tires for $93 each mounted and balanced, and the rims for $25 each. So a total of $472 for everything. I checked around, and could have gotten the Coopers for $99 probably, or the Les Schwab Wildcat EXT's for $110. I did a little research comparing specs, and found the specs of the cheaper tires to be better than the specs of the Cooper or the Wildcat (made by Cooper I think...). One place I called said they could get a 6 ply version of the Cooper for like $113..... that might have been interesting.... GD

Got my tires and rims: http://usmb.net/gallery/albuo72/new_tires_rims I'll be installing tomorrow if all goes as planned. GD

From what I hear, the 5 speed isn't worth it for off-road. You never get into third gear, and that's where the main differences are in the 5 speed. For freeway tho, it is much nicer, as ed pointed out. GD

The EA82 looks nothing like the EA71 - the EA81 looks very similar tho. The EA82 will fit in your 87 hatch, but it will be tight, and you will have to mix and match clutch components to get it to work. The EA82 is also an OHC engine, and is much wider than an EA81 or EA71. You can also bolt up and EA81 to your car - the difference in HP between the 1.8L EA81 and the 1.8L EA82 is very small - the later EA81's had hydraulic lifters that made them a bit more powerful than the early models. It's also easy to increase the compression and to change the grind of the cam in the EA81's to get 9.5:1 compression, and around 110 HP - making it more powerful than a stock EA82, and almost as powerful as an EA82T. Also the EA81 doesn't have the timing belts like the EA82, so that's one less thing to break or service. GD

I could swap a tranny in 2 hours easy. As long as your not talking about the clutch as well. GD

I agree that you are unlikely to break anything - but in the 1984 owners manual it states: GD

Even without big tires people don't know what to think of it. Especially since I'm running a straight pipe exhaust (the muffler fell off a while back) and a weber, so when I "get on it", my little EA81 sounds very angry. Past 3500 RPM's it sounds really great cause the secondary opens up, and you can hear the weber doing it's hoover impression. Got a lot of looks when I pulled into the gas station yesterday with it. People seem to stay out of it's way a little more too - they probably look at the car and figure that the driver is probabably a little unbalanced...... *Jon: No prob man - we'll meet another time. Good luck with your head gasket. GD

Well - they seem to be doing just fine - and looking at it, I think they have more travel than you think they do. John could probably answer that question better than I can. GD

Yeah - Mudrat mentioned to me that he had never noticed any real wear problems with the other ones he has done - I think it would wear those little sissy tires bald real quick, but Mud Terrains he says won't wear as bad. I guess I'll find out. The intention is for it to be an off-roader anyway, so it probably won't be on the pavement unless it's to go to and from the off-road site. and occasionally I'll take it to work maybe Not sure - but the physics involved may flatten the suspension out a bit Sweet82: Those aren't shocks back there - the're EA82 rear struts.

Damn, Damn, Damn! Why do I have to be out of town Saturday. Wish I could be there to show off my new lift, but I need to make money to buy my tires. I wish you all a good time tho. Drink one for me. GD

Got my car back from Mudrat79 and I am very pleased with the work done on it. He installed his custom 3" lift for me, and it will be very interesting to see how it performs next to the many PK lifted soobs. Here's some pics I took so far: http://usmb.net/gallery/albuo72 The rear end is very interesting, as it is not a body lift, but a real 3" suspension lift using EA82 rear struts. The rear diff is WAY up in the air! I'll be getting tires soon, so I can have some fun with it. What do you guys think? GD

The EA81T's had the same radiator I think. They did have an oil cooler tho. GD

What are you talking? EA81 or EA82? Makes a huge difference. If you are talking EA81 then no - don't even bother as the 2WD torsion bar is completely different - smaller without the height adjustment. Also the 2WD sits lower by design than the 4WD. If you are talking EA82, someone else will have to answer, but I have been told by Mudrat that the EA82's aren't any easier than the EA81's. Personally, unless I had a really good reason, I would NEVER do a 2WD to 4WD conversion again. It's just too much work, and you can get perfectly good 4WD's easy and cheap. GD

Yep - that's a 3/8" bolt I used there. Cut the slots horizontally with a dremel or similar tool, and drill out the shifter and tranny stub with a 3/8" bit. I used flat washers in either side, and a lock washer on the nut side. Tighten down as hard as you can, and you wil have no more shifter slop...... ever again probably. The factory system has no slots for clamping force, and they used a roll pin in that hole - they get really sloppy and worn after a few years. I can't take credit for the design - the idea came from the USRM somewhere, but the pics in those articles were pretty bad, so I snapped one before the tranny went in the car. Oh - and the bushings will probably do you no good at all since the metal will likely be worn away to the point that they won't fit - that's why I had to drill it to an over-size and bolt it instead. Really it's far superior to new bushings as I doubt it will ever wear out in the life of the tranny, and it takes a half hour at the most when you already have the tranny out of the car. Probably longer and more difficult with the tranny in the car. GD

well - you can plug off the vacuum advance, and just not use it, and the centrifugal advance will not operate in reverse due to it's design. So it won't retard the timing..... but it won't advance it either - would be a pretty basic disty, and probably wouldn't run that great. GD

Yes - reverse has no syncro - at least not in a Subaru tranny. In fact, reverse makes terrible whining sounds because of the straight gear teeth. Most all cars do this - can you imagine if they used straight teeth for the forward gears? (Yes - they used to do that WAY back in the day). GD