bushytails

Anything between about 5ftlbs and snapping the bolts off will seal coolant. The exact torque amount and procedure will affect longevity of the seal around the cylinder bores. There is nothing you can do other than flat out forgetting to tighten them that will cause an immediate external coolant leak, or a major internal one. You could have a cracked block or a cracked head. I did a revival of a many-many-years-in-junkyard ea81 wagon that went great (well, great except the gas tank being plugged solid enough that even 120psi of air couldn't get the pickup open, and the carb being a solid blob, and... but I got it running!) until I added coolant, and it ran out as fast as I put it in... Or a problem with the intake surfaces. I'm mostly an EA81 wolfy, not an EA82 one, so I'm not familiar with the cam stuff. Put it together with no oil or coolant, no valve covers, no exhaust, leave the spark plugs out, etc - but do connect the radiator, and loop back the heater core lines. Re-use your last set of head gaskets, unless they're obviously damaged. Do the minimum amount of assembly needed to seal up the cooling system. Remove one of the little intake coolant lines, plug the end with a barb plug and clamp, then put a few feet of hose on the barb you took the hose off from, also with a clamp. Stick the end of that hose on an air fitting with a pressure regulator, fire up your air compressor, and turn the pressure up to 12psi. Listen closely everywhere. Do you hear air anywhere? Do you hear any hissing coming back out the intake? Out either exhaust port? From the spark plug holes? etc. If you turn the pressure up too much the radiator cap will start hissing - turn it down if you do.

I've never heard of a new head gasket with resurfaced heads and clean deck leaking, unless you completely forgot to tighten the bolts. You may have gotten a defective gasket, your block may be badly warped, you may have a cracked head or block, your leak may be coming from somewhere else and only looking like the head gasket, or you may have forgotten a step...

If you have fuel and you have spark, that means you might have a timing problem, either ignition or valve, or a compression problem. Check both timing belts are installed correctly. Check for top dead center compression stroke on #1 (feel for compression in the spark plug hole, then probe it to find the top of the stroke) and verify the rotor in the dist is pointing at your #1 spark plug wire at that time. Check compression, which will also find valve problems, like being adjusted too tight, not seating, etc.

My '84's fuel gauge got increasingly erratic and now hasn't worked over 1/3rd tank for about a year... old car problems!

Gauges that have been shorted to ground get mechanically tweaked to always read negative except at full pressure. IIRC a 50 ohm resistor to ground should make your gauge read ~75PSI. Give that a try and see if your gauge is good. If the gauge only goes up a little with 50 ohms, you can pop the needle off the pin of the gauge and put it back on to show zero instead of negative, and see if that fixes it.

My 83 and 84 both came with canisters... didn't know they ever had non-historic ones without them. For my ej22 swap, I hooked the diaphragm on the canister valve to constant vacuum, so it's always open (the stock setup had it going to venturi vacuum on the carb, where it controls the amount of purge), then hooked the purge solenoid to the purge line from the valve, so it works like a stock ej22 setup using the stock ea81 canister.

O'reilly's rebuilt CVs are a crapshoot. I've gotten 1,000 to 50,000 miles out of them. Certainly never 200,000. Also, last I asked, they were NLA. What someone told me is that the rebuild shops regrind them, but not re-case-harden them, and their life expectancy has a lot to do with how much hardening is left. The first time they get rebuilt, you get 50,000 miles. The second time.... I repack my wheel bearings every time I do CVs, which is every couple years on average... and I've had them go out on two cars now. Front right of my daily driver started growling about two months ago... got the bearings, but no time to change them.

You can't remove the core of the clutch cable. It has crimped attachments on both ends.

The crusty bolts are the ones that go into coolant passages. I wouldn't remove just two bolts. If you absolutely have to remove two bolts, untorque the whole head star-pattern in increments, remove and do whatever on the two bolts, and then re-torque all per specs. I use grease on the washers and heads (doesn't matter what kind of grease; axle is fine), then dip the threads in engine oil and wipe them off on a shop towel to remove excess. Someone told me a story of cracking a block with hydraulic pressure from installing dripping bolts and then torquing them, so I make sure it's not enough to be drippy.

Last time I had a dirty tank that kept clogging stuff... I put in the largest filter I could find before the pump, and changed it as needed until the problem went away.

Did someone plumb the solenoid into a fuel line? heh

Might want to clarify what year range/models you're working on. I'm guessing a few years of EA82? EA81 came in a few different varieties, none of which are anything like that.

