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villainous

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  • Gender
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  • Location
    Oakland, CA
  • Interests
    3D printing, vintage cars/motorcycles, and stuff
  • Occupation
    Software Engineer
  • Biography
    Been working on cars since I could drive them. Bought a '73 Subaru 1400 a few years ago and fell instantly in love.
  • Vehicles
    1973 1400GL Coupe

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  1. I moved the car after a long while parked when we bought this house and the brakes were a little weak but working okay on that drive. Didn't have time to look at them for a while, then later when I was gonna take the car out again I had no brakes. Foot all the way to the floor and nothing at all, not even a little resistance. When I took a wheel off I saw one of my brake bleeder valves was sheared off halfway and I have to imagine that drive across Oakland spent all of my brake fluid squirting out of there and I had no idea. On and off I've been searching on RockAuto but even when they look like they're available if I add them to my cart it says they're not available and removes them, and I've been at this for weeks by now. Couldn't even find my model on Advance but haven't tried Summit Racing so will try next. The dearth of available OEM brakes got me thinking I'd like to at least price out in terms of cost and effort what it would take to completely modernize the brakes on this car. The scary part here is I live on a huge hill and if I do anything with these brakes I've gotta be pretty darn sure that they'll work...!
  2. I've rebuilt old brakes but have never straight-up replaced them with modern ones; how feasible is it to do? One of my '73 1400's brake calipers got damaged in a move and I've been having such a hard time finding an original equipment replacement that I'm considering just replacing with a modern, generic part. If any of y'all have done this, what things did you have to consider and how did you make your decision which parts to buy and from where? For example what kinds of things did you have to measure to be sure you had the right one. Thanks very much in advance everybody.
  3. Hrm. How can I better diagnose what, exactly, is causing the extra pressure? I have a compression-tester and could check compression wet/dry, but will that give me enough information? I mostly just really don't have the space or time right this moment to rebuild (might in a couple of months though), and I don't wanna take parts away from anyone else who might need them more urgently than I do.
  4. Probably the weekend after next I'll have a moment to swap out the leaky water pump on my 1400 coupe. I found an OEM water pump, but it didn't include a gasket. Does anyone know which gasket is compatible, or am I gonna have to use the weird gasket paste to make my own?
  5. For the time being I'm gonna try to avoid rebuilding simply because I don't really have time or garage space right now (only just recently moved back to Cali from Chicago so things are a little crazy). I just read your '73 coupe build thread the other day, so I think if I need help you'll be the person I ask! I think my first reaction to the thread (and pics) was "Wow I need to wash my Subaru". Thanks for the lead on the gaskets. If you happen to have a link or something I can search for that'd be really handy; I can just pick some up and stash them for a rebuild later.
  6. Omg that color.... I only just now saw this build thread. Datsunrides: your first gen looks great!! I notice you added an A/C compressor to yours... was that a factory option on these? In my repair manual I see some pics with and some without the compressor but the manual covers multiple model years. It's been hot lately in San Jose; gotta cool off!
  7. More GLs! Glad to know there are more of y'all out there. The longer breather hose sounds doable as a temporary solution, but it sounds like the only way to permanently fix this would be to fix the piston rings.
  8. I've been having a problem where on longer drives (more than 5 miles), my 1973 1400GL's engine idles a little rougher every time I stop at a traffic light, eventually requiring me to goose the throttle a little to keep it from stalling. In the process of investigating this problem, I saw that there's a fair amount of oil getting into the air box, and this seems like a pretty plausible cause for the problem. I clean out the oil, my car runs great for a few miles, then starts lagging a little as the oil builds up inside the air box. There are two breather hoses—one from either pair of cylinders—going from the cylinder head cover up to the air box, and one of those tubes is dry while the other one is slick on the inside with oil. On other cars I've worked on there's a valve to stop the oil from bubbling up the hose, but on this one not so much.... I will do a compression test tonight to see if it's maybe a bad piston ring somewhere causing excessive pressure in the cylinder head, but are there any other things I should check? I don't really have the garage space (or the patience of my partner, which is also a finite resource!) to do an engine rebuild at this time, so it'd be nice to avoid that if this could be some simple thing.
  9. Hrm in the grand scheme of things that seems like less effort than pulling the engine out, if I can support the engine using jack stands instead of needing an engine crane anyway. My first instinct when I saw how the oil pan was positioned was that I'd have to at least lift the engine a little bit. I'm not messing with it any more tonight, but I'll let y'all know how it goes tomorrow. Thanks so much for your help, everybody!
  10. Leeroy: If I support the engine on jack stands on either side, is it safe to remove the cross member? Is the steering gearbox attached to it with the four bolts I see going through (two on each side into a U-shaped bracket that looks like it might be over the steering gearbox)?
  11. Yeah I was hoping to avoid removing the engine just yet.... I thought about using a jack or a crane to lift it just the 20mm or so that I would need to get a wrench in there. I did manage to get all the bolts off, using the service holes (and a shiny new super-long screwdriver), but I have no idea at all how I'll get them all back in. Trying not to think about that yet. Right now, my problem is that the oil pan won't slide forward off of the bottom of the engine. I knocked it loose with a hammer and a 2x4 and it'll slide forward a little, but then binds up against the cross-member. I think sometime in this car's history, she got beached or bottomed out somewhere and the lip around the edge of the oil pan bent outward. I have removed another body piece from the underside of the car that's also a little bent that supports this theory. Any ideas how I can get the pan out and also how I can get all these bolts back in? I swear this is the hardest I've ever worked just to get the oil pan off a car! I can post some pics tomorrow when there's better light in my garage.
  12. I've looked all around this forum and a few others but haven't found any information on how to remove the oil pan from a 1400GL. Looking under the engine, all the bolts that hold it on are accessible except the ones near the back, which are covered by a cross-member the engine sits on. How can I get at these bolts? Thought about: 1) lifting the engine slightly, 2) removing the cross-member while supporting the engine on both sides, 3) using magic. Haven't tried any of these yet because I wanted to see if any of y'all have done this before. Thanks in advance for any advice you have!
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