bushytails

If true, that means you have a *very* marginal ignition system, and probably should check plugs, wires, cap, rotor, etc.

Alternator has no relation to timing... and changing timing doesn't usually cause misfires anyway. Check for damaged vacuum hoses, loose wires, damaged/worn spark plug wires, etc, that may have happened during alternator replacement.

Great! I had a similar problem today... Went to back up, and no backup lights. Turn/backup fuse blown. Found one of the wires on top of the transmission rubbed through on the clutch bracket.

If the fuel pump primes when the key is turned on, doesn't that mean both the ecu and the fuel pump relay are getting power, but the same fuse as the fuel pump relay is for the ignition coil, which you say isn't getting power? I must be looking at the wrong diagram...

Yeah, getting stronger bolts just so you can over-torque them further before they break seems like the exact opposite of how to fix that, or any other, problem... at best you'll end up with a warped pan that will be hard to ever make seal again...

They go off randomly and constantly, with a roughly 100% false positive rate, pissing off neighbors, shoppers, and everyone else, while not doing a thing to reduce crime, because no one pays any attention to one going off whatsoever, other than contemplating a brick through a repeat offender's windshield.

I personally consider car alarms a nuisance that should be banned...

Or use a new gasket with a bit of silicone on both sides...

Went to get a pic... but the Hitachi dist in my '83 wagon is completely different. I found this googling, and it has a pic that should do it: https://ausubaru.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=21289 Black with white is positive, yellow is switched / coil negative / tach /etc.

Gasket-in-a-tube might be fine...

I haven't had one of those apart in so long that I don't remember. I know an EJ has a seal - I just built one of those a couple months ago... EDIT: Found https://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/23378-ea82-oil-pickup-tube/

I don't know anything about isspro's gauges, and their website seems to list at least six product lines but gives technical info about none of them... An oil passage being clogged wouldn't cause a cyclical reading. Nothing ever settles or needs a re-torque. lol. A leak on the suction side of the pump, like where the pickup tube connects, will let it pull air bubbles and cause a varying reading, without any external visible signs. The stock oil pressure gauge is *very slow*, so I don't know how much pressure variation is normal on those engines. I also don't know if isspro's gauges are prone to jittery readings.

What kind of oil pressure sender and gauge are you running? Leaks do not cause jumpy readings. Low level or air leaks at the pickup tube or pump intake do....

Well, winning the Smoothest Brain Award is better than winning the Time For A New Engine Lottery!

I'm kinda surprised it's an intake thing... I think you'd hydrolock it before you get milky oil...

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.