Or add to the lift! Drop the subframe.

If you're building a "road hugger", start with a cheese wedge! I've never actually seen the EA82 3-door in person, only pictures... I think they were pretty rare. I'd put a dual range in anything I built, but I may not be everyone.

IIRC, the ecu pinout table in the FSM is wrong, and you need to *not* ground the pin if it's a manual. Does the DOHC even fit in the frame rails on an 89 hatch? I know it doesn't on an 84. The wiring isn't bad. Takes a weekend if you're good with a wiring diagram. The mechanical aspects of the wiring (mounting the computer, getting the harness to it, etc) takes as long as the actual wiring part. I'd suggest keeping with an EA82 transmission, and using a bellhousing adapter and redrilled flywheel. The 5-speed dual-range is pretty much the ideal old gen transmission. Sticking with it will be direct bolt in (no messing with mounts, linkage, driveshaft, etc), and you get low range! There's several people who make the adapters, like https://awdadventure.com/products/ea-ej-adapter-plate . Sticking with an EA82 tranny will be a much faster swap, and having low range is very, very nice.

Since turning doesn't make it worse, it would have to be the inner joints. What was wrong with your old axles, and do you still have them? You might try frankenaxles with your old inner joints and shafts, and your new outer joints, assuming the inners weren't bad (they rarely are) on your old ones.

I've never heard axles that bad going in a straight line...

Were these new or reman axles?

It's kinda hard to know what's up without being in the car, but some other things that make noises... most of which I've seen before... Does the noise get worse when turning? If not, it's not outer CV joint angles. I've only broken one joint from exceeding its angle, and it was flexing the suspension while at full lock. Does the noise go away if you have a passenger (or 300lbs of bricks, or something) in the front seat? If not, it's probably not inner cv joint angles. Feel if the shaft can wiggle in and out a bit, or if it's jammed up against the side of the cup. Wiggle the inner cups up and down to make sure they're free on the splines, not jammed downwards by the shaft. Bad wheel bearings or loose wheel hubs (the hub nut needs quite a bit of torque), causing brake rotor to clip caliper bracket. I've seen this a half dozen times... Also make sure no gremlins stole the cone washers when you were putting it back together. Jack it up and make sure you can't wiggle the wheels in any direction. Lug nuts are tight too, right? Bad transmission; differential going out. Not sure how to diagnose this one. I haven't seen it myself, but I've heard of it for that year range, especially on full-time transmissions. Does it do it in reverse too? Worn transmission stub shaft splines causing the inner cups to flop around. I've only seen this cause vibrations, but noise is possible too. Bad driveshaft u-joint. Probably not if it's a part-time transmission; possible if it's a full-time. Broken transmission or engine mounts (including pitch stop), and you're hearing the transmission banging the crossmember or tunnel or such. Wrong axle length, I guess, Never seen it, but it's a possibility. Hop on the fender while watching the shaft, and make sure it can move in further than the resting position. Defective axles. Some of the chinese ones are really crap. I have GSP ones now and they seem better than the other chinese brands I've used.

'84 wagon here. I did a 2" lift about a decade ago. I have an OBX and a Torqlocker waiting to install. 5spd d/r with two-part driveshaft. Rear disc brakes and an EJ22, though neither of those matter much for offroading. Spec stage 1 clutch.

File or saw (hacksaw, sawzall, portaband...) the notches 1.5mm deeper in the castle nut. I absolutely would not run without the cotter pin. I've had multiple wheel hubs loosen up over time, and threadlocker does not sound sufficient to keep the nut from unscrewing once there's no compression force on it.

I wouldn't expect any reasonable repair to hold... And if it did, it'd just pop somewhere else next week. It's not like a tire where an object punctured it - it exploded because the material has failed with age.

They're fairly easy to clean. The one gotcha is, unless you have a full rebuild kit handy, be extremely careful not to tear the gasket between the top and middle sections. There's a little passage right in the middle that's easy to tear the gasket around, and it will run like utter spoob if you do.

Time for a disc brake conversion!

That's a lot cleaner than any you see here! Good choice for a project. Stuck thermostat also can cause overheating and foaming, but head gasket isn't too bad of a project. The stock carbs aren't terrible, and often can be fixed with just a cleaning, being careful not to tear gaskets. Brake booster and master cylinder are usually reliable; no need to replace them unless you have issues. Try ebay or junkyards for better headlights.